When they will write of Bosnia, they will write of the horrors of ethnic cleansing, of the genocide committed by the Serbs against the Muslims of Bosnia. They will write of the concentration camps, the death camps, and the rape centers. They will write of war crimes, of brutality, of human rights abuses. They will write about rape used as a weapon of war, the mass rape of women and children, the detention of pregnant women in camps to prevent their obtaining abortions. They will write of horror, of families burned alive in their homes, of the cold blooded murder of the elderly, the wounded, the starving, the sick, dragged from their hospital beds and slaughtered. They will write of the children, mutilated, orphaned, brutalized, and denied medicine or hospitals. They will write of starvation and depravation used as weapons; of cities besieged; of food, water, fuel and electricity cut off; of people freezing to death in their beds, or shot by snipers while trying to carry out the daily necessities of life. They will write of cities, towns, and villages systematically destroyed, burnt to the ground, the inhabitants driven out and killed, or worse.

They will write of the refusal of the neighboring nations of Europe to give refuge, or even safe passage to the people attempting to flee the slaughter. Of desperate refugees being turned back into the hands of the butchers. They will write of the impotence of the United Nations to deliver aid to the victims of these barbarous atrocities. Of the truck convoys stopped, delayed, denied passage, inspected and looted by the Serbs while the U.N. personnel are disarmed and spat upon. They will write of the hypocrisy and incompetence of the United Nations so called "peacekeeping" operation. Of the two years of foot dragging, map making, treaty writing, cease fire brokering, self serving and useless diplomatic posturing carried on by the so called "peacemakers" such as Secretary Vance and Lord Owen.

They will write of the obscene hypocrisy of the European and U.S. heads of state who profess to the world what a terrible tragedy the war in Bosnia is and how naughtily the Serbs are behaving, yet do absolutely nothing concrete or forceful to stop it. Who as superpowers have the means, the strength, and the moral responsibility to end the war. They will write of the lack of moral resolve on the part of the U.S. leaders who say, "Yes, we want to help bring peace to the area, but our European allies won't join us in this. Therefore, we can't do anything on our own." They will write of the same hypocrisy when they write of the strict arms embargo imposed upon the Bosnians, preventing them from defending themselves, and of how the Serbs are armed and supplied by the Russians, who at last count have been given a gift by the U.S. taxpayers of FORTY THREE BILLION of our scarce tax dollars. ( the Economist 8/1/93 )

They will write about this "little civil war" as the most heinous example of man's inhumanity and evil in modern times since the holocaust of W.W. II. They will write of all of these things in the future because they are now a matter of public record. The writing and reporting that has been going on for the last two years about Bosnia now seems to be dropping off. This is not because the war is over, but I suspect because of factors such as: the American people just don't care; they are sick and tired of hearing such "ugly" news; they have a short attention span and are bored with the "story". Besides, just how many times can you tell the same kinds of stories over and over when the readers and listeners just don't seem to get it.

I do not blame the media for this apathy, as they have performed their jobs bravely for over two years now in accurately reporting on the events in Bosnia. But I do blame the American people for not taking over and doing their job once the facts were made public. That is, the moral job required of them as human beings of compassion and responsibility. Why haven't there been mass outrage and organized protest ? Are we as a nation so preoccupied with our own problems brought upon by our own corruption and apathy that we can abandon the fate of millions of men, women and children to genocide ?

With the small exception of the American Jewish community and a few human rights activists, no one else has spoken out or protested against the massive crime against humanity that has been taking place in the former Yugoslavia. They just don't seem to care at all. It's as if the entire world has shut its eyes and covered its ears to the horror in the hope that it will go away.

It will not go away, however, until the superpowers stop the Serbs or until the Bosnian people have been made extinct. Our leaders tell us it is not in our national interest to do anything except to prevent the Bosnians from receiving arms to defend themselves with. I assume this means that because these poor Muslims of Bosnia have no oil or natural resources coveted by "big business," that they are not worth rescuing. I also assume that the Europeans, whom the U.S. seems so anxious to please in smallest ways, do not wish to have a "Muslim" state within their midst to deal with, so by not doing anything they get their wish and don't have to bloody their own hands in the process. It seems that the shameful truth is that the U.S. has the potential to do business with the Russians and the Europeans but not with the remnants of a destroyed people. I know how cynical this must sound, but I can think of no other logical reasons why the life of a Bosnian should be deemed to be so cheap and worthless in the world today, and why such a thing as genocide is tolerated and even encouraged. I quote the Bishop Desmond Tutu who said "When you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor".

When I bring up the subject of U.S. involvement with my fellow students or with other people, all of whom are good compassionate human beings, I am told that this war is "none of our business" and not our problem or concern. Whenever children are being murdered in an intentionally planned program of genocide, it is my business, it is my problem, it is my concern, and it is also yours whether you want to accept the responsibility or not. Not only is it our "problem", it is the world's problem.

Let it never be written by the historians of the future, unless it is true, that the American people chose to be a party to the slaughter of a nation of innocent men, women, and children by remaining silent in the face of the shocking reality of Bosnia. Let it never be written , unless it's true, that the citizens of this democracy, the most powerful superpower on the face of the earth, the over 270 million of us who have an elected government that is supposed to carry out our will, whose military might was created to defend democracy and protect the weak and innocent, that we the citizens, that we as a nation abrogated our responsibility to humanity and ourselves by turning our backs, closing our eyes, and covering our ears to the screams of those children. Never let it be written, please !