The Destiny of Sarajevo

SARAJEVO’S RECENT TRAGEDY began in 1991. A wave of murderous violence and hostility sweeps over former Yugoslavia, now shattered. Democracy was not successful in establishing cooperation among its varied and hostile ethnic groups. On the contrary, all it did was release repressed antagonisms. A bewildering fact: Under Tito the various communities had lived peacefully side-by-side. Could dictatorship, when it is marketed “with a human face,” be more beneficial than democracy? With respect to Yugoslavia one might well think so, but I don’t believe it; nothing can and nothing should be substituted for a government based on freedom.

Once again bombs are falling on cities, civilians are assassinated, children are massacred. Will it never stop? Will the twentieth century be nothing but a bloodstained itinerary leading from Sarajevo to Sarajevo?

Dubrovnik is buried in ruins. Other cities follow. Homes are abandoned, families uprooted, haggard mothers and exhausted old men are in full flight, driven by an ancestral terror.

God in heaven, what is there to be done?

Most Americans don’t even know where some of these places are. Bosnia? Whom does it belong to? And the Krajina, where is it? Other unfamiliar names flood the news: Banja Luka, Srebrenica, Tuzla. The geography lessons we are learning are tragic.

Ministers and diplomats now say with regret that they should never have recognized these states. I hear it at the Élysée, and it is confirmed at the White House. Everyone I speak to blames Helmut Kohl, the German chancellor, the first to recognize Croatia’s independence. And it was he who immediately afterward exercised unrelenting pressure on his Western allies to support his policy.

But Bosnia is far from our concerns, too far for most people to pause over its fate. Go there? How? On whose behalf and to do what? So there is Bosnia, abandoned, betrayed, removed from our preoccupations. Later, in August 1995, Croat Serbia shares the same fate.

And time is passing.

I feel guilty that since 1988 we have not been able to overcome the financial difficulties and create an association of Nobel laureates. It could have intervened in Bosnia, sounded the alarm, saved some children, helped their mothers. We could have given the victims human and moral support and testified on their behalf.

And time is passing.

My personal involvement dates from July 1992, when I receive a call from Israel Singer and Elan Steinberg, directors of the World Jewish Congress. They show me a letter from Dobrica Cosic, president of the Federal Yugoslav Republic. Evidently he had written to Boutros Boutros-Ghali, secretary-general of the U.N., asking him to appoint me to head an international commission to investigate the situation in prison camps for Bosnians in Serbia.

The world media are talking about these camps. The televised images arouse indignation everywhere. Systematic humiliations, rapes, arbitrary arrests, deportations, summary executions—all are part of a policy of “ethnic cleansing.” Everybody is accusing the Serbs. Some people do not hesitate to use the words “concentration camps,” “genocide,” and even … “Auschwitz.” I do not. I have never wavered in my affirmation that Auschwitz is unique and will remain so.

What could be achieved there by a single individual, one who has no power and represents no one but himself? Nonetheless, does one have the right to remain neutral, to stay on the sidelines, to keep silent?

After several conversations with State Department and U.N. officials (Boutros-Ghali claims not to have received the Yugoslav president’s letter), Singer, Steinberg, and I decide to fly to London to meet President Cosic and other leaders of the former Yugoslavia, who are there to take part in an international conference. They are Slobodan Milosevic (Serbia), Radovan Karadjic (Serbian Bosnia), Alija Izetbegovic (Bosnia), and Franjo Tudjman (Croatia), the last an author of an anti-Semitic work denying the Holocaust. For obvious reasons I do not wish to meet Tudjman; he will be excluded from the list.

The four leaders insist that we travel to their countries. We demand guarantees and total freedom of movement and action. We must be able to go anywhere and meet anyone at any time. And what about the camps? Cosic, Milosevic, and Karadjic protest vehemently. They all blame the media. So then, there were no atrocities, no rapes? Oh well, here and there a few unfortunate incidents, that’s all. As we don’t bother to hide our skepticism, Cosic summons Karadjic and appeals to him in our presence to shut down all the camps on his territory in “our honor.” Karadjic commits to do this. In writing. I have his signed letter. Why not announce it officially at the conference? Fine, they’ll do it.

Of them all, Cosic seems to me the most open, the most understanding, the most human. A seventy-three-year-old novelist, he impresses me favorably. As usual, am I too gullible? I tell myself that if the reports of Serbian atrocities are true, he may not be to blame. The crimes may be perpetrated behind his back.

His opponents send me pamphlets and articles to prove his share of responsibility for the “ethnic cleansing.” His friends provide me with the same kind of documents on Alija Izetbegovic and his project for a Greater Islamic Republic in former Yugoslavia. The people in charge of propaganda of every kind are not sitting on their hands.

Meanwhile the violence continues to rage in the Balkans. And what about Cosic’s promise and Karadjic’s commitment? Null and void, as they say. In November, Ted Koppel of ABC’s Nightline devotes two programs to the Balkans. David Marash’s report is gripping, full of harrowing images, heartrending testimonies. Invited by Koppel to comment on them, I speak of the horror the images arouse and the feelings of helplessness I experience. I plead for a summit meeting in Sarajevo.

That is when I decide to go there.

My principal fear is that of being manipulated by one side or another. I must at all costs avoid being turned into a propaganda instrument. Cosic conveys his assurances in that regard. I refuse all dinners, cocktail parties, receptions. I am not coming to savor the undoubtedly delicious specialties of Yugoslav cuisine, but to see the prisoners, speak to the victims. Belgrade agrees to my terms. Am I right to trust Cosic? For all practical purposes, he is my host. He is the one who sends four airplanes to Geneva to take me and my delegation to Belgrade. The group includes a number of our foundation members as well as several journalists: Abe Rosenthal, Marc Kravetz, David Marash, and others. (An Italian journalist has joined us. His pro-Serb sympathies render him suspect to certain correspondents based in Belgrade, where, I was told later, he falsely claimed to be my representative.)

Immediately upon landing I make clear to the local press that no one will take advantage of this visit. We have come with the sole object of uncovering the facts and making them known. At the president’s palace there is another press conference with Cosic. I repeat our demand that our visit not be used for propaganda purposes. Cosic says: “All we want is for you to know the truth.”

He takes me by the arm, and I think he is going to accompany me to the door. Wrong. He leads me to a sumptuous dining room where a huge banquet has been laid out. I find it difficult to restrain my frustration and anger. From the very beginning, I had asked specifically that the program not include any lunches, dinners, receptions, or cocktail parties without which, evidently, diplomatic life would founder. But I am not a diplomat. I sit down across from the president and ask for the floor, not to propose a toast but to make a short statement: “I am a Jew, and this is Friday evening; my place is not here but in the synagogue….” I stand up, shake a few hands, and leave, followed by the whole delegation.

The synagogue, destroyed during the Occupation and recently restored, has few members. Many have left for Israel; the community is disintegrating. The Chief Rabbi, a frail and sad old man, officiates in a low voice. He reminds me of the frightened rabbi I met in Moscow in the sixties.

I share a pleasant Shabbat dinner with the congregation. There are prayers, speeches, small talk. And what about the war? People mention it, of course, but in abstract terms. A well-spoken woman, fortyish, says: “You must help us.” Who are “us”? The Jews? “No, us the Serbs; we are reviled, slandered, presented as monsters.” A Jew in Sarajevo tells us: “You should help us.” “Us,” who? The Jews? No. “The Bosnians; we are the martyrs of this era. We are persecuted, we are massacred, and the world refuses to intervene.”

The next day at the U.S. Embassy, the articles that have appeared in the local press are translated for me. I had expected the press to be biased but not so downright mendacious. I am scandalized by the crass manner in which it presents our visit’s main motivation as assisting Federal Yugoslavia, that is, Serbia, in the task of improving its international image. I protest publicly several times.

That’s not all. In spite of our agreement, our program includes a luncheon with the mayor, another with some minister, a reception somewhere else. How can I cancel them all without creating an incident? But I do cancel them; never mind the susceptibilities of the high officials in charge of public affairs.

There is another, more serious source of friction: I am told how complicated, difficult, and dangerous it would be to go to Sarajevo and visit the prison camps. We are told again and again that we shall have to obtain all sorts of flight authorizations from the U.N.—a matter of air corridors, security measures. I call General Philippe Morillon in Sarajevo, General Nambier in Zagreb. Hours go by; the tension mounts. We are taken to a local museum showing the atrocities perpetrated by the Croats during the World War II Occupation and very recent ones committed by the Muslims. Our guide shows us a picture of the corpse of a man clubbed to death; a woman in black on my left bursts into tears: his widow. In another photo we see a man stabbed to death; his orphans, behind me, are sobbing. And then there are children, murdered children. The innocence of their death is thrown into our faces as though to mark the death of our own innocence. We are shattered. Perhaps it is meant to condition us, to “explain” to us the reason for certain “excesses” on the Serbian side. To “explain” hate is too easy. By explaining you risk justifying.

Will we finally obtain permission to visit the camps?

There is an atmosphere of duplicity, of delaying tactics. Serbian officials are deliberately dragging their feet. They obviously wish to prevent us from going where we might uncover unpleasant truths. But what about Cosic’s promise granting us total freedom of movement? We send a message to the officials that if we do not take off in the next hour we shall head home. At once all obstacles are removed. Two hours later, we are en route to Banja Luka. Cosic has promised us that he will close the camp we are about to visit.

The notorious Manjaca camp is plunged in darkness. At five in the afternoon, against a background of whitish snow, night has already fallen over the barracks, where three thousand prisoners are locked up. Only the infirmary is lighted.

We see six hundred prone shadows. The camp commander, Bozidar Popovic, bellows orders to make them move. His flashlight lights up their faces. I choose fifteen at random. They follow me to the infirmary. I ask to talk to them alone, far from the eyes and ears of their guards. Earlier I had insisted on a solemn pledge from the commander that there would be no reprisals, even if they complain, even if they say things he won’t like. He gives me his word. The foreign correspondents based in Belgrade tell me this Popovic is a real professional; authoritarian, strict when it comes to discipline, he yells and hollers, but he is not mean. Why is he so forthcoming, so respectful of me? The explanation turns up by accident in the course of our conversation: He has mistaken me for Simon Wiesenthal, whom he admires.

The prisoners tell us that the food is not too bad, the conditions in general bearable. Yes, they suffer from the cold—temperatures can reach 35° Celsius below zero—and from being confined, but on the whole their situation is better than at the beginning. What are their main complaints? To be out of touch with their relatives, their people. To be cut off from the outside world. To live on the sidelines, to feel superfluous. And then the uncertainty, never knowing what the next day will bring.

There is a young German among them. He is blond and thin and stands very straight. He was taken prisoner by the Serbs. Why? How does this war concern him? “Oh, I didn’t come to fight,” he answers, shrugging his shoulders, “but to write a book.” A book about what? “About the war, of course.” And that’s why the Serbs arrested you? “Well, it’s that … they caught me with a Kalashnikov [rifle] in my hand.” I am bewildered: “And it was with a Kalashnikov that you were going to write a book? Have pens gone out of fashion?”

The faces are lifeless, resigned, drained of their vitality. Looking at them, we feel guilty. We are a different species: free. How can we best help them? How can we express our solidarity? In this place “solidarity” is a word that rings empty.

When we leave, we promise not to forget them. For prisoners, it is crucial to know that people at least think of them.

As a result of our visit the camp is shut down; most of the prisoners are freed. But five hundred of them are not handed over to the International Red Cross. They disappear into a “disciplinary” camp. The worst of it is that the group we had spoken with in the infirmary was punished and transferred to an even tougher, even more rigorous camp, Batkovic.

Disappointment, anger, outrage. All these unkept promises. All the broken commitments. And what about Popovic’s word of honor? The men we came to help and encourage are now worse off than before. What kind of humanitarian missions are these if in the end the victims pay the price?

•   •   •

Sarajevo is a city that is tragedy incarnate, among the saddest, most desolate, most devastated cities in the world. I am told that it once was one of the most beautiful and most peaceful.

It looks not unlike Dresden in 1945—ruins and debris, gaping, haunted-looking houses. Here and there you see a man, a woman, a child collecting wood from beneath the snow, their faces closed.

General Morillon welcomes us. His is a professorial, ascetic face. This warrior for peace is the pride of France and of the U.N. His behavior in Srebrenica has won him universal admiration.

He tells me about Sarajevo. Life and terror in Sarajevo. Hunger. Death.

How do its inhabitants live in this besieged city? Even far away from “Sniper Alley” there is a risk of being struck by a stray bullet at any moment. And yet whenever there’s a letup people walk heads high, almost normally, even as their eyes check the ground before them. But they seem to be going nowhere. The schools are closed, as are the stores. “The worst,” we are told, “is that life in Sarajevo seems purposeless. You get up, you go out, you come back, you say something, you answer, and it’s all for nothing.”

At the Victor-Bubanj prison, in the high, narrow, lime-covered cells, we are allowed to see twenty inmates. Standing in a line, heads lowered, humbled, humiliated, they are waiting to be interrogated. Name, age, place of birth, profession—they answer without looking up. Behind us the guards and officials comment on their answers. All of them have been arrested legally, they tell us. All will have their day in court. A “criminal arrested for war crimes and genocide” is pointed out. I recognize him: His picture had been published in the New York Times a few weeks earlier. His name is Borislav Herak. He had confessed to having assassinated thirty-five men and having raped thirteen women, all Muslims. His acts are an abomination, but why call them genocide? (He will be condemned to death and executed.)

President Alija Izetbegovic is our guide in this phantom capital, where visitors circulate only in armored cars. At one point he shows us a small square and says: “It was here that Gavrilo Princip shot Archduke Francis Ferdinand in 1914; it was to be the first bullet of the First World War.” And to think that a third European if not world war may well start in this region….

Whatever else he may be, Izetbegovic is brave. His bodyguards try to restrain his enthusiasm. He walks with us, his face exposed, with inadequate protection, disdainful of the risks. Surely he knows that we make perfect targets for sharpshooters who may hide anywhere. Abe Rosenthal remarks on this, and we hurry back to our cars and continue our guided tour.

Here is the National Library, or what’s left of it. The walls are riddled with holes from bullets and shells. On many floors you see dark traces of a conflagration; the building must have burned for a very long time.

In the drawing room of the presidential residence, a gaunt man with a dark, tormented face turns to me: “I am a writer. It seems you are going to visit someone who pretends also to be a writer. Ask him why he set fire to the beautiful library of Sarajevo.” I promise.

Sitting opposite Radovan Karadjic, master of Serbian Bosnia, I ask him why he burned the library. His face red with indignation, he starts “demonstrating” to me that the accusation is false, an absolute falsehood. It was the Muslims who set it on fire so as to accuse him. I protest: I saw the library just an hour ago. I saw the walls, the traces of artillery fire. Clearly the building was attacked from the outside. Karadjic tells me I understand nothing of such things.

Is Karadjic guilty? Of course. As is his commander in chief, General Ratko Mladic. Does this mean that his opponents, the Bosnians and the Croats, are innocent? In this war the first victim is not only truth but innocence as well. Here no one is innocent. Only some are guiltier than others.

And yet. For at least five centuries Sarajevo was an example of urban coexistence. There was cooperation among its Jews, Christians, and Muslims, a harmony marred by not a single racial, ethnic, or religious incident. What provoked the abrupt change?

Before leaving Belgrade, I visit Cosic as agreed. We spend a few hours together. I summarize what I have seen. I tell him of my negative impressions. I try to convince him to end the policy of terror against the Bosnians. He tries to convince me to accept the principle of ethnic separation: “As a Jew you must understand that certain communities cannot live together. Sooner or later, this will happen in Israel, too.” So what his opponents say about him is true: He is indeed for the expulsion of the Muslims, by whatever means. I try to explain to him that he is wrong about the Jews, that we have coexisted with so many peoples for so many centuries. He counters all my arguments with his own, insisting on the fact that the time has come for us to be realists. Finally I slip him this piece of advice: On the day marking the New Year, when he undoubtedly will address the nation, why not use the opportunity to order the Serbian army to close all the camps? “I would be disobeyed,” he answers. I say: “But at least you will have earned a few lines in the history books. And I don’t think you would be taking much of a chance. No one will dare attack you. You will be the hero of the day. You will be applauded by the whole world. You will have the support of all free men.” He promises me to think it over. He lacked the courage and probably the conviction, for in his speech he said nothing. And anyway, his opponents replaced him. His enemy Milosevic took his place.

The war goes on in that part of the Balkans. The Serbian conquerors of the early days have been conquered in turn. The gods of war turned away and favored the other side. The Croats have gone on the offensive, and the Serbs themselves have become victims. The U.N. can do little. The power of death is supreme.

What I feel is total frustration and helplessness.

Day after day men keep killing each other; night after night men fall. And everywhere it is the children who lose hope. This is how it is, always. Adults make war, and children suffer. What can one do? Intervene? How? With arms? Make war on war? The debate divides America. A few months after my visit to Sarajevo, I am in Washington for the inauguration of the Holocaust Museum. I interrupt my speech, turn to President Clinton, and urge him to do something—anything—to stop the bloodshed over there. He is moved; he tells me so. Because my appeal corresponds to a sense of expectation in the country, it is taken up by the newspapers, quoted on radio, on television. I did not say that I favored a military intervention, but that is how my statement is interpreted. Charles Krauthammer, the Time editorialist, reproaches me for it. A Jew, he says, should not get involved in the Balkan war. According to him, I should not have launched my appeal from the “sacred place” that is the Holocaust Museum. I don’t agree, Mr. Krauthammer. First of all, no museum is sacred. Secondly, when men are dying, when innocent people are subjected to rape and torture, when cities are being transformed into cemeteries, Jews do not have the right to be silent.

In 1992, Secretary of State Larry Eagleburger and I discuss the need to establish an international tribunal to judge crimes against humanity. Who knows but that it may discourage a leader, an officer, a uniformed assassin. For this type of crime there is to be no statutory limitation, no right of asylum. A person accused of crimes against humanity risks arrest anywhere at any time. The State Department favors the idea, but Europe is wallowing in hesitation. Finally there is agreement. We make up a first list. Karadjic and Mladic are on it.

We are now at the beginning of August 1995. “It’s over,” an American journalist tells me. “It’s finished,” a French diplomat chimes in. Nothing more to do. Sarajevo is lost. And so is Bosnia. The sad conclusion is that, as with Czechoslovakia in 1938, the leaders of this world have once again betrayed a nation whose independence had been recognized internationally. For Bosnia, ravaged and martyred, and to the shame of us all, the page will soon be turned.

And yet. We must carry on. All the humanitarian organizations are aware of this. We must not become resigned; the criminals never do.

Let us look around. History evidently learns nothing from its own lessons. The tragedy of Somalia is not limited to Somalia. The shame born of the war in Bosnia is spreading beyond the borders of former Yugoslavia. The reports of UNICEF disclose that one child dies of hunger or illness every second. And India, that great country dominated by spirituality, will it send its vindictive demons back to their caves? And what is really happening in the collective unconscious of the former Soviet Union? What will replace the notion of egalitarian Communism? How can one silence the hatred that opposes Azeris to Armenians, Romanians to Hungarians, the haves to the have-nots; the rise of racism in Eastern Europe, of xenophobia in Germany, of fanaticism in the Middle East, and of anti-Semitism everywhere? Blood is flowing and the world does not change. Watchman, what of the night?

I am rereading these notes in the beginning of 1996. How many transformations has the former Yugoslavia gone through since last year? How many cease-fires and armistices have been signed and betrayed? Still, the siege of Sarajevo has been lifted, as has that of Srebrenica. Is it because all sides are exhausted? Surely it is the result of Clinton’s decision to send twenty thousand American soldiers to preserve the peace agreement, signed, thanks to Richard Holbrooke, in Dayton, Ohio. And then there are in the background the battalions of NATO and of Russia, which are also ready to assume their responsibilities.

The international tribunal in The Hague is gaining importance. Its emissaries have done good work. They have found the mass graves, unearthed the mutilated corpses. Witnesses have named and testified against the war criminals. It has taken a long time but finally international arrest warrants have been issued against Radovan Karadjic and Ratko Mladic.

To what extent is Slobodan Milosevic implicated personally? His story is not finished. Sarajevo has been replaced in the news by Kosovo; a tragedy straight out of the Middle Ages is unfolding there. Tens of thousands of uprooted families are fleeing their destroyed homes and burning villages on foot, on broken-down tractors, and in buses. More than ever before, the civilized world feels the need to intervene.

Television interviews, questions by audiences, articles, and a millennium lecture at the White House provide me with opportunities to offer comments. For kind people, good people want to know: What about the loss of civilian lives? It is Milosevic, not NATO, who bears the responsibility for their tragic deaths.

In May, Milosevic was charged by the international tribunal at The Hague with the ultimate offense—crimes against humanity—and indicted. And though it will not bring back his victims, he must be judged and condemned. The future of peace in the region depends on it.

I wrote the following essay for Newsweek. It appeared on April 12, 1999.

President Slobodan Milosevic is a criminal. Those who still believe that there are nonviolent ways to stop his inhuman actions against Albanians are naive. They forget the nature of the century we live in.

Some of the images seem to belong to the not-so-recent past. Summary executions, collective punishment, forced expulsion of tens of thousands of families, frightened children separated from their parents, endless lines of desperate refugees: following Sarajevo and Srebrenica, Kosovo has entered the long and bloody list of tragedies that bring dishonor to the outgoing 20th century.

Some observers call it genocide. According to the original 1951 United Nations definition, it is. Yet I have problems with its application to Kosovo. In my view, genocide is the intent and the desire to annihilate a people. This is not the case here. Massive violations of human rights and the murder of political opponents, as horrible as they may be, are elements of genocide-in-the-making, but they do not constitute genocide. Still, they are evil enough to inspire anger and the will to stop them.

As early as 1992, media coverage of the war in Bosnia mistakenly compared Serbian “ethnic cleansing” to the Holocaust. The Holocaust was conceived to annihilate the last Jew on the planet. Does anyone believe that Milosevic and his accomplices seriously planned to exterminate all the Bosnians, all the Albanians, all the Muslims in the world? Some reports referred to “Auschwitz” in Bosnia. I saw the prison camps at Banja Luka; the conditions were deplorable and the prisoners terrified. But it was not Auschwitz. Auschwitz was an extermination camp, a black hole in history. Victims were taken there to be turned into ashes. Now we are witnessing a nightmare in Kosovo; it demands action, not comparison.

Was NATO’s decision to intervene correct? Was Washington right to push for it? The answer to both questions is yes. Faced with Milosevic’s stubborn policy of ethnic cleansing, no self-respecting government or nation could knowingly violate the Biblical injunction “Thou shall not stand idly by.”

Surely, when human lives are involved, indifference is not an answer. Not to choose is also a choice, said the French philosopher Albert Camus. Neutrality helps the aggressor, not his victims. If NATO had been created only to protect the weak and defenseless, that would be enough to justify its existence.

Critics of the attacks on Milosevic say that sending our army to the former Yugoslavia is not in America’s national interest. From an economic or geopolitical viewpoint, the critics may have a point. But a nation is great not because of its wealth or its military might; its greatness is measured by the way it uses or abuses its wealth and power. In other words: its greatness derives from its commitment to moral principle.

Milosevic has followed an intolerable path of violence and destruction that must provoke revulsion in every civilized person. His policies are evil. Even one of his associates, the novelist turned politician Vuk Draskovic, admitted the possibility that “atrocities” are being committed. Naturally, they occur away from public view. The Yugoslav military and police have ordered witnesses to leave the country: for weeks, Kosovo has been turning into a ghetto. Belgrade’s objective is now clear: a demographic change of the entire region. Is it too horrible to imagine that at the end of the war, there will be no more Albanians to enjoy their liberation in Kosovo?

I know Milosevic. I met him during the war in Bosnia, first at an international conference on Bosnia in London and later in Belgrade. I have spoken with officials and journalists who knew him well. Their analyses confirmed my impression of the man: a coldblooded cynic who never kept a promise, except when it was in his own best interest. His extremist political philosophy remained cloaked in facile patriotism. It is no accident that he is nicknamed “the butcher.” He is ruthless with those who stand in his way. A fanatic, like most dictators whose argument is terror, he believes that the end always justifies the means. That is why he rejected Richard Holbrooke’s last-minute efforts to save peace and Yevgeny Primakov’s attempts to stop the hostilities: he is determined to consistently defy the international community’s quest for a peaceful solution. He is interested not in peace, but in absolute domination.

But what about the cost in lives, including those of his own people? They are of no concern to him; his personal power alone matters. Hence his willingness to sacrifice innocent civilians, burning their homes and destroying their villages. With utter contempt for humanity, he has embarked on a state-sponsored program aimed at the humiliation, persecution and uprooting of an entire ethnic community.

Like all nightmares, this too will come to an end. And then Milosevic’s actions in Bosnia will also be remembered. And he will appear before an international tribunal, charged with the ultimate offense: crimes against humanity. That hope must be part of his victims’ victory.

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