Date: September 29, 1994
Author: Valentina Krčmar, Thornhill, Ontario
Addressed to: Letters to the Editor, The Toronto Star
View the Original Letter: krcmar book 3_Part3_Part5.pdf
About This Letter
In this searing letter dated September 29, 1994, Valentina Krčmar responds to The Toronto Star article “Arguing for Bosnian Embargo” (September 28, 1994), which discusses Lord David Owen’s opposition to lifting the international arms embargo on Bosnia. Her tone is unflinching and deeply moral — a mixture of outrage, disbelief, and bitter irony aimed at the hypocrisy of those profiting from peace negotiations.
Krčmar opens with condemnation of both the article’s argument and its subject:
“It is shocking to read such a callous article, but more shocking is the fact that this same Lord D. Owen is paid about $700,000 for his ‘mediation’ in Croatia and Bosnia.”
Her accusation is direct: Lord Owen’s motives, she implies, are not humanitarian but financial. The staggering sum he received, she writes, stands in grotesque contrast to the unimaginable human cost of war.
“He probably does not want to lose this fantastic sum of money, so no lifting the embargo.”
Krčmar then drives her point home with devastating arithmetic, turning moral outrage into cold calculation.
“If we know that over 200,000 people are dead or missing, over 1,000,000 ethnically cleansed, over 50,000 raped, and God knows how many wounded, widowed, or orphaned — it looks as if he received approximately a dollar for each victim in these last two and a half years.”
Her rhetorical question — “And he is a mediator?” — lands as a final, withering blow. It exposes the moral corruption of diplomacy that allows profit and power to outweigh justice and compassion.
Through this short but powerful letter, Krčmar transforms anger into indictment. Her words crystallize the moral bankruptcy of the international response to Bosnia’s suffering — a world that paid handsomely for “mediation” while refusing to act against genocide.
