WESTERN HUMAN RIGHTS CONCERN
As noted above, a key difference between Sandžak and Bosnia was the former's inability to attract Western support for sovereignty. When combined with the lack of a credible Muslim insurgency in the Sandžak, this kept the area under Serbian infrastructural control, maintaining the integrity of the Serbian core. Western powers did extend some human rights oversight, however, reinforcing the Serbian state's tendency to project an image of law and order in its own territory. In response to complaints by Sandžak leaders, Western diplomats repeatedly expressed their interest in human rights conditions in the area, pressing the authorities to restrain private Serbian nationalists and reign in Serbia's police forces. The results, some Sandžak leaders believe, were life-saving: "If we hadn't managed to attract international attention to Serbian actions here," said Nedim, a Party of Democratic Action leader, "we would have been killed or driven out of our homes."[12] Nijaz, another party activist, explained that before the war, "the Western world had no idea there were Muslims living in Sandžak." But when the Bosnian fighting began, "they learned of our existence, and began to visit. Parliamentarians from all over the world came, learning that we lived here and that our rights were being violated. We had contacts with the Red Cross, the Organization on Security and Cooperation in Europe, and many visits from international embassies." That internationalization, he said emphatically, "was the only reason we weren't cleansed."[13] According to these activists, international engagement with Sandžak through the human rights norm served as a crucial brake on Serbian nationalist ambitions. International actors were determined to grant sovereignty only to former Yugoslav republics, not to internal regions such as Sandžak,