Question: Is All Fair in Love and War?

RE: Indicted Ex-Leader of Bosnian Serbs Calls Atrocities 'Myths' (3 March 2010)

To the Editor:

Some would say that it is a characteristic of men to face up to their actions with dignity. Apparently, Radovan Karadzic does not measure up to this. The article discussed his defense base during his trial in The Hague, Netherlands this week. Whilst I can see that he is trying to save himself from a severe sentence, I think it is more that he cannot own up to the consequences of his actions. He claimed that the events at Srebrenica were nothing but natural events for the war. I find this slightly insulting to all the work of forensic anthropologists who have worked to prove what occurred during the war years (1992 -1995). The war has been blamed on religious differences between the Christian and Muslim factions of the country. However, I think that it is more of an ethnic rift that has caused the conflicts. Bosnia is a multi-nation state, meaning that there are many different ethnic identities that have a say in the government. The shattering of Yugoslavia into its present states was supposed to fix this. And it has failed. There are still so many tensions within the area. The term "balkanization" derived from the area and describes situations that are shattered so many times from different factors that the results actually prove more detrimental (hence the war). But for Karadzic to deny his actions in the war, all I have to say is, "Sic Semper Tyrannis".

Kellye Tamura
Greeley, Colo. 3 March 2010