‘EVERYTHING BUT THE YELLOW STAR’:MILOSEVIC’S SCRIPT FOR A SERBIAN HOLOCAUST

(Washington, D.C.): According to
documents obtained by the Associated
Press, Belgrade’s “war
presidency” has issued orders to
Serbian police officers and authorities
establishing the “rights,
commitments and responsibilities”
associated with the “special
status” of non-Serbs in Bosnian
territory now occupied by Serb forces. The
guidelines of permitted and impermissible
conduct are strikingly reminiscent of the
degrading and cruel edicts handed down by
Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich in preparation
for its “Final Solution” — the
complete liquidation of the Jewish
population of Europe.

These orders — which AP indicates are
“typical” of those issued in
many Bosnian (and presumably Croatian)
towns “largely cut off from the
outside world” — are clearly part
and parcel of the larger policy of
“ethnic cleansing” being
undertaken at the direction of the
Serbian dictator, Slobodan Milosevic. As
the following list suggests, the
only thing missing seems to be the
requirement to wear a public mark of
shame — a scarlet letter or, under the
Nazis, the yellow Star of David:

• [Non-Serbs] are under a curfew
  running from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00
  a.m.;
• Muslims and Croats are barred
  from restaurants, the streets and
  other public places;
• Swimming, hunting or
  fishing is not allowed
  for these persons;
• The possession of
  firearms is prohibited,
  “regardless of whether
  [non-Serbs] have the necessary
  permits”;
• Such persons are “not
  allowed to use or drive motor
  vehicles” or “travel
  to other towns without
  appropriate authorizations of the
  authorities”;
• Muslims and Croats are not
  permitted to “be in groups
  larger than three”;
• Such persons are obligated
  to perform compulsory work
  if needed and “to be disciplined“;
• Individuals who have been
  carrying out “negative
  activities” will be confined
  to their homes around the clock
  and may not establish contact
  with any neighbors.

These details — along with the
searing footage of emaciated prisoners
and shrapnel-ravaged bodies of civilian
casualties in Sarajevo and elsewhere —
provide further evidence that the Serbian
regime of Slobodan Milosevic has embarked
on a campaign of territorial
conquest and unspeakable inhumanity that
is tantamount to genocide.
When combined with the likely effects of
an oncoming winter for which those
subjected to these guidelines and those
who have fled their purview are
ill-prepared, the program of “ethnic
cleansing” may well produce a
catastrophe akin to the infamous
Holocaust of five decades ago.

This point was made with
characteristic eloquence by a
distinguished member of the Center’s
Board of Advisors, Ambassador Jeane
Kirkpatrick, during an interview taped
last week-end for the “John
McLaughlin One-on-One” show before
the Serbian guidelines were published in
this country. When asked whether or
not we were witnessing an abomination on
the scale of the Holocaust, Amb.
Kirkpatrick observed:

“I believe that the
scale is comparable to the beginning
of the purge of the Jews in the
Holocaust. Before there
were gas ovens, there was the
collection of Jews in a brutal
fashion — you know shoving them
into boxcars and transporting
them for miles, depriving them of
food, putting them into camps
where they were starved and
beaten and tortured.

“That’s the sort of thing
that I see happening now in
Bosnia….I think that there is
very broad consensus about what’s
going on there, and what’s
going on is very much like what
was going on in Germany…before
the actual gas ovens were
developed.”