Letter 1   (this is what started it all)
 
The Japan Times May 22, 1994
 
 
History will judge Europe's inaction
 
    Europe, where is thy vaunted civilization?
 
    What began as mass rape and murder of civilians has continued for so long that it would no longer be news if further atrocities (such as pumping tank shells into hospital beds) did not keep drawing the world's attention.
 
    Sometimes it seems the only reason Western European troops are in the former Yugoslavia is to get voyeuristic pleasure out of watching genocide.
 
    Why is nothing done about the slaughter in Bosnia?
 
    Whose responsibility should it be to do something?
 
    When I recently passed through Europe an Italian asked me why "you Americans" didn't go in and put a stop to it.
 
    "We are tired," I said.  "We have saved the world twice now, from Nazism and from Communism.  We even saved Kuwait for dessert.  We have no national health insurance, our educational system and our infrastructure are collapsing, and we cannot afford to keep coming to Europe to save you from each other unless you pay us a salary to be your policemen.  Kuwait and Saudi Arabia at least paid us to defend them.
 
    "And why don't YOU do anything?" I continued.  "Yugoslavia had a border with Italy.  They are your next-door neighbors."
 
    African countries organized at great cost to themselves to put an end to the bloodshed in Liberia.  It is not taking them nearly as long to react to genocidal violence in Rwanda as it is taking Europeans to react to violence in the Balkans.
 
    Maybe African states should be asked to administer Serbia, at least until Serbia is civilized.
 
    As a serious minimum, European countries should stop insisting that the Bosnian arms embargo remain in place.  To treat the victim the same as the perpetrator is unconscionable.
 
    There are increasingly loud voices in the Muslim world arguing that Western inaction to save Bosnia is proof of hostility to Muslims.  I find it harder and harder to answer these voices.  I myself begin to suspect that Europe has a hostility to multi-ethnic, secular states and that Europe's inaction in the Balkans may have the same roots as anti-Americanism in Europe.  Only the Europeans themselves can answer this, if they can look in their hearts to see what is there.
 
    Whether today's European leaders can face their consciences or not, history (and God) will judge them for their inaction now.
 
JOHN E. PHILIPS
Yabase, Akita
 
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