Lesson from Bosnia

Yesterday and today we have wanted to scream. Thousands of kilometers away from here in Bosnia-Herzegovina, thousands of people have been massacred by fellow human beings. The women have been ordered to take off their clothes and then raped. The men have been searched, tortured and then left to die miserably.

We naturally condemn such barbarism. Imagine, within a week since the safe zone of Srebrenica fell to the Bosnian Serbs, 19,000 civilians have been reported missing.

But we do not, in this brief reflection, want to start a debate on the role of the UN, which now appears so impotent as it helplessly watches massacre upon massacre in the former Yugoslavia.

Furthermore, the fact that most of the victims are Moslems must be seen as a coincidence. In principle we condemn torture, murder, ethnic cleansing or any other human rights abuse. But it is irrelevant to us whether those acts are committed by non- Moslems against Moslems or vice-versa. We believe that God would not have given the world any religions if that only would cause mankind to kill each other.

Notwithstanding this inability to stop the barbarism in Bosnia-Herzegovina, there is a lesson we can learn from that area. In this territory called Indonesia, hundreds of ethnic groups flourish and more than one religion exists. Strain can easily come from such diversity. While we pray that the bloodshed may soon end in the Balkans, we hope we will forever be spared such a tragedy.

-- Republika, Jakarta