Muslims and genocide in the Balkans

Abstract

The international community has yet to make a fundamental choice between believing or not believing that the war in Bosnia‐Herzegovina affects world peace and the future of regional security. Genocide is being carried out on television and before the news media every day, yet the world leaders who have access to money, organizations, power, and military might still do not know exactly what to do. On the one hand, U.S. and European leaders say we cannot allow “ethnic cleansing” to continue. On the other, they say they should not become “partisans” in the war. They cannot have it both ways. For the governments of Islamic countries, whose collective response has been no more effective than the Western one in stopping the mass murder of Muslims, the Bosnian tragedy raises moral and political questions that undermine the legitimacy of their power at home. International and regional organizations such as the United Nations, the Islamic Conference, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the Conference on...