The capture of the Serbian war criminal Radovan Karadzic brought to mind this passage from a 2003 National Review essay on military chaplains I wrote:
The shooting had long since stopped by the time Richard Kent arrived for his tour of peacekeeping duty in Bosnia. But what the American soldier saw in an abandoned warehouse in a village called Kravica still haunts his dreams.Eight years before Kent's arrival, Serbian forces crammed a thousand Bosnian Muslim men into the warehouse, where, according to the United Nations' official report, they were "killed by small arms fire and grenades. Visiting the Kravica warehouse several months later, United Nations personnel were able to see hair, blood and human tissue caked to the inside walls of this building." By the time Kent and his fellow soldiers saw the building, it was being used to store tractors and manure. The only sign of the barn's past was a black mold covering the walls, feeding off the rotting human flesh and blood embedded in its crevices.
Kent went to Bosnia a devout Catholic, but nothing they taught him in catechism class back in Michigan prepared him for that moldy barn in Kravica. "When evil of this magnitude is encountered, simple piety is not enough," Kent says today, from his home in northern Virginia. "Why does a God who has protected me, a soldier, through dangers large and small -- where was He when the men murdered in this warehouse screamed for His mercy? Why has He allowed genocide?"
I do not believe that the Bosnian Serbs, who were led by Karadzic, were uniquely evil. What they did had been done before to them, by Croats and others (in his excellent book "The Miracle Detective," Randall Sullivan writes at length about how the people of the Bosnian Catholic village of Medjugorje went out of their way to ignore the nearby site where fellow ethnic Croats had massacred Serbs in the last war). In the 1990s, like many (most?) Americans, I saw the Serbs as particularly evil, because it was they who were shelling Sarajevo, and committing these massacres.
The truth, historically and otherwise, is more complicated, and it's true that you hear far more about Serbian atrocities in the Balkans today than those committed by Kosovar Albanians against the Serbs. That's unjust. And yet, the fact remains that Radovan Karadzic is an evil man who should be made to answer for the massacres he led.
Is there a place on earth whose terrible history is more illustrative than the Balkans of the profound wisdom in Christ's command to love our enemies? Interestingly, during the height of the war in Bosnia, the Virgin Mary, allegedly appearing to Bosnian Catholic youngsters in Medjugorje, told them God loves the Serbian Orthodox and the Bosniac Muslims too. Which is obviously true, from a Christian perspective, but how radical was that message in a time of war and persecution?
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"But in the East among Byzantine Emperors, who were Christian, war continued strictly in accordance with the ancient barbaric tradition. Basil, the Bulgar-Slayer,put out the eyes of 15,00 prisoners..." The Roots of Violence Fr. Miceli page.183
"As Europe developed its national states, it gradually established a humane code of waging war.......The fundamental principle of this code was that hostilities between civilized peoples must be limited to the armed forces actually engaged." The Roots of Violence Fr. Miceli page 184
The real problem is not religion or God Who permits or does not permit certain events, but us. Tony Snow who recently died of cancer reminded us of an important point. We have a fallen nature and because of this, we constantly demontrate it through our actions. God created us to love Him first and love our neighbours as we do ourselves. Unfortunately, many people forget these important commandments.
Truthfully, some tend to blame God for atrocities that humans commit against each other. It is not His fault, but rather the fallen nature of man, who at times succumb to evil tendencies. We have free will, a choice to do good or evil. If man chooses evil it is his fault and not God's.
I find it very un Christlike to brand a whole nation as evil because of the actions of a few wicked & militiaristic men.Karadjic & Mladic orchestrated terrible massacres. The Serbian people are not all like that. Not all Germans committed war crimes in WW11. Only those who had a propensity to disregard the Word and teaching that Christ left with us. Atrocities were committed against Serbian civilians in Bosnia at the start of the war, and throughout the duration of the war. I was in Serbia for a short time at the start of the war. War is a tool for evil, and brings out the worst in the best of people, regardless of ethnicity or religion. We should all try to educate each other in tolerance, acceptance, love of our fellow humans, and above all, love of God and His Way, as taught by Our Lord, Jesus Christ.
For me, one of the most difficult things to understand is how completely PERSONAL God is with each of his individual children. WE look at events such as these as group things, with each soul's motivation the same as the others' involved--at least on each "side"-- but our Lord is dealing with each one in a directly personal way, knowing how and why each was in that situation, why each acted as he did, dealing with it because of their own life's experience. That is why we are not to judge others, I believe, as we cannot possibly have such knowledge--though we can and must the actions that take place. It is all beyond our understanding but we must learn never to condemn a "group"--a nation, ethnic group, religion, etc. as a whole since they are made up of individuals, each of whom has his own soul and story. Noreen said above that war... brings out the worst in the best of people. True but it also brings out the best in some. We must remember that our blessed Lord knows each of us to the core, continues to love us and offer His mercy until our last breath--and if Saint Faustina is correct, even after that breath. God be with us all in these times amd enable us to "give bread and joy" to others, as the old grace before meals used to say.
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