OPEN LETTER TO ALIJA IZETBEGOVIC

Dear Mr. Izetbegovic

A good friend told me that writing to you is a lot like beating a dead horse; nothing will change. But somehow I feel that miracles could happen and if one believes in miracles, then it just might be possible that you could still turn around and do the " right thing."

Even before the war in Bosnia started, you stopped showing any interest in seeing that B&H remains as one united country. You made excuses, you blamed everyone else, but you are the main reason that Bosnia doesn't exist any longer. If you had shown true leadership from the very beginning and if you "stuck to your guns" and never abandoned the idea of a united Bosnia, the world would have no choice but to back you up. You jumped at every opportunity to help the Serbs in creating their own state in Bosni a. You signed every pice of paper placed in front of you, you went anywhere in the word in order to accommodate the Serbs. You created the Serbian monsters known as Mladic and Karadzic. How could you have agreed to sit at the same table with people who killed more than ten percent of your people? How could you forgive the same butchers who have been slaughtering Bosnian Muslims so many times in the past, and are ready to do it again and again?

What drove you to betray your own people? Was it the love of the Serbs or just plain grab for power? You made so many unforgivable mistakes, both political and military that it would take pages to name them all. But just think of the 8,000 Bosnjaks sla ughtered in Srebrenica while you did nothing to save them. Unfortunately, there were hundreds of Srebrenica's in B&H that you betrayed and abandoned. When you signed the Dayton surrender, you confirmed the worst suspicion that many of us had of you.

And now you are getting ready to force your own people to reaffirm your betrayal of B&H by asking them to vote in the next "referendum." Have you no shame? You know well that by voting that day, you are asking your people to forgive the worst butchers t hey ever had to suffer under and to make it worse, your are rewarding these same butchers by letting them keep half of Bosnia. You obviously don't care what the history will say about you. Not only were you the first and the last president B&H ever head , you are possibly the only leader (of any country) in history who betrayed his own people, country, constitution and his oath of office. No one will ever know for certain why you did it, but as more and more Bosnians find out that you sold them out to t he Serbs, the history will not speak kindly of you.

If you were to become the man that B&H needs today, you would annul the Dayton surrender and insist on one, reunited state that the international community has recognized already. You have all the moral and legal rights to annul the agreement since the S erbs didn't keep their part of the bargain. As you well know, if in a contract that has been signed anyone unilaterally makes any changes, the contract is null and void. Try to recover some of your dignity and do what you should have done in the first place; insist on a united B&H, cancel the elections.

Stjepan Balog
Member of the Bosnian Congress - USA
Warren, Michigan