“And you know,” he added, “during the entire Tito period, thernKosovo Albanians were systematically persecuting the Serbs—rnsetting haystacks on Bre, cutting down fruit trees, raping youngrngirls on their way from school—and desecrating their monuments,rnand yet there was not a word about it in our or thernworld’s press. Several years after Tito’s death we learned thatrnthe Serbian Orthodox Church in Belgrade in 1969 had sent arnprotest to Tito, but the public heard nothing of it at the time.rnTito gave some assurances, but nothing changed.”rnI was eager to leave Kosovo and to move on, but anotherrnfriend told me not to forget that during the Tito years KosovornAlbanians had not only persecuted Serbs and forced them tornflee, while countless thousands of Albanians were immigratingrnto Kosovo, but had also “brought hundreds of teachers andrntextbooks from Albania.”rnWhen I turned my attention to Bosnia, the immediate responsernwas: “Bosnia is Serbian; Sarajevo is Serbian.” Subsequently,rnthe response was qualified—I could not understandrnthe problem of Bosnia-Herzegovina except in the context of thernYugoslav civil war, which began with the secessions of Sloveniarnand Croatia. “Had it not been for the hasty recognition ofrnthem by the West,” I was told, “Bosnia-Herzegovina would notrnhave sought independence, and there would not have been thisrnbloodshed.” “Once Western Europe followed Germany’s decisionrnto recognize Slovenia and Croatia, there was no way thatrnthe Yugoslav state could be saved,” was a familiar refrain thatrnI heard over and over again. “And,” my friends kept repeating,rn”when the West recognized the rights of Slovenes and Croatsrnto self-determination, we Serbs believed that the same principlernshould apply to us, but we soon found out that such was notrnthe case.”rnYes, chimed in another friend, “the West told Slovenia andrnCroatia that it was OK for them to violate the Helsinki Accordsrnwith respect to changing international boundaries by forcernbut told us we could not do that even after they aided Sloveniarnand Croatia in those violations. Our grievances did notrnmatter!” The lack of evenhandedness in the West’s approachrnto the Yugoslavs was pounded into me on countless occasions,rnand there was always the “Why?”rn”You know. Professor, there were nearly a million Serbs inrnCroatia, and thev did not want to live in a Croatian state, especiallyrnm view of the fact that hundreds of thousands of theirrnforebears were massacred by the Croats when the latter werernlast independent as a satellite of Germany in World War II.” Tornthis I could onl)- nod.rn”And, Professor, vou know we could not abandon our brothersrnin Bosnia. There are over a million and a half of them. Atrnthe time of the Turkish conquest in the 15th century Bosniarnwas Serbian. And once Serbia regained her independence inrnthe 19th century, we fought to regain Bosnia, but the greatrnpowers gave it to Austria-PIungary, from which we finallv got itrnin World War I. And then we all formed Yugoslavia.”rnHere I was again listening to a lot of history I alrcadv knew,rnbut I was at least partially helpless to stop the prose. “But whatrnhappened under communism?” I interjected.rn”Professor, it is a long story. In the 1920’s and 1930’s we didrnnot divide up into republics, but Tito split us up. And when thernMuslims and Croats in Bosnia wanted to follow Croatia andrnSlovenia by seeking independence, our brothers who had livedrnthere for centuries did not want to be separated from Serbia.”rn”And vou know what is so tragic,” added another friend, “isrnthat the Muslims bet on the wrong horse twice—in World WarrnII, when they joined pro-Nazi Croatia in the extermination ofrnSerbs, and now in this try to form a nation that never existedrnbefore.”rnMore than once my friends reminded me that the Muslimsrnwere mainly the descendants of Serbs who had converted to Islamrnunder the Turks. “Would you want to live under such people?”rnI was asked. “What would you think of citizens in yourrncountry who, if you were occupied by a foreign power, wouldrnaccept the foreign religion of your conqueror and then servernhim, and now you are asked to live under the rule of such people?”rnAgain and again there was a return to the question: If selfdeterminationrnwas good for the Croats and Slovenes, why notrnthe Serbs?rnI pointed out that in 1992 the Serbs were but 34 percent ofrnthe population of Bosnia-Herzegovina even though they heldrnmore than 60 percent of the territory before the fighting began,rnbut I was promptly given official statistics showing that betweenrn1878 and 1971 the Serbs were the largest group. In 1971,rnTito introduced the ethnic category “Muslim,” and that reducedrnthe number of persons listing themselves as Serbs. Accordingrnto the 1991 Yugoslav census, the population distributionrnwas: Muslims, 44 percent; Serbs, 34 percent; Croats, 17rnpercent; and various other minorities, 5 percent.rnSo much for history. I wanted my friends to talk about thernongoing war and recent atrocities. “What about thernshelling of Sarajevo’s skyline buildings?” I asked a Serbrneconomist born and reared in Sarajevo. “I cannot defend thernshelling of civilian areas,” he said, “but let’s look at it from thernpoint of view of the Bosnian Serb authorities. First, you knowrnthat Serbian money built much of modern Sarajevo, that thernYugoslav National Armv built the Olympic Village and otherrnfacilities in connection with the Olvmpies. So Serbs are reactingrnlike the boy who builds something for his playmates,rnwho then kick him off the field. He, in turn, seeks to destroyrnwhat he built. Irrational reaction to ingratitude? Maybe,rnb u t . . . . “rn”In addition,” he continued, “many of the tall buildings werernbeing used as observation towers by the Muslim forces.” Partrnof the problem, he added, is “Serbian frustration—not knowingrnhow to deal with fellow-citizens with whom you thoughtrnyou were building a better country, only to find out that theyrnwanted to go their separate way once they got as much as theyrncould from the common effort.”rn”What of ethnic cleansing, prison camps, atrocities?” I askedrnanother Serb from Bosnia, as well as several Serbs from outsidernit. All of the answers were similar. “As you know,” said one,rn”civil wars are the most tragic of wars, but in all wars there arernpeople who are displaced from their homes, there are prisonrncamps, and many people are killed, some in battle, some accidentally,rnand others in fits of anger resulting from a variety ofrncircumstances.”rn”But what about charges of genocide?” I asked. “There wasrnno genocide,” was the universal answer. “It is true that in manyrndensely populated places many Muslims were killed, but sornwere many Serbs as well as Croats. Some massacres were awfulrnand cannot be defended, but all three parties have beenrnguilty.”rn”Muslims were not killed because they were Muslims,” anotherrnfriend was quick to add. “It is true that in some areas ofrnBosnia that Serbs occupied, manv Muslims were dispossessedrn—but not killed, unless they refused to obey the occu-rnOCTOBER 1994/29rnrnrn