The following is the text of an address presented by Bosnia Action Coalition co-founder Andras Riedlmayer at the Charity Dinner to benefit the Community of Bosnia Foundation, which is working to help rebuild Bosnian cultural institutions devastated after years of attacks by nationalist extremists. The event was held at La Canelle Rouge, Domaine Les Pailles in Mauritius on 7 March 1997, under the patronage of the president of the republic. Other guests included the country's minister of justice and human rights, the U.S. ambassador to Mauritius, members of Amnesty International, educators, and civic and religious dignitaries. It was sponsored by Comite pour la Bosnie.

Your Excellency Mr President, Mr Minister, Mr Ambassador, Dr Koenig, ladies and gentlemen. Good evening, and thank you for your warm welcome and for your kind words.

I feel honored and delighted to have the chance to visit your beautiful country and the opportunity to speak to you tonight.

I would like to begin by expressing my gratitude and appreciation to the members of the Comite pour la Bosnie and to all those whose hard work, generosity and vision have helped make this evening's event possible.

What brings us together tonight is our concern for Bosnia, a distant place that few people had heard of before the tragic events of the past five years.

Like Mauritius, Bosnia is a small country, distinguished by its great natural beauty. It is also a place where people of different ethnic and religious traditions have together produced a wonderfully rich and complex cultural heritage, and what - until recently - was the region's oldest and most successful example of a functioning civil society.

Bosnia is the one country in Europe where Islam, the Eastern and Western forms of Christianity, and Judaism have all flourished side-by-side over many centuries. In Bosnia's towns and cities, it is a common sight to see the main Friday mosque, the Roman Catholic cathedral, the Eastern Orthodox church and the Jewish synagogue all facing each other on the same street or on the main town square.

The placement of such buildings is not a matter of chance. Choosing a site for architecture is an intentional, thoughtful, political act. People who do not want to live together, who cannot stand the sight of each other, will not build their houses of worship and the monuments of their religious and communal life in the shadows of those of the others.

In fact, the historic centers of Sarajevo, Mostar and other Bosnian cities bear witness to centuries of successful coexistence, with the Islamic minaret, the Catholic campanile and the Orthodox church steeple all reaching up from one skyline.

Like other countries in Europe - and elsewhere in the world - Bosnia has had its share of social and economic conflict and political turmoil. But over the _longue duree_, Bosnians of all religious and ethnic traditions did find ways to live, work and build together.

The hatreds that have torn apart Bosnia in recent years are rather new. They represent a departure from this historic norm, not the inevitable result of ancient history. What has motivated the mayhem and destruction of the last five years is not religion as such, but a political ideology that proclaims - in contradiction to history - that people of different cultures can never live together. This is the same premise that forms the basis of apartheid, fascism and other essentialist ideologies.

Unfortunately, this has become a political disease that has plagued much of the world during our lifetime, and which is threatening to become a world-wide epidemic of cultural and religious intolerance as we stand on the threshold of the 21st century.

To those who are infected by such ideologies, multiculturalism is unthinkable and culture itself is seen as the enemy. The past, with its evidence of successful coexistence, becomes a threat that has to be destroyed and obliterated.

This is why in the war against Bosnia, Serb and Croat nationalist extremists have targeted and destroyed cultural landmarks, including:

• close to 1,000 mosques;
• more than 150 Catholic churches and scores of Orthodox churches;
• major libraries, archives and museums;
• schools, colleges and universities;
• historic buildings, family homes and cemeteries.

In communities targeted for what is delicately called "ethnic cleansing," the extremists did not rest content with robbing, raping and expelling the population. Educated members of the targeted group, including doctors, lawyers, educators, civic and religious leaders, were selected out and murdered. The goal of those responsible for this genocide (which is the proper term for this crime) was not only to drive out the targeted community, but also to eliminate the people, the buildings, the books and the documents that could keep the memory of that community alive.

The Community of Bosnia Foundation was formed by a group of American and Bosnian academics and professionals who are determined to fight against the killing of memory. Our goals include:

• support for a multicultural, multireligious and democratic Bosnia-Herzegovina;
• support for the education and training of Bosnian students and scholars;
• preservation of Bosnia's endangered cultural heritage, and support for the rebuilding of libraries and cultural institutions;
• documentation of war crimes, incl. those involving attacks on cultural patrimony;
• support for grass-roots efforts to maintain the bonds of community among Bosnian refugees;
• opposition to ethno-nationalist and religious extremism.
  

Our efforts have already achieved some positive results. The first group of Bosnian students we helped place at American schools and universities is now returning to Bosnia to take part in rebuilding their country. More students are arriving to take their places.

Our work to preserve Bosnia's cultural heritage and to make it better known outside of Bosnia is also making progress. The Foundation is helping to sponsor books, articles, art exhibits, lectures, educational videos and Internet sites devoted to Bosnia's multicultural heritage. Several of the Foundation's directors (including myself), are involved in projects of help rebuild and restock Bosnia's devastated libraries through donations of books and journals by North American publishers and learned societies. We're also working on a long-term project to locate and recover copies of unique manuscripts and historical documents the originals of which were destroyed by extremists during the war.

Such efforts to promote education and culture in the aftermath of the war are crucial to help prevent a repetition of the horrors of the past five years in Bosnia.

Extremism feeds on ignorance, on slanderous myths and propaganda. That is why extremists seek to destroy education and culture. During the darkest days of the siege of Sarajevo, Bosnia's vice-premier Mr Ejup Ganic was asked by a foreign reporter how Bosnians would revenge themselves for what had been done to them. His reply was: "We will build schools. We will build libraries. And we will be something that is good. That will be our revenge."

That is a goal we support, and in this we ask for your help.

There is, however, also a second requirement for a lasting peace in Bosnia, and that is justice. On 4 April 1995, I was one of four witnesses called before the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe of the U.S. Congress to provide expert testimony on genocide in Bosnia. The lead witness was Dr Cherif Bassiouni, professor of international law at De Paul University in Chicago and from 1992 to 1994 head of the U.N. Commission of Experts gathering evidence on war crimes in the former Yugoslavia.

Professor Bassiouni's words bear repeating: "There can be no peace without justice, and there can be no justice without truth being established first ... victims want recognition of their victimization." This, in turn, cannot happen unless those responsible are apprehended and brought to trial. This elementary requirement for justice has been undermined by the Western powers' continued unwillingness to arrest indicted war criminals, even when NATO troops encounter them on a daily basis in Bosnia. As an American, I call upon my government to take action now to carry out its obligation under international law and to provide meaningful support for the work of the U.N. War Crimes Tribunal. I know we can do better, provided there is the political will to back brave words and rhetoric with real action.

As citizens of Mauritius, you in turn are free to call upon your government to use its voice in the United Nations to press for the immediate arrest of war criminals and to continue to support the work of the U.N. War Crimes Tribunal.

The President of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Dr Alija Izetbegovic, declared in a newspaper interview on 26 September 1996: "If genocide without punishment is possible, then Bosnia and Herzegovina is not possible."

By supporting the efforts of the Community of Bosnia Foundation and by demanding justice, we declare our own belief that Bosnia-Herzegovina, and multicultural, democratic societies everywhere, are not only possible but a necessity.

Thank you!

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