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TIME: Almanac 1990s
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<text id=93TT1768>
<title>
May 24, 1993: The Other War
</title>
<history>
TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1993
May 24, 1993 Kids, Sex & Values
</history>
<article>
<source>Time Magazine</source>
<hdr>
THE BALKANS, Page 52
THE OTHER WAR
</hdr>
<body>
<p>By JAMES L. GRAFF/ZAGREB
</p>
<p> This is the other war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. For a while,
the country's Croats and Muslims appeared to have settled on
a nervous truce that, though punctuated with sporadic violence,
could practically qualify as peace in the Balkans. The focus
was on ethnic Serbs battering ethnic Muslims. No longer. Muslim
residents of Mostar, the capital of Herzegovina, are not preoccupied
with Serb attempts to seize the eastern part of the once graceful
city. Brutal street battles now flare as the Croats rain artillery
fire on the Muslim districts, killing scores of residents and
forcing thousands of others to flee for their lives.
</p>
<p> Disturbing stories have been trickling out of Mostar and its
surrounding region. International aid officials reported that
1,500 Muslims were being detained under what one U.N. official
called "atrocious" conditions in a former military base outside
the city. Many were wearing the nightgowns and pajamas they
had on when Croat troops ordered them out of their homes into
the night; some reported receiving only four biscuits and a
glass of water as their daily ration. An infamous Balkan strategy
is being utilized once again--with a new practitioner. "The
Bosnian Croats don't want Muslims in their areas--they want
them ethnically clean," said a U.N. analyst.
</p>
<p> The specter of a Greater Serbia emanating from Belgrade now
seems challenged by Croatian designs on Herzegovina. And as
these shadows benight Bosnia, the threat of wider conflict looms.
Last week one Belgrade official blustered, "The Croats will
move against the [Bosnian] Serbs, Serbia will have to protect
them, and we'll have global war in the Balkans again."
</p>
<p> For the West, the Croat-Muslim escalation makes a paralyzing
dilemma even worse. Having rejected the notion of military intervention
when there was perceived to be only one guilty party in Bosnia--the Serbs--the divided allies now may be even less likely
to act.
</p>
</body>
</article>
</text>