Intelligentsia fears

The rector of Sarajevo University, Faruk Seleskevic, has made an urgent appeal to the international scientific community to warn governments against the deteriorating situation in Bosnia-Hercegovina.

Professor Seleskevic says that the failure of the international community to prevent crimes against humanity in the region has "given a forceful impulse to evil which will not remain isolated to one part of Europe only".

In what he calls a "war of fascism against democracy, primitivism against civilization, and the evil against the good", Professor Seleskevic maintains that Serbian aggression is aimed at the destruction of a "multicultural, multinational and multiconfessional community of nations living in concord in this region and which has existed for more than one thousand years".

Professor Seleskevic calls on professors and students to "raise their voices more forcefully in order to influence politicians and governments, warning them of the tragedy and brutal violations of elementary human rights in Bosnia- Hercegovina".

Professor Seleskevic's view that the destruction of a multicultural society is a strategic aim of Bosnian Serb aggression has been corroborated by Wolfgang Benedek, professor of international law at Graz University and head of World University Service Austria.

Professor Benedek says that one of the major elements of the policy of ethnic cleansing has been to destroy the Muslim intelligentsia.

He warned: "Frequent bombardments of Sarajevo University are anything but coincidental strikes.

"Teachers have been killed or forced to leave in many places, and those who are carrying on with their work are becoming increasingly apprehensive about their future after the war.

"There is a very real threat of the Bosnian intelligentsia bleeding to death."