For the past month, irregular Serbian forces, with the help of the Yugoslav army and airforce, have been tightening their grip on the Bosnian capital Sarajevo. The siege of the city is winding up to its inevitable climax - the final defeat of the Bosnian defenders, and the slaughter of many of the 20,000 innocent civilians trapped in the city.
The pillage and destruction of Bosnia is a slow-motion replay of the Serbian assault on Croatia; an attempt to seize as much territory as possible before the frontiers of the new Yugoslavia are drawn.
Civilians
The attack on Croatia concluded with the bloody mayhem in Vukovar, which fell after months of siege. Now the same fate awaits the civilian population in Sarajevo.
What is being played out is the last stage of the destruction of the old Yugoslavia and the creation of a new, highly unstable, state system in the area The new Yugoslavia is based on Serbia and Montenegro. Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic is making sure that to this core area is added as much of Croatia and Bosnia as possible.
The bloodletting has provoked much outrage in the West about the evils of nationalism, and even talk of a 'Lebonisation' of Yugoslavia. But the conflict is not the result of irrational communalism or nationalism on all sides; it is a result of the very deliberate policies of the Milosevic leadership in Belgrade.
Crisis
As the Yugoslav economic crisis got worse in the 1980s, and conflicts between the different republics mounted, Milosevic played the nationalist card to keep his grip on power in Serbia. His first victims were the Serbian-led Federal troops - now tightening the screw on Sarajevo ethnic-Albanian population of Kosovo, brutally repressed in 1988 and 1989.
The attack on the people of Kosovo prepared the way for the later attacks on Slovenia and Croatia. In the subsequent war it is true that there were right-wing nationalist forces and atrocities on both sides.
Nationalism
But the responsibility for the conflict lies with Milosevic, and the Serbian ex-Communist politicians and generals who capitulated to his nationalist policies. And the overwhelming weight of the destruction and slaughter is down to the Serbian militias and Serbian-led army.
The fate of Bosnia is a particular tragedy because of the multi-ethnic nake-up of the province, with Muslim, Croatian and Serbian popula tions living in harmony throughout the post-war period. That gain has been destroyed by the Milosevic forces.
The people of Sarajevo are not going to be saved by the United Nations or Gorge Bush's 'new world order'. Bosnia, unlike Kuwait, doesn't have oil or big bank accounts in London and New York Without voices being raised in protest from the otuside, the fate of the people of Sarajevo is already sealed. Printed by Tricant Press, Edenbridge, Kent. Published by Idolkare Ltd. PO Box 1109, London N/ 2UU