Date: February 12, 1996
Author: Valentina Krčmar, Thornhill, Ontario
Addressed to: Letters to the Editor, The European
View the Original Letter: krcmar book 3_Part4_Part157.pdf
About This Letter
In this letter dated February 12, 1996, Valentina Krčmar responds to The European’s article “I Can’t Bomb the People of Bosnia into Friendship” (February 5–11, 1996). Written shortly after the Dayton Peace Agreement, her words convey disillusionment and moral clarity, cutting through the political rhetoric that celebrated the accord as a triumph of diplomacy.
Krčmar takes direct aim at Carl Bildt, the European Union’s Special Envoy to the Former Yugoslavia, whose efforts at postwar reconciliation she views as dangerously naïve and morally confused.
“It is no wonder that Mr. Bildt has no success in completing his task given to him by the world when he is so ambiguous about the people of Bosnia.”
She accuses Bildt — and by extension, the international community — of moral blindness, unable or unwilling to distinguish between victims and aggressors. Her tone is both incredulous and furious at this false equivalence.
“He obviously forgets or conveniently does not remember those who suffered and are certainly reluctant to make any move. Who in his right mind would expect a victim to live peacefully next to the one who killed his child or raped his wife?”
With this single, searing question, Krčmar exposes the emotional and ethical impossibility of forced reconciliation. Her point is not political but profoundly human: peace cannot be built atop unacknowledged grief.
She warns that the Dayton Agreement, hailed as a diplomatic success, risks becoming a moral failure if it does not uphold truth and justice.
“If the Dayton Agreement and those who are in charge of enforcing it do not recognize who the victims are and who are the aggressors — and behave accordingly — there will never be peace in Bosnia.”
This letter distills Krčmar’s worldview into its purest form: compassion rooted in justice, and peace inseparable from moral accountability. In just a few sentences, she dismantles the illusion of “neutrality” that had long defined the West’s approach to the Yugoslav conflict.
Her message remains timeless — a warning that reconciliation without recognition is not peace, but denial.
