Bosnian confusion
From Mr John Laugh/and Sir: Mr Wolfgang Petritsch (Letters, 19 May), High Representative in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, defends Nato's brutal raid on Hercegovacka Banka by referring to a 'riot' which he says occurred there two weeks previously. He seems to think that an alleged act of illegality by citizens, none of whom have been arrested, justifies a greater act of illegality in retaliation by the very international community which is supposed to uphold law and• order. Your readers should know that, to date, more than six weeks since the bank's violent seizure, its 90,000 clients still cannot access their money and the economy of Herzegovina is bleeding to death as a result.
Mr Petritsch protests he is not a United Nations employee. He omits to say that his own appointment is endorsed by the Security Council and that his mandate derives from Security Council Resolution 1031. He says he is not running a protectorate, yet his deputy, Mr Colin Munro, said to me in Mostar, 'Bosnia-Herzegovina is really a protectorate, you know.' Mr Petritsch says he wants the Bosnians and Herzegovinans to 'own the political process themselves' but then admits that he imposes the country's laws and dismisses elected politicians if they 'work against implementation of the peace accords'. Since only Mr Petritsch himself decides what constitutes this 'implementation' and what the peace accords mean, he is the final arbiter over his own decisions and powers. This is why his regime is a tyranny.
Mr Petritsch says he has never described Ante Jelavic, the HDZ leader, as a criminal. Yet in an interview in Vjesnik on 3 May 2001, when Mr Petritsch was asked to provide evidence for his much-repeated accusations of corruption against Jelavic and the HDZ, he replied, 'I stated that within the HDZ there were criminal elements and so far no one has proved the opposite.'
John Laughland
London W6
From Mr MM. Raguz Sir: Reports from BiH are almost always of a religious sort. On one side you have the high preacher, virtuous and who can do no wrong. On the other side are the lost sheep, sinful and who can do no right. On a rare occasion a reporter like John Laughland ('UN tyranny in Bosnia', 5 May) dares not believe the preacher, but to hear out the proverbial sheep. 'Heresy' will be the cries.
But politics and international affairs should not be like religion, and what Mr Laughland offers is an important other side, so the Western public can make up its own mind.
VM Raguz
Ambassador of Bosnia and Herzegovina to EU and Nato, 1998-2000 Vienna
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