May 2001 Vol.4, No. 4

Contents Doctor's Firsthand Account of South African AIDS Crisis   by Cecil E. Maranville French Intellectuals See Germany as Potential Threat    by Joel Meeker Reversal of Fortune for Two African Nations    by Melvin Rhodes To Tell the Truth    by Darris McNeely In Brief...World News Review    by Cecil E. Maranville, Ken Martin and Darris McNeely This is the Way...What's on the Front Page of Your Mind?    by Robin Webber To Tell the Truth It isn't easy to face the ugly truth about one's past actions. It's even harder for an entire nation to come to grips with a collective guilt. But if there is ever to be hope that the past is not repeated, then everyone must look at the facts and learn to tell the truth. by Darris McNeely In the movie A Few Good Men the Tom Cruise character demanded, "I want the truth!" The Jack Nicholson character then screamed in reply, "You can't handle the truth!" The whole truth and nothing but the truth can indeed be hard to handle. Sometimes a nation of people must acknowledge a difficult truth about their past before they can move on to tomorrow. It's difficult for the Serbian people in Yugoslavia to come to terms with the truth of the atrocities committed in their name during the ethnic wars of the 1990s. Since the arrest last month of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, there is increased discussion of what really happened during the years of his government. Current president Vojislav Kostunica has established a Truth and Reconciliation Committee to examine and bring to light all the war crimes of the period. It is still unclear how effective this effort will be at overcoming the strong nationalistic feelings among the Serbs. Those feelings were shrewdly manipulated and will be difficult to alter. Srebrenica In the summer of 1995, in the predominantly Muslim Bosnian town of Srebrenica, a staggering atrocity occurred. When Serbian forces captured the town, they gathered thousands of men of military age and brutally slaughtered them. Called "the worst case of genocide in Europe since World War II," more than 7,000 males were rounded up and murdered during a five-day period. The Western press has chronicled the fact of this slaughter extensively. After a wide-ranging investigation, including indictments by an international tribunal, a United Nations report confirmed the atrocity. "After Srebrenica fell to besieging Serbian forces in July 1995, a truly terrible massacre of the Muslim population appears to have taken place. The evidence tendered by the Prosecutor describes scenes of unimaginable savagery: thousands of men executed and buried in mass graves, hundreds of men buried alive, men and women mutilated and slaughtered, children killed before their mothers' eyes, a grandfather forced to eat the liver of his own grandson. These are truly scenes from hell, written on the darkest pages of human history" (Report of the Secretary-General pursuant to General Assembly resolution 53/35: The fall of Srebrenica). And yet, a majority of Serbs, including many who live in the United States, continue to deny the severity of this tragedy. Recently, this author watched an American journalist receive calls during a session of a popular cable news program. The journalist had written extensively about the Srebrenica atrocity and received several calls from Americans of Serbian descent who strongly disavowed the truth of Srebrenica. Nationalistic feelings run deep within peoples who view themselves as historically pushed aside or ignored by world opinion. A new foundation For the Serbs to accept personal and collective responsibility for this and other atrocities during the Balkan wars will take a long time. A generation may not be enough. The recent arrest of Milosevic does not guarantee a national awakening to its collective responsibility. A recent survey of Serbs revealed that 18 percent of those polled felt Milosevic's biggest crime was the loss of Serbian lands in Kosovo and Croatia. Just 11 percent felt he should be sent to the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague. While 20 percent said he doesn't belong in prison at all, 59 percent said he should be put on trial in Belgrade, the Yugoslav and Serbian capital. About 40 percent said his worst crime was abuse of office, the charge for which he was arrested, including allegations of corruption ("Serbs Face Their Past, Dose of Truth at a Time," Los Angeles Times, April 17, 2001). Among the Serbs, there is an effort to expose the truth and reeducate people about the war crimes committed in their name. It isn't easy. Last fall an independent Yugoslavian television station started a prime-time weekly series that examines the history of the recent wars of Milosevic. The goal is to provoke a wider debate "so that people feel this needs to be cleared up," said Veran Matic, the network's editor in chief. "We will try to tell people there is a lot of evil that should be disclosed, that things shouldn't be reduced just to questions of financial corruption. We have to prove that the foundations themselves, the reasons to start these wars, were not right" (ibid.). From whence come wars? Nationalism, hatred and xenophobia form the basis for much of the strife in today's world. In countries like Northern Ireland, the Middle East and the Congo, the historic chords of national and ethnic pride fuel conflicts which seem to defy solution. Memories are long and unforgiving when people hold their point of view to be the only true perspective. When Christ spoke of the end time with its "wars and rumors of wars" and nations (ethnos, Greek) rising and fighting against one another (Matthew 24:6-7), He was addressing a problem of a people not willing to hear truth and look deep within themselves to acknowledge the sin of pride and lust which fuels continuing acts of murder and war (James 4:1-2). In John 8:32, Jesus Christ said, "the truth shall make you free." The challenge for the people of Serbia is to acknowledge the truth of their recent past. Only then can they begin the long march toward true freedom. Their challenge is to throw open the windows and let the light of their true history stream into their collective conscience. It will be difficult, but not impossible. The Serbs are no better or worse than any other people. As a young student put it, "We are normal and healthy and good people, like all other people, and among us are some who are bad, rotten, evil, sick, as much as any other nation" (ibid.). It will be difficult for some of these people to acknowledge the unsavory truth about their nation's sins. But their fellow citizens, their neighbors, and the entire world, await that kind of rare, but godly change of heart. The truth is indeed hard to handle. wnp

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