LETTERS
Yugoslavia United?
Sir: In an early preface to her book Black Lamb and Grey Falcon Rebecca West wrote a warning. She had noted the phe- nomenon of people from Britain and else- where in the West who, on becoming `interested' or otherwise involved in the Balkans, were moved to take up the cause of one of the Balkan nations. She herself went on to espouse for the rest of her long life an intransigent and intolerant version of the Serb cause.
We South Slays have known this phe- nomenon ever since Western politicians, diplomats, officers, foreign correspon- dents, businessmen and tourists began visiting the Balkans in the last century. At times their interference was appalling, on occasion useful, at least for some. Now comes an almost ludicrous example of this phenomenon. Mr Richard Bassett has pro- duced (Emancipation of the Slays', 7 July) a hotchpotch of arbitrary assertions, ignor- ance, known canards and plain nonsense, under the palpable influence of a tiny rump of Croats dreaming of a revival of Habs- burg Catholic Vienna and Budapest (the principal oppressors of the Croat nation for centuries).
Mr Bassett writes of the 'artificial link between Central European Catholic Kaisertreu Croatia (i.e. loyal to the Habs- burgs) and Balkan Serbia'. He does not know or does not want to know that Yugoslavia was established more than a year before Mr Bassett's `diplomats, intel- lectuals and ethnographers' had even begun to assemble at Versailles. I do know because my Croat father and Serb mater- nal uncle were members of the Croat Sabor (Parliament) which on 29 October 1918 unanimously declared the independence of South Slav lands and people from the Austro-Hungarian Empire and voted, with but one dissenting voice, to send repre- sentatives of the newly declared and estab- lished South Slav State to sign the act of
union with Serbia on 1 December 1918. The modern union of 'seven million'
Catholic Croats (number to be checked by Mr Bassett) with Orthodox Serbs was therefore not a 'joke marriage' imposed by the Great Powers.
Mr Bassett has also failed to discover that the movement for some form of union of South Slays, based not only on the bond of race but on innumerable other historical factors, first flourished in Croatia more than 80 years before Versailles.
It is notorious that those• who wish Yugoslavia to break up see Bosnia as their
favourite ground for the fatal conflict.
Apart from mixing up Muslims and Serbs Mr Bassett does not appear to realise that Bosnia is the homeland of Slav Muslims (who prefer to call themselves Bosniaks) amounting to about 50 per cent of the population, as well as of Bosnian Serbs, about 30 per cent, and of Bosnian Croats, about 20 per cent. They are all inextricably intermixed, especially in the towns. No possible true frontier can be drawn be- tween any of them. The Bosniak Muslims are now recognised as a nation by all (except Mr Bassett, and Croat and Serb hotheads), and there is no incentive or interest for them to choose pragmatically between being merely Muslim Croats or Muslim Serbs. President Tudjman of Croatia has recognised this fact of life.
Bosnia is in fact an indivisible mini- Yugoslavia. Far from becoming the cause of inevitable conflict Bosnia is the vital anchor that will prevent the Croats and Serbs going off in different directions. Any break-up of Yugoslavia must mean an attempt to divide Bosnia between them. This will mean forcing almost two million Bosniak Muslims into a separate Croatia and a separate Serbia, and also forcing the state of Croatia to leave many Croats in Serbia and the state of Serbia to leave even more Serbs in Croatia. No democratic Croat or Serb state government could possibly dare face its own electorate with such a proposition. The sole way in which Croats, Serbs and Bosniak Muslims could possibly be satisfied that all their co- nationals were protected in one state is to maintain an overall union with equal cultu- ral and legal rights for all individuals of each nation wherever the individuals may actually reside, ie some sort of a democra- tic South Slav union. This is the very opposite of a break-up of Yugoslavia.
Vane Ivanovic
4 Audley Square, London WI
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