Saudi Arabia and the Genocide of
Muslims
in Bosnia-Hercegovina
Dr. Daryl Champion
Introduction
:
From time to
time, tragic events strike the Muslim world that elicit an immediate reaction
from Muslim states. Perhaps the best known and one of the most sustained, if
not the most urgent, Muslim calls for help in recent times has arisen from the
plight of the Muslim population of Bosnia-Hercegovina. The Bosnian Muslims and
their culture have been subject to aggression and atrocities to an extent that
has been unknown in Europe since the Second World War; indeed, the extent of
this aggression, which has spawned the term ‘ethnic cleansing’, has verged on
the genocidal. This has occurred despite the fact that the Muslims are a
majority in their country – a republic declared independent of Yugoslavia in
early 1992 after a national referendum, and a republic formally recognized by
the United Nations.1
Although
genocidal acts of aggression against the Bosnian Muslims received wide coverage
throughout the world, the Western powers involved in the Balkans appeared
powerless to prevent this aggression; similarly, aid to Bosnia appeared barely
sufficient in the circumstances. However, in the Muslim world, sympathy for the
Bosnians’ situation was immediate and unfettered; Muslim governments likewise
responded with material and diplomatic support. Saudi Arabia has been deeply
involved in Muslim aid to Bosnia; this aid has been forthcoming from the Saudi
state, from the Saudi people, and personally from members of the Saudi royal
family, and has amounted to more than US$100 million.
This
chapter will first sketch the history and nature of the European attitudes to
Islam that undoubtedly lie behind contemporary Western European states’
attitudes to the prospect of a Muslim Bosnian state today. This background will
assist in arriving at an understanding of the moralistic posturing of the
Western European powers over Bosnia, despite the fact that decisive protective
action has not been forthcoming. This stance has effectively permitted the
genocide of a nation and the destruction of a state. The inadequacy and,
arguably, the hostility of the European response to the Bosnian crisis is thus
outlined.
In
contrast to the attitudes and inaction of European states has been the reaction
of the Muslim world. Saudi Arabia has figured prominently as a friend of the
Bosnian people and state; consequently, this chapter moves on from the general
European position on Bosnia to the specific position of Saudi Arabia – an
exercise in contrast that highlights the difference in attitudes between a
European collectivity that has proved itself hostile to the formation of a new
Muslim European state on the one hand and, on the other hand, a Middle Eastern
state that looks upon Bosnia as part of the Muslim umma, and therefore
deserving of support. This position is consistent both with Saudi Arabia’s
status as the host of the holy places of Islam and with its projected role as
the protector of Muslim causes worldwide. And thus the extent of Saudi Arabian
aid to the republic of Bosnia-Hercegovina, and what this aid means both to
Bosnia and to Saudi Arabia, will then be discussed; and, in particular, the
following questions will be addressed:
§
What exactly is
Saudi Arabia doing for Bosnia?
§
As perhaps the
leading and most influential Arab power, is Saudi Arabia doing enough for
Bosnia, and could Saudi Arabia be doing more for Bosnians?
In Brief: The Image of Muslims in Europe, and a History of
Ethnic CleansingIt should first be noted that European attitudes to Islam have
historically not been positive. The social, political and religious structure
of Islamic society gave Muslims a high level of geographic and social mobility
as well as personal and intellectual liberty; this liberty led to the establishment
of a far-reaching Muslim civilization during Europe’s ‘Dark Ages’, and to
European fear of that highly refined and comparatively advanced civilization.
It was during the European ‘Dark Ages’ that Islam and Muslims began to be
demonized in what has become known as ‘the West’.2
It
should also be noted that ‘ethnic cleansing’ – although the term itself was
first coined with respect to the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s, and most
horrifically in relation to the Serb and Croat treatment of Bosnian Muslims –
is not a phenomenon of the late twentieth century. In fact, the ethnic
cleansing of Muslims in mainland Europe has a long history, and can be traced
back to medieval Spain and the Spanish Reconquista, which, during the eleventh
and twelfth centuries, saw increased and more systematic killing of Muslims
accompanied by a more conscious desire to eliminate Muslims from the peninsula.
Attempts to extinguish Islam and Muslim culture became progressively harsher,
until the final expulsion of Muslims from Granada in February 1502.3
Put briefly,
an anti-Islamic European intellectual heritage informs what has become the
general perception of Islam in the West.4 Thus, from the time of
al-Andalus (Andalusia: Muslim Spain, c.711–1492) to the present, European
attitudes toward a Muslim presence in Europe have been unaccommodating. A long
history of anti-Islamic fear and loathing has projected itself from the past
into the present, and has been given a renewed poignancy and popularity by the
Western media, and the case of Bosnia has been no exception. The bogey of
Muslim fundamentalism has been raised in Bosnia by a Western world that has not
yet come to terms with its own demons, which caused so much death and
destruction during the Second World War. The fact that an independent Bosnia
would be largely Muslim gave a great psychological advantage to Western
power-brokers, and found its place in the public relations campaigns designed
to cover inaction while the Bosnian Muslim population was subjected to
unprovoked atrocities intended to bring about its capitulation. It is a tragic
and lamentable irony that a Western world that had spent so much energy
condemning the excesses of Nazi Germany and Stalinism should allow similar
excesses, albeit on a smaller scale, to occur in modern Europe.
The Inadequacy of the European Response to Genocide in
Bosnia5
Although
Bosnia has enjoyed relative calm and firm steps toward reconstruction since the
signing of the Elysée Treaty on 14 December 1995, the wounds of the recent past
will take a long time to heal. An important question remains, however, and it
relates to the adequacy of the Western response to the infliction of major
humanitarian atrocities against a nation in Europe’s own backyard. The
aggression against the Muslims of Bosnia consisted of ‘mass murder, rape, and
vandalism …’.6 Perhaps the single most shocking transgression
against humanity in Europe since the Second World War, and one that underlined
the inadequacy of UN and Western European responses to the aggression against
Bosnia, was the July 1995 massacre of approximately 7,000–8,000 Bosnians in the
UN ‘safe haven’ of Srebrenica.
On a par with the Srebrenica atrocity in a
collective sense was the brutality of Serb- and Croat-operated concentration
camps and rape camps, and the use of rape as a strategy of terror and
psychological warfare: by late 1992, European Community authorities had
estimated the number of rape victims in Bosnia-Hercegovina to be 20,000. The
Sarajevo State Commission for the Investigation of War Crimes put the number at
50,000 as of October 1992. The Bosnian government also estimated that up to
35,000 Bosnian women had been ‘deliberately impregnated … held captive and
released only after abortion [became] impossible’, by Serbs as a matter of
organized political and military policy.7 Slavenka Drakulic8
states that: ‘women [were] raped everywhere and at all times, and victims are
of all ages, including 4-year-old girls and 80-year-old grandmothers’.
In
the case of Bosnia, Western policy appears to have been, and may still prove to
be, one based on the proposition that prevention is better than cure – that is,
it is better to prevent the establishment of a new Muslim state in Europe
rather than to be faced, at some stage in the future, with a potentially recalcitrant
Muslim government with an alternative world-view. Richard L. Rubenstein, a
professor of religion at Florida State University, states explicitly that:
… both the
United States and the European Community have apparently been willing to
tolerate radical ethnic cleansing policies of the Bosnian Serbs, not excluding
outright genocide, if that is what it takes to prevent the establishment of a
Muslim political beachhead in Europe.9
And the New
York Times columnist, Leslie H. Gelb, has hinted at the nature of Western
Balkans policy as it was revealed to him by his establishment contacts – to
‘feed’ the Muslims ‘while prompting them to surrender’:
Let me be
chillingly blunt about what Western officials told me regarding the Balkan
crisis. They said that nothing they are doing or plan to do is at all likely to
compel the Serbs to stop killing Muslims. … Western policy is merely to provide
enough humanitarian relief for Bosnian Muslims to quiet Western public opinion.10
Any Bosnian
plea for UN or EC help has, in fact, been fatally misplaced, according to many
observers.11 A particularly outrageous position that was taken
officially by the UN command in Bosnia – one that was highlighted after the
deliberate shelling of a Bosnian schoolroom killed a teacher and three young
students in November 1993 – was that the Bosnian army was ‘as likely as the
Serbs to fire shells at Bosnian children’.12 The argument that
Bosnian forces might target their own civilians had ‘an appealing ring to
Western government ministers always ready for reasons not to get involved in
Bosnia: if the Muslims are this conniving, they don’t deserve to be helped’.13
This perverted stance began with the May 1992 Sarajevo ‘bread-line massacre’,
when the UN commander, Major-General Lewis MacKenzie, accepted Serb allegations
that the killing of more than twenty civilians and the maiming of another
hundred at a Sarajevo market was not the result of two well-aimed Serb mortar
shells, but of a bomb planted by the Bosnians themselves:
There is
strong but circumstantial evidence … that some really horrifying acts of
cruelty attributed to the Serbs were actually orchestrated by the Muslims
against their own people, for the benefit of an international audience.14
The myth that
Muslims killed their own civilians for public relations effect soon became
widespread, and began to take on the aura of fact – and every military attack
against civilians was consequently reported with reserve in the Western media.
For example, when three people were killed in the centre of Sarajevo in April
1995, responsibility for the atrocity was qualified by stating that ‘suspected
Serbian mortar shells’ were the cause of death – that mortar fire was
responsible there was no doubt, but the identity of those who fired the rounds
was, apparently, in doubt.15 Indeed, this myth made the transition
to accepted truth a number of times in respected mainstream publications; for
example, in a Time magazine report on the February 1993 World Trade Center
bombing – even before the cause of the explosion was officially announced to be
a bomb – a sub-article assessing likely culprits stated, under the sub-heading
‘The Balkans factions’, that ‘The Bosnian Muslims too have reason to play a
part in the Balkan blame game. They have been known to bomb their own people in
Bosnia, hoping the Serbs and Croats would be held responsible and Western
allies would intervene on their side’.16
MacKenzie’s
acceptance of the Serb position amounts to a situation of collusion with war
criminals on the part of the UN commander, which should not be surprising,
since it had become ‘evident that a genuine partnership … developed between the
nations of Western Europe and the Bosnian Serbs’.17 It should be
noted that later UN commanders, such as General Sir Michael Rose, followed
MacKenzie’s lead in providing excuses for Serb transgressions.18 The
justification for this position was alleged to be the UN’s ‘neutrality’ – a
‘diplomatic deodorant’ according to one commentator.19 In the words
of another analyst, the UN had ‘elevated “impartiality” to the status of a
principle, when in reality it was the disguise for a lack of principle’.20
At least one UN liaison officer in Sarajevo resigned in protest over what he
saw as his superiors’ appeasement of the Serbs.21 This appeasement
was a practice that was carried on after ‘peacekeeping’ forces were transferred
from UN to NATO control, and was still in evidence after the Elysée Treaty,
even when it was clear that Serb aggression was responsible for the death of
innocent civilians.22 NATO also issued a statement in January 1996
to the effect that the Western military alliance would not provide security for
teams investigating war crimes and inspecting massacre sites and mass graves in
Bosnia.23
United Nations personnel in Bosnia during the worst years of genocide
were, of course, drawn from Western countries.24 Rubenstein has
written:
UN officials
in Bosnia were not independent agents. Although they served under the United
Nations flag, they nevertheless carried out the policies of their respective
governments or they would not have been there …
The European
powers that have dispatched troops to serve with the UN ‘peacekeeping’ forces
in Bosnia may adopt a posture of neutrality, but their actions have
consistently fostered the dismemberment of Bosnia-Hercegovina as a viable
political entity.25
Consistent
inaction and even cover-ups support a cynical interpretation of Western policy
in Bosnia. For example: when Serb forces fired missiles at UN ‘peacekeepers’ in
1994, killing a Bangladeshi UN soldier, a request by the Bangladeshis for NATO
air support was denied by UN officials in Sarajevo;26 UN knowledge
of Serb atrocities committed against the civilian population of Bosnia at the
beginning of the war was effectively concealed for three months in 1992;27
and, possibly most damning of all, a BBC television journalist claimed that UN
officials destroyed documentary film depicting UN ‘peacekeepers’ standing by as
Serbs organized the massacre of men and boys at Srebrenica in July 1995.28
These and other transgressions, such as the Serb assault against another UN
‘safe haven’ – that in Gorazde, in April 1994 – occurred in the full light of
day, while the lack of Western resolve to take firm action to prevent such
atrocities was cravenly presented as ‘helplessness’ on the part of ‘the
international community’.29 Atrocities such as the Merkale
marketplace massacre of 5 February 1994 were also presented on Western
television reports with ‘the colouring of a natural disaster’.30
The former
British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, however, advocated early in the war
the opposite Western reaction to the policy of appeasement. But her reasoning
for military intervention on the Bosnians’ behalf reflected not a concern for
humanitarianism and justice, but clichéd stereotypes of fanatical Muslim
terrorists. Thatcher declared:
…keeping the
Muslims in a united Bosnia would discourage their radicalization, which would
be inevitable if the Muslims were to be dispersed under alien rule. A desperate
Muslim diaspora… could then turn to terrorism. Europe would have created an
Islamic time bomb.31
Moreover,
though the Western world has been reluctant to defend Bosnia from aggression
while at the same time effectively denying Bosnia the right to defend itself
through a Balkans-wide arms embargo, concern has been expressed over military
aid given to the Bosnian army by other Muslim countries. A number of Bosnian
army training camps have been described as ‘terrorist depots’,32 and
a greater commitment to Islam in the Bosnian army has been regarded with
suspicion and concern.33 With such reports, the clichés of Muslim
terrorism running rampant in Europe have been elevated to an officially
acknowledged fear. Needless to say, Muslims throughout the Islamic world feel
differently.
Saudi
Arabia
The general
approach of Western security organizations to conflict in the Balkans has
recently been illustrated in a cartoon in the Riyadh Daily34 with
respect to the latest conflict in Kosovo, which, despite Western European
assurances to the contrary, has followed a similar pattern to Bosnia. That is,
rhetoric declaring a firm stand against Serbian aggression has not been backed
up with action, and, while lofty statements of moral resolve are issued in
quick succession from Western capitals, Serbian military forces pursue
unhindered their suppression and persecution of the Muslims of Kosovo. The
cartoon, which shows NATO as a turtle slowly lumbering toward a burning Kosovo,
reflects the general Muslim feeling of frustration over the policies of the
Western European powers in the Balkans. At the height of the Bosnian crisis,
after the massacres in Srebrenica, calls for more direct action in Bosnia could
be heard throughout the Muslim world.
In
Saudi Arabia specifically, the Mufti, Sheikh ‘Abd al-‘Aziz bin Baz, called on
‘all Muslims to join Bosnian ranks and support them with arms, money and
prayers’.35 The Mufti’s call followed King Fahd’s petition to
Britain, France, Russia, the United States and China in their capacity as the
five permanent members of the UN Security Council, to ‘end the deteriorating
situation’ in Bosnia.36 However, the European powers in particular,
for reasons already outlined in this chapter, chose to disregard such appeals:
the affairs of Europe should remain in European hands, despite the fact that
little was being done to avert genocide. Turkey, staunchly pro-European and a
member of NATO, offered planes and aid as a contribution to a US humanitarian
air-drop operation relatively early in the war: the offer was refused,37
despite the fact that the European countries who had been asked to participate
had actually already declined. Quite simply, the role that Muslim countries
could play to prevent the genocide of a unique, European Muslim entity was
limited by the politics of Europe and the policies of the European states, NATO
and the UN.38
Political,
financial and non-sensitive humanitarian aid were the only options available to
Muslim states wishing to alleviate the unfolding catastrophe in Bosnia.39 Working
within this reality, the Saudi High Commission for the Relief of
Bosnia-Hercegovina was founded by Royal Order in 1992. The Commission is headed
by the Governor of Riyadh Province, Prince Salman bin ‘Abd al-‘Aziz. The
objectives of the Commission have been stated as follows:40
§
to realize the
principles of equality and co-operation among Muslims;
§
to provide help and
support to those in need in Bosnia-Hercegovina;
and to rebuild families that were divided and/or expelled from their
homes as a result of the war.
To
realize these goals, the Commission, which began operations in 1993,
established a headquarters in Riyadh, with branch offices in Sarajevo, Mostar,
Tuzla, Bihac, Zenica, Split, Zagreb and Vienna.41 The main regional
office is the one in Sarajevo, where the Commission occupies an entire floor of
a large building close to the centre of the city. The Commission works
independently of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), but
has co-operated with Bosnian Islamic organizations. The Commission is
particularly known for its involvement in religious education programmes and,
in Sarajevo, for its financial aid during the winter of 1994–5 and for its
support for orphans; in other regions of Bosnia the Commission has concentrated
on providing material aid (BiH Ministry of Foreign Trade & Economic
Relations, pers. comm., 18 June 1998).
The
Commission has publicized the Bosnian cause and has been involved in extensive
fund-raising campaigns in Saudi Arabia. As of March 1998, the Commission had raised
approximately US$40.6 million. King Fahd’s personal donations to the Bosnian
cause are reported to total US$13 million.42 Total relief supplies
provided to Bosnia-Hercegovina stood at 102,000 tons as of March 1998.43
The following supplies and services, listed under broad categories along with
the approximate total cost in US dollars, have been provided to Bosnia.44
Social/general
(US$12.95 million):
§
family sponsorship
§
the operation of 18
refugee camps
§
sponsorship of
orphans
§
educational support
§
Arabic-language
scholarships (in Jordan)
§
glass for school
windows
Construction/reconstruction
projects (US$19.3 million):
§
restoration of 115
mosques
§
construction of a
new central mosque in Tuzla
§
furnishing of 330
mosques
§
construction of an
Islamic school in Mostar
§
construction of an
Islamic college in Bihac
§
construction of a
Saudi cultural centre in Mostar
§
restoration of
schools
§
construction of a
mosque and Islamic centre in Sarajevo
§
reconstruction of
600 houses for Muslims in Brcko
§
construction of
159km of railway from the Croatian port of Ploce to Sarajevo
Health (US$2
million):
§
support for health
services
Food (no
accurate costing):
§
58,000 tons of
various foodstuffs
§
1 million litres of
milk (donated by the Saudi al-Safi company)
§
vegetable seeds
(US$430,000)
Heating (US$3.8
million):
§
the supply of wood,
coal, oil and diesel fuels
Power
(US$243,000):
§
installing gas and
electricity services in Sarajevo
Refugee
repatriation (US$675,000):
§
the repatriation of
more than 8,500 Bosnians
Drinking water
(no accurate costing):
§
the supply of 800
litres of petrol per day for water-pump generators
§
the laying of 3,000
metres of water pipes in Visoko (US$4,350)
Ramadan meals
(US$1.3 million):
§
the provision of hot
iftar meals during Ramadan for more than 115,500 Bosnians
Prizes
(US$62,000):
§
the provision of
prizes for a Bosnian literary contest.
Another of the Commission’s stated aims is to establish connections
between the Muslims of Bosnia on the one hand, and those of Saudi Arabia and
other Muslim countries on the other. This has been promoted largely through
religious-cultural projects: the High Commission has provided 40 Bosnians with
scholarships to study at the Islamic university in Madinah; and King Fahd has
donated 500,000 copies of the Qur’an, translated into the Bosnian language, and
has sponsored Bosnian pilgrims to perform the hajj over five seasons.45 A number of the projects and activities of
the Commission listed above also serve the goal of connecting Bosnian Muslims
to the wider umma.
The state of Saudi Arabia has
also been active in providing support for Bosnia-Hercegovina: Saudi Arabia has
been listed as one of a small number of ‘major single donors’ in a recent
Bosnian government report on the country’s reconstruction programme.46 The Saudi government has pledged US$75
million toward reconstruction projects, of which US$49.585 million had been
delivered by April 1998.47 Saudi involvement is particularly
pronounced in housing projects, to which a US$20 million grant has been
pledged, and which in turn has provided the driving force behind the repair of
1,650 houses, with another 790 private houses targeted for repair as of April
1998.48 Other reconstruction sectors that feature Saudi government
involvement include, in order of magnitude: industry; water, sanitation and
waste management; education; health; and agriculture. The Saudi High Commission
is also involved in the official Bosnian reconstruction programme; the
Commission has pledged, and delivered, US$4.25 million to transport and housing
projects.49 Approximately 50 per cent of foreign donations is
usually given to the World Bank to administer in reconstruction projects, but
Saudi Arabia manages its own projects through the Saudi Fund for Development
(BiH Ministry of Foreign Trade & Economic Relations, pers. comm., 18 June
1998).
However, the image that Saudi Arabia enthusiastically
promotes – that of the defender of the rights of Muslims globally – implies
that financial and material aid should be supplemented with other means of
support. Although its exact nature is not clearly defined, support ‘on the
political level’ has been lent to Bosnia on the part of Saudi Arabia and, in
general, the two countries ‘have developed very good relations’ (BiH Ministry
of Foreign Trade & Economic Relations, pers. comm., 18 June 1998). A symbol
of this relationship is the slogan which may be seen on Sarajevo trams;
completely daubing the entire tram in the green, white and gold of Saudi
Arabia, the slogan reads: ‘We were with you and we will stay with you.’
Is Saudi Arabia Doing Enough?
Despite
significant donations and enormous efforts on the part of the Saudi government
and the High Commission to ensure that appropriate and adequate aid reaches
those in need in Bosnia-Hercegovina, the sheer scale of the need dwarfs all the
efforts that have been made to date. Damage as a direct result of war is
estimated to amount to more than US$40 billion. The state of Bosnia-Hercegovina
is in debt to the amount of US$3.2 billion, most of which is in arrears. More
than half the country’s power-generating facilities, more than half Bosnia’s
schools, more than 60 per cent of housing, 30 per cent of hospitals, and 60 per
cent of livestock have been destroyed. Extensive damage has also been done to
the country’s infrastructures in transport, water management, industry, and
heating. In particular, Bosnian industry is functioning at only around 20 per
cent of its pre-war capacity, and water-supply services in some areas are
restricted to a few hours a day. Unemployment was running at approximately 50
per cent at the end of 1997 – an improvement on previous years – and more than
30 per cent of the population was still dependent on humanitarian aid. There
are also more than 17,000 minefields in the country, with an estimated three to
six million live devices. Besides the obvious hazards to human life of these
unexploded mines, they deny great tracts of arable land and pastures to the
fledgling state.50
Saudi
Arabia has done much for Bosnians and for the Bosnian state. The Kingdom – a
major donor in the long, expensive and difficult reconstruction process – is
honouring its pledges. The result is that Saudi Arabia is seen by the Bosnian
government as ‘a sincere donor’, and Bosnian appreciation has found expression
with the words, ‘We are very, very grateful for all they have done for us
during all this time’ (BiH Ministry of Foreign Trade & Economic Relations,
pers. comm., 18 June 1998). This does not mean, however, that there are not
some aspects of the relationship that could not be improved. For example, very
complicated Saudi bureaucratic procedures inhibit the implementation of Saudi
projects; and the feeling in the Bosnian government is that, unlike European
countries and the World Bank when working bilaterally with the Bosnian government,
Saudi authorities are ‘not doing the job in a businesslike manner’ (BiH
Ministry of Foreign Trade & Economic Relations, pers. comm., 18 June 1998).
Co-ordination is complicated by the fact that the Saudi Fund for Development
does not have an office in Sarajevo. Having noted these deficiencies, however,
Saudi management in Bosnian reconstruction compares favourably with that of the
European Commission (EC). The EC’s procedures are regarded as being even more
bureaucratic than those of Saudi Arabia, and although the EC is the single
largest donor to the reconstruction of Bosnia-Hercegovina,51 implementation has been
described as ‘very weak’, and as seeking to influence unduly the nature and
direction of the Bosnian state (BiH Ministry of Foreign Trade & Economic
Relations, pers. comm., 18 June 1998).
Although there are no exact figures on military-oriented
assistance provided to Bosnia-Hercegovina by Muslim countries during the war,
and that there is ‘little hope’ of any firm information seeing the light of day
(BiH Ministry of Foreign Trade & Economic Relations, pers. comm., 18 June
1998), the evidence available suggests that Iran and Turkey were the principal
countries who aided Bosnia with arms supplies during the war.52 The
issue of the UN-imposed arms embargo on the former Yugoslavia was a contentious
one throughout the war. Serbia and the Bosnian Serbs had access to the
extensive armouries of the Yugoslav National Army, while Bosnia was virtually
unarmed; thus, the arms embargo penalized Bosnia-Hercegovina to a far greater
degree than it did the aggressors. This was also one of the main criticisms of
European and UN policy in the Balkans: the European powers and the UN
effectively refused to defend Bosnian Muslims – including those in the
UN-designated ‘safe havens’, which became scenes of outright massacre – but
also refused the Bosnian Muslims the means to defend themselves.
In addition to Yugoslav National Army’s arsenals,
‘sophisticated weaponry’ was also being supplied to Serbia by Israel, in violation
of the international sanctions against Serbia, imposed precisely because of the
Serbian role in the Bosnian genocide.53 Some arms deals between
Serbia and Israel also involved French dealers.54 In these
circumstances, it is quite possible that Saudi Arabia – the leading Arab
military power in the Gulf, and arguably the leading and most influential Arab
state in a general sense – could have provided Bosnia-Hercegovina, in its hour
of direst need, with the substantial military aid necessary to defend itself
against genocidal aggression. The question of defensive arms was not
necessarily what one member of the Bosnian administration had in mind when he
made the following comment, but it nevertheless reflects a tangible attitude:
‘We feel [Saudi Arabia is] a friendly country, but we expected more from them’
(BiH Ministry of Foreign Trade & Economic Relations, pers. comm., 18 June
1998).
Conclusion :
Saudi Arabia
can be proud of its record in aiding the fledgling European Muslim state of
Bosnia-Hercegovina. Saudi sympathy for the Bosnians’ tragedy has been
heartfelt, and Saudi citizens, from King Fahd and Prince Salman down, have
given generously of their time, energy and financial resources. Saudi Arabia’s
image in the worldwide Muslim umma stands to benefit from its position on
Bosnia-Hercegovina; but there are questions that can still be asked about the
effectiveness of Saudi action during the Bosnian crisis. Perhaps the most
compelling of these concerns the appropriateness of sending 20 ships and 18 planes
loaded with humanitarian aid to Bosnia-Hercegovina during the period 1993–7,55
when the Bosnians did not have the means to defend themselves against
impending annihilation. European states – including those who must bear the
brunt of criticism for inaction in the face of genocide in their own backyard –
also provided millions of dollars of aid for the Bosnians. This, in effect,
represents a strategy of keeping the victims (barely) alive to die another day.
Thus, the question remains: ‘Why did Saudi Arabia, one of the most powerful and
influential world Muslim states, not provide more for the Bosnians and why, in
particular, did Saudi Arabia not provide better for the Bosnians’ legitimate
defence needs?’
Today,
of course, the war is over – or at least not active – and the Bosnian army is
being equipped and trained under NATO and US auspices. The chance for Muslim
nations to stand in ultimate solidarity with a brother nation on the edge of
extinction has passed. Saudi Arabia has indeed defended the rights of the
Muslims of Bosnia-Hercegovina, politically, financially and with humanitarian
aid; but in the ultimate defence of Bosnian rights – the right to fight for
survival – Saudi Arabia, along with many other Muslim nations, needed to do
more. However, since the record of military aid to Bosnia-Hercegovina is hazy,
sympathetic observers can only hope that, behind the scenes, Saudi Arabia
exerted its influence in connection with the issue of Bosnian defence needs to
a greater extent than is commonly known.
With respect
to other forms of aid, and specifically during the current phase of
reconstruction, problems have been identified in the Saudi operations. A more
streamlined, less bureaucratic administration is one measure that will improve
the effectiveness of Saudi aid. Closer institutional ties between Saudi Arabia
and Bosnia-Hercegovina, including direct and permanent representation in major
Bosnian cities on the part of Saudi organizations, is another measure that
could be taken to improve the working relationship between the two countries.
With the obvious desire to aid the state of Bosnia-Hercegovina that has been
displayed by the Saudis, solutions to these relatively minor problems should
not be difficult to find.
Notes
1 Bosnia-Herzegovina gained its
independence from Yugoslavia in the referendum of 29 February–1 March 1992, and
was accepted as a full member of the UN on 22 May 1992.
2 See
Champion, Daryl, ‘The Demonisation of Islam and Muslims’, in Bosnia-Herzegovina
in the Yugoslav Aftermath: Essays on the Causes and Consequences of the Balkan
Conflicts, 1992–1994, ed. Gary Ianziti and Muris Cicic, Queensland University of Technology Press, Brisbane,
1997.
3 See Champion, ‘The
Demonisation of Islam and Muslims’ for the relationship between early
European attitudes to Islam and the Spanish Reconquista on the one hand, and
contemporary Western attitudes to Islam and the ethnic cleansing of the Bosnian
Muslims on the other.
4 Popularized by the Western media, the
term ‘religious fundamentalism’ has developed links with Islam almost to the
exclusion of any other religion. There are now shelves of books and articles
dealing with Western ‘Orientalism’, ‘Muslim fundamentalism’, hostility towards
Islam, the role of the Western media in all of these, and so on. Again, see
Champion, ‘The Demonisation of Islam and Muslims’ for the relationship between
these issues and the genocide in Bosnia-Hercegovina.
5 This section serves the dual purpose of
(a) providing background on the Bosnian war, and on the aggression and
atrocities perpetrated against the Bosnian Muslim population, and thus on the
needs of the Bosnian nation-state, and (b) providing the basis for contrasting
the history of the Western approach to Bosnia to that of the Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia.
6 Mujeeb
R. Khan, ‘Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Crisis of the Post-Cold War International
System’, East European Politics and Societies, 9 (3) (Fall 1995): 459–98: 479;
see also 459, 475 and Igor Primoratz, ‘Israel and the War
in the Balkans’, Public seminar hosted by the Centre for Middle-Eastern and
Central Asian Studies, The Australian National University, 31 May 1996. Khan,
‘Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Crisis of the System’: 459 provides a concise but
graphic series of examples of the nature of the atrocities that were committed
against Bosnian Muslims, which collectively, in their persistence and scale,
amounted to genocide: ‘The Bosnian horrors were not a by-product of the war but
one of the primary aims of Serbian forces and have entailed practices that negate
comprehension and defeat language. Children have been placed under the treads
of tanks or crucified in front of their parents onto trees and wooden crosses.
At the Omarska camp, prisoners were executed with chain-saws, while the bodies
of thousands killed at Brcko were turned into fertilizer and animal feed.’
The nature and extent of the atrocities
being committed against the Bosnian Muslims were already clear at an early
stage in the war. See, for example, Ron Haviv, ‘Photographic Report on Bosnia’,
Time, 20 April 1992: 38–41 and John Mullin, ‘“Laughing young woman” was
cruellest torturer’, Guardian Weekly, 16 August 1992: 7.
7 Slavenka
Drakulic, ‘Mass Rape in Bosnia’, Arena (Sydney), 26
(10) (1993): 26–7; see also Andrea Lorenz, ‘“Condensed pain”: a Muslim woman
talks to Bosnian rape victims’, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs,
July/August 1993: 33; Mary Anne Gourlay,
‘Rape in Bosnia’, in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the Yugoslav Aftermath, ed
Ianziti and Cicic.
8 Drakulic, ‘Mass Rape in
Bosnia’: 27.
9 Richard
L. Rubenstein, in ‘Silent partners in ethnic cleansing:
the UN, the EC, and NATO’, In Depth (Spring edition, 1993): 34–57,
elaborates: ‘If we judge Western policy by what European Community and United
States have permitted to take place in spite of a dreary series of empty
Western threats ostensibly to prevent Serb (and Croatian) destruction of the
Bosnian Muslim community, then it becomes clear that the destruction is in
accordance with Western policy objectives.’
10 Leslie
H. Gelb, ‘False humanitarianism’, New York Times, 6 August 1992: A23.
Rubenstein also thought Gelb’s statement powerful enough to cite and, as he has
pointed out in ‘Silent partners in
ethnic cleansing’, nothing has happened since Gelb’s column was published to
indicate that Western policy in the Balkans is anything other than to prevent
the establishment of a viable European Muslim state. Recent Western (in-)
action in Kosovo only serves to reinforce this conclusion.
11 See,
for example, John F. Burns, ‘A siege by any other name would be as painful’,
New York Times, 17 August 1993: A6; Leslie H. Gelb, ‘The West’s scam in
Bosnia’, New York Times, 9 August 1992: 17.
12 Tom
Gjelten, ‘Are the Muslims the aggressors? Blaming the victim’, New Republic, 20
December 1993: 14–16. In the words of the then United Nations Protection Force
(UNPROFOR) spokesman in Sarajevo, Colonel Bill Aikman, the responsibility for
the massacre could not be determined, since ‘we have to consider it a 50–50
mathematical possibility between the Serb army and the government forces as to
where the rounds came from. To go beyond that wouldn’t be fair to either side’
(ibid.).
13 Ibid.
14 MacKenzie, quoted in
Gjelten ‘Are the Muslims the aggressors? Blaming the victim’: 15. No evidence
has surfaced that implicates Bosnian Muslims in the massacre. The shelling of
markets in Sarajevo emerged as favourite terror-ploy of the Bosnian Serbs
during the siege of the city: in August 1992 a shell killed 15 and wounded more
than 100 people at a market in west Sarajevo; in July 1993 a mortar shell
killed 12 and wounded 15 people at a water pump; two mortar barrages on
separate days in February 1994 killed a total of 78 civilians and wounded more
than 200 at the Merkale market-place and in a food queue; and in August 1995
the Merkale market-place was again shelled, killing 32 and wounding more than
40.
15 SBS-TV, Australia, ‘World
News’, 10 April 1995. Emphasis has been added to highlight the effect and
implications of the wording of this television news report.
16 Priscilla
Painton, ‘Who could have done it?’, Time, 8 March 1993: 39. The Bosnian Serb leader and indicted war
criminal, Radovan Karadzic, played on this Serb-propagated myth within days of
the bombing, claiming ‘that opponents of Serbia could have planted the device to
blame the Serbs and whip up feelings against them’ (DPA, ‘Post authority says
World Trade Centre to close for a month, reward offered’, DPA news agency, 3
March 1993. Web posting on MILNET: http://www.milnet.com/milnet/wtc.htm).
Karadzic was also specifically countering rumours that one of the most
plausible early culprits for the bombing was a group calling itself the Serbian
Freedom Front – one of many groups claiming responsibility for the bombing. The
Serb propaganda strategy of blaming the Bosnians can be seen in their response
to the Clinton administration’s announcement in early 1993 that the United
States would initiate air drops of humanitarian aid to besieged Muslims
enclaves in eastern Bosnia: ‘Some Bosnian Serbs first warned that they might attack
the relief flights, then predicted darkly that Muslims would fire the shots and
blame the Serbs, in hope of drawing greater U.S. intervention’ (Frederick
Painton, ‘High-altitude help’, Time, 8 March 1993: 42–3).
17 Rubenstein, ‘Silent
partners in ethnic cleansing’: 35.
18 Guardian,
‘British soldier dies in Bosnian Serb ambush’, 28 July 1994: 1. Even when a
French UN soldier was killed by a sniper while erecting a barricade to protect
an exposed Sarajevo intersection from Serbian sniper fire, the ‘UN said it
remained unclear which side was responsible …’ (Sydney Morning Herald, ‘French
threaten to pull out of Bosnia’, 17 April 1995: 8).
19 James
L. Graf, ‘Hell in a small place’, Time, 29 March 1993: 54–5.
20 William
Maley, ‘The United Nations and ethnic conflict management:
lessons from the disintegration of Yugoslavia’, Nationalities Papers, 25 (3)
(1997): 559–73.
21 Gartenberg,
Sharon M., ‘UN official in Sarajevo resigns’. This
Week in Bosnia-Hercegovina, weekly e-mail news list (nebosnia-list@world.std.com),
19 December 1994. The officer, Charles Forrest, stated: ‘It’s one thing for the
Serbs to strangle [Sarajevo]; it’s another for [the UN commander General] Rose
to willingly co-operate.’ Forrest also claimed to have personally heard General
Rose ‘express his contempt for the Bosnians over many months’ (see Gartenberg,
‘UN official in Sarajevo resigns’).
22 John
Pomfret, ‘Serbs stir hatred of Muslim neighbours’, Guardian Weekly (Washington
Post section), 12 May 1996: 15. Additionally, as Pomfret there points out, the
Serb attack on Muslim civilians that was the focus of his article was made
possible by Swedish NATO troops ‘apparently’ failing to disarm Serb forces as
part of their peacekeeping duty.
23 John
Pomfret, ‘US diplomat visits Serb
“killing fields”’, Guardian Weekly (Washington Post section), 28 January 1996:
13.
24 Mackenzie is Canadian, for
example, and Rose is British.
25 See
also New Yorker, ‘This is war’, Editorial Comment, 21 February 1994: 4, 6.
26 Gartenberg, ‘UN official in
Sarajevo resigns’.
27 Spielmann,
Peter, ‘Atrocities known to UN team in May’, Guardian Weekly, 16 August 1992:
7. Spielmann’s article also reveals that the Western European rationalization
that the blame for atrocities must be shared equally among Serbs, Croats and
Muslims had an early beginning. In this case, it was the Red Cross organization
that overlooked Serb ‘ethnic cleansing’ tactics in favour of presenting the
façade of a ‘balanced’ approach to a war that had been initiated by the Bosnian
Serbs and supported by Serbia proper.
28 PNN
News Radio, Australia, News Report on Bosnia, 14 September 1995.
29 Clark, ‘Russia opposes US
plan to bomb Serbs’. The ‘helplessness’ of the West in the Balkans remains in
stark contrast to immediate, firm and devastating action taken in the Middle
East in 1990–1 when Iraq invaded Kuwait.
30 New Yorker, ‘This is war’.
Even the Western humanitarian aid that has been chanelled to Bosnia has
sometimes taken on the character of the theatre of the absurd. For example, in
November 1993 television news footage showed ‘Santa Claus’ greeting a
high-ranking UN official on her arrival at a German airfield after yet another
gruelling and useless mission to Sarajevo (SBS-TV, Australia, ‘World News’, 24
November 1993). It also told of how several tonnes of teddy bears and other
toys – bundled with somewhat more useful items such as food and medical
supplies – were to be parachuted to starving, freezing Bosnians in time for
Christmas. One may wonder whether this generosity of spirit was forthcoming at
the Muslim eids, considering that the majority of Bosnians are Muslim. Or
perhaps the EC thought teddy bears would provide comfort for pre-pubescent
Bosnian girls who had been gang-raped. An alternative explanation is that both
the teddy bear and the vital supplies were never intended for the Bosnian
Muslims in the first place.
There are
also many egregious examples of anti-Muslim attitudes in the mainstream Western
media – to the point that it is possible to say that, at times, the genocide in
Bosnia has been trivialized. Two examples will have to suffice here to
illustrate this particular aspect of the inadequacy of the Western response to
the dawning reality of genocide. One is witticism: ‘Call to alms … Muslim
military guard a mosque in the centre of Bosnia’s capital, Sarajevo’ is the
caption beneath a 1992 feature photograph in an Australian daily newspaper
(Sydney Morning Herald, ‘Fighting flares as UN lands in Croatia’, 6 April 1992:
11; the emphasis on ‘alms’ is mine). It was Eid ul-Fitr at the time, and the
pun mocked the Bosnian Muslims’ need to defend themselves and the Islamic
injunction to honour charity. Another article (Robert Adams, ‘Frustration
ignites religious powder keg’, Weekend Australian, 17–18 July 1993: 12), full
of the usual ubiquitous clichés, loathing of ‘radical Islam’ and fear at the
prospect of ‘newly radicalised Bosnian Muslims’ wreaking a terrorist’s revenge
on the West, describes, in a way obviously calculated to evoke feelings of
horror in the Western reader, how Muslim fighters took a baby from its mother
because she was ‘wearing a miniskirt’ (the article reports that she was told
she could reclaim the child ‘when she was dressed decently’). The article is
ludicrous, considering its lack of sourcing, its play on cultural stereotyping,
and the fact that at least 20,000 women – mostly Bosnian Muslims– had been
raped and tortured in the war. It also reflects the Western establishments’
firm stand that Bosnians must not look for help anywhere other than the UN and
the EC.
31 M.
Thatcher, ‘Stop the excuses. Help Bosnia now’, New York Times, 6 August 1992:
A23.
32 BBC
Radio, ‘World News’, 17 February 1996; see also Julian Borger, ‘NATO troops
raid Bosnian “terror camp”’, Guardian Weekly, 25 February 1996: 3.
33 John
Pomfret, ‘US trains troops with links to Iran’, Guardian Weekly (Washington
Post section), 4 February 1996: 15.
34 Riyadh Daily, Cartoon, 21
August 1998: 6.
35 Ahmad
Mardini, ‘Gulf–Bosnia: Muslim clergy calls for “holy war”
in Bosnia’, Inter Press Service (IPS, Abu Dhabi), 27 July 1995.
36 King Fahd, quoted in Mardini, ‘Muslim clergy calls for “holy war” in Bosnia’.
37 Frederick
Painton, ‘High-altitude help’, Time, 8 March 1993: 42–3.
38 This situation is summed up
in an article by James Graf (James L. Graf, ‘Hell in a small place’, Time, 29
March 1993: 54–5), and it is an indictment of European and European-influenced
UN policies that war crimes were allowed to be inflicted on the Bosnians for
another two and a half years:
‘Rarely
has a truth so brutally demonstrated been so assiduously avoided. International
sanctions, threats, peace negotiations – none are having the slightest effect
on the horror being played out in eastern Bosnia. Serb forces are shooting what
Muslim Bosnians they can and deliberately starving out the rest. Serb leaders
perceive, correctly so far, each new mediating manoeuvre as evidence that they
can continue to act with impunity. Only military action – the lifting of the
UN-imposed arms embargo on the beleaguered Bosnian government or the bombing of
Serb positions – is likely to change the equation. Despite Western outrage over
the carnage, that is not on.’
It is worth
nothing that the widest-ranging and most genuine calls for action to halt the
outrages in Bosnia came more from the United States than from Europe. For a
deeper analysis of the UN–European policy failure in Bosnia, see Maley, ‘The
United Nations and ethnic conflict management’.
39 As
was indicated in the preceding section, limited covert military aid was allowed
to reach Bosnia – via Croatia, which ‘taxed’ the arms shipments to bolster its
own weaponry. This was made possible principally by the United States’ choosing
not to adopt a position one way or the other on this aid (see
Congressional Record, ‘Arms Shipments to Bosnia from Islamic Countries’,
Congressional Record (Senate) (pp. S4884–S4885), 9 May 1996. From the
Congressional Record Online via GPO access:
www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/aces/aaces002.html). However, as was also indicated
in the preceding section, Muslim military aid to Bosnia, especially that from
Iran, was vilified as ‘terrorism’ and was regarded as a source and instrument
of an undesirable influence in Europe.
40 Saudi
High Commission for the Relief of Bosnia-Hercegovina, The Most Important
Achievements of the Saudi High Relief Commission for Bosnia and Herzegovina:
From October 1993 until December 1997, The Commission, Sarajevo, June 1998.
41 The
Split and Zenica offices have since closed owing to a ‘decrease of [the]
Commission’s activities’, and the offices in Tuzla, Mostar, Zagreb, and Vienna
have become ‘Communication Offices’ (see Saudi High Commission for the Relief
of Bosnia-Hercegovina, The Most Important Achievements of the Saudi High Relief
Commission for Bosnia and Herzegovina).
42 Mardini,
‘Muslim clergy calls for “holy war” in Bosnia’. King Fahd is on record as
having donated approximately US$ 105,900 directly to the High Commission (Saudi
High Commission for the Relief of Bosnia-Hercegovina, Periodical Progress
Report of the Saudi High Commission for the Relief of Bosnia-Hercegovina, The
Commission, Riyadh, March 1998).
44 Saudi High Commission for
the Relief of Bosnia-Hercegovina, The Most Important Achievements of the Saudi
High Relief Commission for Bosnia and Herzegovina; Periodical Progress Report
of the Saudi High Commission.
45 The Hajj sponsorship has
cost the King around US$ 313,000 (Saudi High Commission for the Relief of Bosnia-Hercegovina,
The Most Important Achievements of the Saudi High Relief Commission for Bosnia
and Herzegovina).
46 BiH Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, Implementation of the Priority Reconstruction Programme. Status Report
4: April 1998, Publication of the Department for Reconstruction and
International Assistance, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of
Bosnia-Hercegovina, Sarajevo, 1998: 5. Other ‘major single donors’ are the
European Union, the World Bank, the USA, Japan, the Netherlands, the UK, Norway,
Germany, Switzerland and Sweden (ibid.).
47 BiH Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, Status Report 4: April 1998: 11.
48 BiH Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, Status Report 4: April 1998: 17, 37.
49 BiH Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, Status Report 4: April 1998: 11, 15.
50 See BiH Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, Status Report 4: April 1998: 5–6.
51 The EC has allocated more
than US$550 million to reconstruction projects in numerous sectors (see BiH
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Status Report 4: April 1998: 19).
52 See Congressional Record,
‘Arms Shipments to Bosnia from Islamic Countries’; M. Austrian, pers. comm., 6
October 1998. Michael Austrian is a former US Middle East diplomat of extensive
experience and a specialist on Turkey, formerly of the Australian National University.
53 Kofman,
Daniel, ‘Israeli Arms Sales to Serbia’, BosNet electronic news service
(BosNews@doc.ic.ac.uk), 4 August 1995.
54 Ibid. The Chairman of the
Defence and Foreign Relations Committee of the Israeli Knesset, Ori Orr, during
a July 1994 visit to Belgrade declared that ‘the Israelis support the Serbs …’
(ibid.). Orr’s position made him responsible for Israeli foreign arms sales
approvals. Igor Primoratz (‘Israel and the War in the Balkans’) listed four
reasons why both sides of Israeli politics are pro-Serb; one of those reasons
was that Serb ethnic cleansing was not acknowledged or criticized in Israel
because of the parallel ethnic cleansing of Palestinians by Zionists to create
the State of Israel in the period 1947–9. Primoratz (ibid.) also gave the
example of one ‘mainstream Israeli commentator’ who suggested the ‘transfer’ of
Palestinians from Israel according to ‘the Serbian example’.
55 Saudi High Commission for
the Relief of Bosnia-Hercegovina, Periodical Progress Report of the Saudi High Commission.
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