The Lesson from the Balkans Wanted: A World Free of Demagogues and Dictators [Archives:2001/27/Focus]

COMMON SENSE
By: Hassan Al-Haifi
Undoubtedly, the news of the final hurdle of the slow and humiliating fall of Slobodan Melosovitch, is an important milestone in the fight against dictatorships by demagogues and bloodthirsty hate mongers, who rely on their bigotry and chauvinism to rise to power and then put their countries through fruitless adventures and cause hardships for millions. Yes, Slobodan Melosovitch had stained the history of mankind with his ruthless drive to “purify” his nation from those who did not meet his own standards of national affiliation and to rely on mythological grounds for the establishment of a new Greater Serbia, but in the end reduced the country to a fraction of what it was even under Communist rule. There are obviously important lessons that can be learned from this case of political criminology, if that is the name that suits the kind of regime of which the likes of Hitler and Melosovitch might be said to pursue in their quest for satisfying an egotistical mania that surely is out of tune with the progress that man has made in the political and social front, especially in this century.
The first lesson is that in this world of rapid communications and an aggressive international press there can be nothing hidden from the world. The ethnic cleansing campaign of Melosovitch and his cronies in Bosnia, as discreet as the Serbs tried to keep it was widely observed throughout the world and it was just a matter of time before the international community reacted to quickly save the rest of the Bosnian Moslems from the extermination campaign that Melosovitch had unleashed in the gentle hills of Bosnia-Herzogovnia. Although it was not until Melosovitch and his puppets have massacred 200,000 Moslems in Bosnia, that he was finally stopped, the international community should be credited still for acting as it did. Much of the credit of exposing the ugliness of the ambitions of Melosovitch must go to maverick reporting by the likes of Christiane Amanpour of CNN, who literally risked her life on a number of occasions to show the world the kind of madness that was being perpetrated by Melosovitch in the Balkans. Indeed, the ugliness of mass rape and cold blooded murder of innocent civilians, was more than the world could stand. The United States, under the leadership and personal initiative of former President William Clinton, also acted beyond what national self- interest would normally dictate and the humanitarian gesture is to be commended.
But, dictators tend to oblivious to lessons that are learned in the past. So, Melosovitch’s thirst for blood prevailed above all sense of logic and rationality. If it could not be done in Bosnia, then let’s do it closer to home. The same mentality prevailed in Melosovitch’s mind in handling the Kosovo crisis, where he mistakenly thought his legitimate foundations were stronger to prevent international action against him. However, it seems that Melosovitch brought failed to account for the calamity of bringing international action against him right in his own turf. Accordingly, the people of Serbia could see first-hand that what Melosovitch was doing was of no service to them nor did it add anything to their greatness. This time the laser guided bombs and missiles were disrupting a normal and peaceful life for the Serbs, and in the end would do no good for Serbia in the international community. The Serbs were able to realize that as far as they were concerned they could do better without him and soon the people made it clear that Melosovitch just had to go.
Thus, the international community has now taken it upon itself that human rights indeed is an international issue and that it is paramount that no man should be allowed to decide the fate of his fellow human beings at his own whim, even if they are within the borders of the territory that is “sovereign”.
Of course, Melosovitch is not the only dictator in the world and he is not the only proponent of “ethnic cleansing” campaigns, or demagogic concepts. Nevertheless, one should expect that the attention of the international community against such outdated nationalist themes needs to be promoted wherever such kind of chauvinism is preached. This area of the world has been witnessing this kind of demagogic “nationalism”, in the form of a Zionist machinery that has practiced methodical ethnic cleansing for the past 100 years in the Holy Land and surely is worthy of international attention, to save what is left of the Palestinian people before Ariel Sharon’s bloodthirsty trait goes into high gear and insures that the demagogic dream of Eretz Israel is realized before the international community puts and end to this madness that is as foreign to the region as eating pork.
It is also worth noting that there were very good relations between the regime in Tel Aviv and Slobodan Melosovitch and Israel was a “donor” country to the Serbs, even in the times when Serbia was boycotted by the international campaigns, providing technical assistance to the Serb gangs that were unleashing havoc in Bosnia and expertise in the way of conducting hate mongering on a systematic scale.
Surely, this is also a chance for many of the dictators in the region to look back on their records, and to remember that in the end dictatorships neither serve their people nor lead to the dreams of glory they envision for themselves.
They should also realize that their people will be the last to stand by them when these dictators become the targets of an international community that would like to see a world free of the likes of Melosovitch and many of the dictators that are still putting their people through senseless adventures that do neither their people any good nor to the peace and stability, which the world needs in order to overcome the pressing issues of poverty, deprivation and all the maladies that can become the basis of a dangerous time bomb that will threaten all of mankind.

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