Date: February 8, 1996
Author: Valentina Krčmar, Thornhill, Ontario
Addressed to: Letters to the Editor, The Toronto Sun
View the Original Letter: krcmar book 3_Part4_Part71.pdf
About This Letter
In this letter dated February 8, 1996, Valentina Krčmar responds to journalist Eric Margolis’s article “Bad News for War Criminals” in The Toronto Sun. Her tone is a mix of gratitude and righteous anger — appreciation for Margolis’s moral clarity, and fury toward those who, like General Lewis MacKenzie, she believed betrayed the ideals of peacekeeping through moral blindness.
Krčmar begins with a brief but heartfelt acknowledgment of Margolis’s courage:
“Thanks, Mr. Margolis, for one more up-to-the-point article about the horror in the Balkans.”
She then pivots sharply, naming General Lewis MacKenzie, the Canadian peacekeeper whose controversial statements and perceived sympathy toward Serbian positions had drawn public outrage.
“Perhaps one more name should be added to those that are ‘walking or nervous’ about the situation in Bosnia… our famous ret. General Lewis MacKenzie.”
Her accusation is precise and devastating. Drawing on reports from the time, she claims that MacKenzie — like certain British and French officials — turned a blind eye to atrocities committed by Serbian forces near Sarajevo airport, just steps away from the Canadian base.
“He, just as British and French, did not see the cruelties which took place in the Serbian camp about a few hundred metres away from the Canadian camp at the Sarajevo airport, and later on even facilitated the Serbs in their viciousness by trying and succeeding in equaling the victims and the torturers.”
Quoting Margolis’s own commentary, she drives home the bitter irony of MacKenzie’s role as a peacekeeper:
“No wonder that your own Mr. Margolis said that he was worth to the Serbs five divisions.”
Krčmar’s indignation deepens as she poses a haunting question — one that turns her critique of an individual into an indictment of national conscience:
“Now, when the dead are literally coming out of the many mass graves all over Bosnia, what is Canada going to do about our ‘hero,’ ret. Gen. L. MacKenzie? Shouldn’t his role in the Balkans at least be investigated?”
Her letter ends with a chilling reflection on how propaganda, when cloaked in neutrality, becomes complicity.
“He — a peacekeeper? — was used by the Serbs to propagate lies, half-truths, and innuendoes about the victims and their torturers.”
Krčmar’s closing line is brief but deeply sincere — a note of gratitude for Margolis’s rare courage among journalists who, she implies, often failed to confront the truth:
“Thanks, Mr. Margolis. You are one in a million.”
This letter stands as one of Krčmar’s most fearless public condemnations. It not only calls out moral failure at the highest levels of military leadership but also reaffirms her lifelong conviction: that neutrality in the face of evil is not peacekeeping — it is betrayal.
