Book review: Love Thy Neighbor – Peter Maass
He interviews refugees fleeing a marauding Serbian army and militia - they tell gut wrenching stories of abuse and torture. He talks to people on both sides of the “conflict”, and it is so easy to see who the bad guys were. If he saw it, and all the other reporters saw it then why did the governments not see it? He talks about the toothless UN force, how they unwittingly encouraged the Serbs to continue their atrocities. He talks about task force commanders not willing to see the truth, fabricating stories, and stonewalling the media. Sadly among those commanders is our own Lt. Gen. Satish Nambiar.
He visits detention centers comparable if not worse than Auschwitz. He talks to Serbs who have the guts to speak out against what their leader was doing, the talks to Serb soldiers who didn’t kill or rape and to those who did with unapologetic pleasure. He talks to a young doctor who performed surgery without sterilized tools or any anesthetic. He talks about how liberal Bosnians turned to more conservative strains of their religion. He discovers the reason why a husband and wife never step out of their apartment together, why they go to different churches on Christmas, why they are delighted to receive oranges as gifts. He befriends people only to lose them to the war.
He also interviews Slobodan Milosevic, the slick power hungry goon of a President who singlehandedly triggered the collapse of Yugoslavia. He pokes holes and points out the absurdity of the Serbian propaganda that Bosnians were the ones who were bombing themselves as well as the Serbs. He tells the stories of high ranking US officials who resigned in disgust, of young French soldiers who do not understand why they must stop and turn back children, women and old men who are trying to cross a thin strip of land into the safer territory. After confiscating their food and supplies.
Any notions that Maass is biased faded away rather quickly, as I read through the cases pending and decided by the ICTY - International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. The cases of War Crimes pending trial, completed or pending appeal are available at website of the ICTY - http://www.icty.org/action/cases/4. After reading these cases you realize the absurdity of Lt. Gen. Satish Nambiar’s insistence that “he did not witness any genocide beyond killings and massacres on all sides that are typical of such conflict conditions”. He must have been truly blind. And we awarded him the Padma Bhushan on the 26th of January 2009. Another lesson in Hypocrisy.
Lt. Gen. Staish Nambair’s interview on BBC Hardtalk
After reading this book, I realize why it is so easy for the Taliban to recruit people. Maass hoped that his reporting could make a difference i.e. persuade the US/NATO to intervene or the UN to act as its should. They didn’t until it was too late, and when they did it was a half hearted attempt. Would there have been no Taliban had the US attacked and suppressed the Serbian aggression?
By telling the story of Bosnia, Maass, doesn’t want to take us on a guilt trip called introspection, he merely reminds us that within resides a wild beast capable of inflicting the worst on its own kind.
"Would there have been no Taliban had the US attacked and suppressed the Serbian aggression?"
ReplyDeleteUh, the Taliban was created long before the Bosnian war by the U.S./CIA, as their proxy force against the Soviet Union/Russia. And yes many of those who fought in the Taliban came to Bosnia and cut off the heads of Serbian farmers and soldiers (there are pictures of this.)
The Bosnian Muslims and Croats had illegal prisons and camps where they tortured and raped Serbs, but the media suppressed that severely. It is the Serbian refugees who actually SHOW signs of severe abuse and scaring. The Muslims tell stories, yet don't have the scars or signs or torture.