Date: November 28, 1995
Author: Valentina Krčmar, Thornhill, Ontario
Addressed to: Letters to the Editor, The Toronto Star
View the Original Letter: krcmar book 3_Part3_Part48.pdf
About This Letter
In this letter dated November 28, 1995, Valentina Krčmar writes with profound indignation at the sight of Slobodan Milošević — the architect of ethnic cleansing and mass killing — being welcomed as a diplomat at the Dayton Peace Talks. Her tone is both mournful and blistering, exposing the grotesque moral inversion of allowing a war criminal to shape the peace of a region he destroyed.
Krčmar begins with an incredulous reflection:
“History will hardly believe that a person who orchestrated the horrors in the Balkans, and who was one of the main decision-makers responsible for the carnage, was invited to sit at the Dayton talks.”
She contrasts the pomp of diplomatic negotiation with the unimaginable suffering endured by ordinary people in Croatia and Bosnia, whose lives were reduced to ashes by Milošević’s campaign of aggression. For them, peace did not come through conference tables or signatures — it came too late.
“The world will hardly believe that those who created this nightmare were called ‘peacemakers,’ while hundreds of thousands of innocents lie buried, their bodies torn by bombs, their homes and futures annihilated.”
Her disgust extends to the Western leaders who shook Milošević’s hand, equating their political convenience with moral bankruptcy.
“The same world that once said ‘Never again’ now welcomes the man responsible for Vukovar, Srebrenica, and countless other horrors. How quickly we forget who the victims are.”
She observes with biting irony that the very nations responsible for appeasement now celebrated themselves as architects of peace — a peace that, in her eyes, merely froze injustice into permanence.
“The ink on the Dayton agreement is not yet dry, and the victims’ graves are still open. Yet the world congratulates itself on ‘peacekeeping efforts.’”
Krčmar ends her letter with a note of haunting reflection. She imagines the dead — the women, children, and soldiers whose lives were extinguished — watching from beyond as their tormentor is rewarded with diplomacy and applause.
“I wonder if those who perished in Bosnia and Croatia can rest easily, knowing that their murderer was hailed as a man of peace.”
Through this letter, Krčmar articulates a moral outrage that transcends politics. Her words stand as a witness statement — not only against Milošević but against the world’s willingness to embrace peace without justice.
