… Raised by veteran U.S. journalist and Sarajevo survivor
Transcription, excerpts, editing by Carolyn Bennett for Today’s Insight News
Silence encountered in a dream is no longer an option. Though memories are “too painful” to voice, Sarajevo survivor Amela Marin Simic says, “My duty is to speak.”
“For those of us who were in the city when it was under siege the whole thing is chilling. Who was the target of the sniper: my 5-year-old son waiting in a breadline; my 9-year-old daughter awaiting a UN HCR package; me, waiting for water? All of us were dangerous ‘Turks’ in the mind of Karadzic—whether we were Muslim or not.
“Serb paramilitaries … saw my 2-year-old nephew as one of Karadzic’s ‘Turks.’ They shot him while he was sitting on his potty. They were using the deadly sniper bullets that explode as soon as they enter the body. We could only see the tiny hole above his ear where the bullet went in. Despite hearing my sister’s cries for help, these same Serb soldiers rained fire on the entrance to my sister’s building for two hours preventing the child from being taken to the hospital. He survived, somehow; and despite the shrapnel that is still in his body, he became a talented musician, one with excruciating headaches, but still, alive. Thousands of children weren’t so lucky.
For months and months after my nephew was wounded, I wanted to avenge my sister’s nightmares and my nephew’s uncertain future as well as the lives of my family and friends blown up and screwed up forever.
Then, one night, I dreamt I was inside a waiting room – maybe of the war tribunal, I can’t recall now. There they were sitting beside each other: Karadzic, whom I had actually met a few times through the writer’s union in Sarajevo; and others, including an old Shakespeare professor, whose classes I had taken at university – all those who had gone to the mountains to start their blood-soaked war; or even worse, had incited it through their words.
“In my dream, I just stopped and stood there, looking at them, wanting to ask them one simple question – Why. But I didn’t say anything, yet; believing my gaze would somehow pierce through the horror they had created and find some sign of humanity. They just stared back at me. I looked at them once again and then I asked them – Why?
“They didn’t respond.
“… There is much about that time I can never forget -- That’s why I rarely mention the war years in conversations with people: It’s too painful, too sad, too horrific. I realize that the child, like my dream, won’t answer the question -- Why ordinary people do monstrous things. But the silence I encountered in my dream isn’t really an option right now that Karadzic is on trial. I am not after vengeance. I am after justice. My duty is to speak.”
“Anti-Muslim” wars persist. Ray McGovern leads with the Why query posed by veteran U.S. journalist Helen Thomas.
No one in “the U.S. political/media hierarchy” has explained Why.
“… Why [do] so many people in the Muslim world object to U.S. policies so strongly that they are inclined to resist violently and even resort to suicide attacks?”
Washington PR punts
“We must communicate clearly to Muslims around the world that al-Qaeda offers nothing except a bankrupt vision of misery and death … while the United States stands with those who seek justice and progress. … That’s the vision that is far more powerful than the hatred of these violent extremists.”
But WHY?
“… Why it is so hard for Muslims to ‘get’ that message? Why can’t they end their preoccupation with dodging U.S. missiles in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Gaza long enough to reflect on how we are only trying to save them from terrorists while simultaneously demonstrating our commitment to ‘justice and progress’? Does [the Administration] believe that all we need to do is ‘communicate clearly to Muslims’ that it is al-Qaeda, not the U.S. and its allies, that brings ‘misery and death’? Does any informed person not know that the unprovoked, U.S.-led invasion of Iraq killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and displaced 4.5 million from their homes?
“… Many Muslims have watched Washington’s behavior closely for many years and view U.S. declarations about peace, justice, democracy, and human rights as infuriating examples of hypocrisy and double talk … Washington’s sanitized discussion about motives for terrorism seems more intended for the U.S. domestic audience than the Muslim world. …
“People in the Middle East have known for decades how [the West and western-leaning countries and allied interests have mistreated] Palestinians. They have known how one after another administration in Federal Washington has propped up Arab dictatorships and how the U.S. Government has imprisoned at Guantanamo hundreds of Muslims without bringing charges against them and how the U.S. military has killed civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. They have known how U.S. mercenaries have slaughtered innocents and escaped punishment for these crimes.
“The purpose of U.S. ‘public diplomacy,’ seems designed to offer feel-good palliatives about beneficence in U.S. actions more than to shine the light of truth for Americans on unpleasant realities. American journalists and politicians, fearing [McCarthyism] smears of un-patriotism or ‘sympathizing with the enemy’ join the charade.”
Amela Marin Simic says it for me: the silence encountered in a dream is no longer an option. “I am not after vengeance. I am after justice. My duty is to speak.”
Sources and notes
From a Commentary given on Radio Netherlands Worldwide; Karadzic is now on trial for war crimes before the war crimes tribunal in the Netherlands; Among 11 charges against him are two counts of genocide – one for the massacre of Muslims in Srebrenica, the other for the siege of Sarajevo
Amela Marin Simic, a writer living in Toronto, Canada, lived through the Siege of Sarajevo.
Britannica notes
Sarajevo is the “capital and cultural centre of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It lies in the narrow valley of the Miljacka River at the foot of Mount Trebević. The city retains a strong Muslim character, having many mosques, wooden houses with ornate interiors, and the ancient Turkish marketplace (the Baščaršija); much of the population is Muslim.”…
Radovan Karadžić
In the 1980s the rapid decline of the Yugoslav economy led to widespread public dissatisfaction with the political system. This attitude, together with the manipulation of nationalist feelings by politicians, destabilized Yugoslav politics. Independent political parties appeared in 1988. In early 1990 multiparty elections were held in Slovenia and Croatia; when elections were held in Bosnia in December, new parties representing the three national communities gained seats in rough proportion to their populations. A tripartite coalition government was formed, with the Bosniac politician Alija Izetbegović leading a joint presidency. Growing tensions both inside and outside Bosnia, however, made cooperation with the Serbian Democratic Party, led by Radovan Karadžić, increasingly difficult.
In 1991, several self-styled “Serb Autonomous Regions” were declared in areas of Bosnia with large Serb populations. Evidence emerged that the Yugoslav People's Army was being used to send secret arms deliveries to the Bosnian Serbs from Belgrade. In August the Serbian Democratic Party began boycotting the Bosnian presidency meetings; in October it removed its deputies from the Bosnian assembly and set up a “Serb National Assembly” in Banja Luka. By then full-scale war had broken out in Croatia, and the breakup of Yugoslavia was under way. Bosnia's position became highly vulnerable. The possibility of partitioning Bosnia had been discussed during talks between the Croatian president, Franjo Tudjman, and the Serbian president, Slobodan Milošević, earlier in the year, and two Croat “communities” in northern and southwestern Bosnia, similar in some ways to the “Serb Autonomous Regions,” were proclaimed in November 1991. When the European Community (EC; now European Union) recognized the independence of Croatia and Slovenia in December, it invited Bosnia to apply for recognition also. A referendum on independence was held February 29–March 1, 1992, although Karadžić's party obstructed voting in many Serb-populated areas. Nearly two-thirds of the electorate cast a vote; almost all voted for independence, which was officially proclaimed on March 3 by President Izetbegović.
In May 1995, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces launched air strikes on Serbian targets after the Serbian military refused to comply with a UN ultimatum. Further air strikes led to U.S.-sponsored peace talks in Dayton, Ohio, in November. The agreement that resulted from those talks called for a federalized Bosnia in which 51 percent of the land would constitute a Croat-Bosniac federation and 49 percent a Serb republic. To enforce the agreement, signed in December, a 60,000-member international force was deployed. An election in September 1996 produced a tripartite national presidency chaired by Izetbegović but including Croat and Serbian representatives. Karadžić had been indicted for war crimes and was prohibited from being a candidate, though he continued to elude capture and retained some support among Bosnian Serbs into the 21st century. The federal legislature, with seats apportioned to each ethnic group, was dominated by nationalist parties.
“Helen Asks Why” (Ray McGovern), posted January 11, 2010, at Antiwar.com; reprinted from ConsortiumNews.com; responses at http://original.antiwar.com/mcgovern/2010/01/10/helen-asks-why/Helen+Asks+Why2010-01-11+06%3A00%3A35Ray+McGovern
WAR DEAD
AMERICA
Avoidable yet
“Up to 200,000 feared dead” in Haiti
Up to 200,000 people are feared dead following the 7.0 magnitude earthquake that has destroyed much of the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince … Lorries piled with corpses have been trying to collect the bodies that have been visible on the streets across Port-au-Prince for burial in mass graves outside the city, [Al Jazeera, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/01/20101167102172106.html
U.S. Foreign Affairs BLOODLETTING Continues
WAR DEAD, CASUALTIES OF WAR
Update January 16, 2010
Al Jazeera reports
“War without end
“As asymmetrical warfare takes up the fight from conventional wars, battles are replaced by bombings and massacres, military bases by hideouts and remote control rooms, population control and policing by propaganda and terror, and national borders are surpassed by new fault lines passing through every minor Middle Eastern state and every major Western city… All of which begs for a change in the whole paradigm of the ongoing 'global war on terror' that holds entire populations hostage to fear and war” by Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera's senior political analyst The US as a great warrior tribe, January 11, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/imperium/2010/01/201011110202267810.html
Is the U.S. militarizing aid? [Riz Khan]
In an effort to win … local ‘hearts and minds’ in Iraq and Afghanistan, is the U.S. militarizing its foreign aid? That is the claim of aid groups working on the ground. They say that development projects are increasingly being implemented by the military and/or civilian military contractors and that this new strategy dangerously blurs the line between projects undertaken to achieve a political goal and those undertaken to advance long-term development, January 11, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/rizkhan/2010/01/2010110103653946180.html
AFGHANISTAN
U.S. releases Bagram prisoner names
“The United States has published the names of 645 prisoners [some under the age of 16] held at a controversial U.S.-run prison in Afghanistan following a freedom of information lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)… U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration is appealing against the decision. Bagram, north of the Afghan capital, Kabul, has been used as a detention facility by the US-led coalition in Afghanistan since the ouster of the Taliban government in December 2001.” http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/01/201011614114260799.html
AfPak
“Pakistan drone attack ‘kills many’”
Suspected U.S. drone attack kills at least 18 people and injures 14 others in Pakistan’s northwest tribal belt near the Afghan border…The attack was the seventh suspected U.S. missile assault in the tribal district this month.… The U.S. has increased drone attacks since a suicide bomber crossed over Pakistan’s border and killed seven CIA employees in an attack in eastern Afghanistan on December 30, 2009, January 14, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/01/201011453930817749.html
AFGHANISTAN
UK reporter killed in Afghanistan
A second journalist [Sunday Mirror defense correspondent Rupert Hamer] has been killed in Afghanistan in 10 days after an explosion killed a UK newspaper reporter on patrol with U.S. Marines… Canadian reporter Michelle Lang of the Calgary Herald newspaper, was killed alongside four soldiers in Kandahar province on December 30 when a roadside bomb exploded beneath their armored vehicle…Three journalists, including Lang, died in Afghanistan last year, according to a tally by the International News Safety Institute, January 10, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/01/20101101638390164.html
AFGHANISTAN
Deadly blast hits Afghan market
At least 16 civilians and 1 police officer have been killed and 13 others injured after a suicide bomber targeted a crowded market in the southern Afghan province of Uruzgan, January 15, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/01/201011414347825891.html
Deadliest year for Afghan civilians
The number of civilians killed in war-related violence in Afghanistan touched 2,412 last year, the highest number since the 2001 US-led invasion …Recent incidents, such as the deaths of 10 civilians, including eight teenagers in eastern Kunar province, in an authorized but non-military U.S. operation, have seen Afghans take to the streets to protest against the presence of foreign troops, January 13, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/01/20101131135845111.html.
IRAQ
Civilians killed in Iraq bombing
At least seven people, including five policemen, have been killed and six others wounded in a suicide lorry bombing in Iraq's western Anbar province… Anbar province was the heart of Iraq’s Sunni uprising following the U.S.-led invasion of Iraqi in 2003 but it became relatively secure after local tribal fighters accepted U.S.-backing in 2006, January 13, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/01/201011385712327495.html.
PAKISTAN
“‘Suspects’ die in Karachi explosion”
At least seven people have been killed after an explosion destroyed a house in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi.… Attacks across Pakistan have intensified in recent months in an apparent response to a military offensive against the Pakistani Taliban in South Waziristan, January 8, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/01/2010184733944362.html
YEMEN
“Yemeni al-Qaeda suspects ‘killed’”
At least six suspected al-Qaeda fighters have been killed in a military air raid in the north of the country…Yemen has intensified operations against the so-called ‘Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula group’ claimed it was behind a failed December 25 attempt to blow up a Detroit-bound U.S. airliner, January 16, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/01/2010115141954305381.html.
From Casualty sites
Iraq, Afghanistan (exact figures and costs of war are unobtainable)
Latest update January 7, 2010
American Military Casualties in Iraq – “Human cost of occupation”: since the war began March 19, 2003: 4,373
Since the Obama inauguration January 20, 2009: 145;
Wounded 31,613-over 100,000;
U.S. veterans with brain injuries: 320,000;
Suicides 18 a day [January 1 update at Anti-war dot com: “Casualties in Iraq, The Human Cost of Occupation” (Edited by Margaret Griffis) http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/
Iraq Body Count figures: 95,002-103,65, http://www.iraqbodycount.org/
Iraq Coalition Casualty (war dead) figures:
IRAQ: U.S. Coalition total: 4,691; U.S.: 4,373 - AFGHANISTAN: Coalition total: 1,593; U.S.: 961, http://icasualties.org/oif/
Just Foreign Policy lists violent Iraqi deaths caused by the U.S.-led invasion of March 2003”: 1,366,350
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