re europe vs muslim bosnians in article may husc harvard edu stojanov husc harvard edu milan stojanovic writes in article su einnocq mojo eng umd edu josip eng umd edu josip loncaric writes the annihilation of islam turks is an older serbian agenda indeed so was annihilation of germans during wwii however it is important to quote adil zuflikarpasic in his interview to duga had serbs wanted to exterminate muslims they could have done it after the wwi when they were the most loved small nation in europe serbs did not do that although they supressed some rebellions by albanian muslims and bosnian muslims quite bloodily however this is quite a misrepresentation after wwi many bosnian muslims were killed and their land taken over by serbs and the motive was plunder not some fictitious supression of rebellion even earlier one can point to the destruction of mosques in serbia itself and expulsion of muslims here is what dr vaso cubrilovic political adviser to the serbian monarchic regime says in his memorandum the expulsion of the arnauts which he presented to the royal government of stojadinovic on march in belgrade the mode of removal describes how expulsion of ethnic albanians from kosova is to proceed through state terror and private initiative i e chetnik plunder private initiative too can assist greatly in this direction we should distribute weapons to our colonists as need be the old forms of chetnik action should be organized and secretly assisted the whole affair should be presented as a conflict between clans and if need be ascribed to economic reasons finally local riots can be incited these will be bloodily suppressed with the clans and the chetniks rather than the army there remains one more means which serbia employed with great practical effect after that is by secretly burning down albanian villages and city quarters emphasis above is mine these events in serbia itself forced out virtually all muslims during late th century this policy of state terrorism against muslims aided by chetnik private initiative has continued in wwii and today for example muhamed hadzijahic in his book od tradicije do identiteta geneza nacionalnog pitanja bosanskih muslimana sarajevo svjetlost writes pg how serbs killed a muslim in foca in wwii even though he claimed to be a serbian patriot explaining their action as follows inasmuch as you were a serb you sullied the serb name because you are a turk i e muslim and since you helped us we shall not torture you so the shot him instead of cutting his throat in the past year serbs have repeated the slaughter of muslim residents of foca destruction of mosques including priceless historical monuments completes the eradication of the muslim presence from territories claimed by serbs i strongly dispute your notion that croats had a similar older agenda in fact for the past century or two croats and muslims have seen themselves as having a lot in common and they generally had friendly relations your suggestion that croat muslim relationship is anything like serb muslim relationship is completely wrong to say that croats and muslims have a lot in common does not imply they are not separate peoples how touching i have nearly cried while i read this unfortunately mostly untrue which part do you claim is untrue explain yourself or withdraw your claim croats from croatia mostly had no contacts with muslims since they were mostly dealt with extreme preudice long time ago however one of the main agendas is turning bosnia into purely catholic state croatia never had many muslim citizens for historical reasons because it was not a part of the ottoman empire the last major battles between austro hungarian monarchy and the ottoman empire in croatia were at the end of the th century need i remind you that modern croatian nationalism came into being with dr ante starcevic who saw bosnian muslims as the best croats so much so that in he contemplated moving his operations to sarajevo you are confusing clericalist croatianism with croatian nationalism here political nationalism has always been stronger as for your other theories you are clearly overjoyed that croat muslim alliance in bosnia herzegovina is now in trouble arguments such as yours are clearly intended to create and deepen this split i should add few more things a j evans in his on foot through b h describes that catholic clergy in the last century was apparently more scared by serbs then by turks because serbs were growing stronger and unlike turks represented great danger for idea of catholic bosnia president tudjman clearly states in his book that muslims do not exist as a separate nation from croats and serbs and he many times suggested even in interviewes to foreign papers that solution is to split bosnia josip knows this and he is only working on the image of croatia in international relations you ll learn that unless weak unite to counterbalance the strong player soon they are taken over and that s the end of them balance of power thinking has brought together croats and bosnian muslims this is only natural all other alignments are unstable i m working on pointing out this basic fact croats and muslims have been aware of it for as long as serbia has existed you are wrong if you think only image is at stake here croatia has a deep interest in her alliance with bosnian muslims and vice versa i think tudjman understands this although he does not have much choice at this point tensions should have been defused better earlier before any open confrontation developed although i still think croatia will survive it will lose a lot but bosnian muslims may end up even worse off however their position now is so horrible that perhaps they do not see it getting any worse the key point is do they still have any hope left if not then all bets are off mr stojanovic is clearly very very happy about this i m deeply hurt this is not about some image but about survival of a concept of a partnership which i believe is natural and essential for both croats and muslims sigh josip
