First Such Visit without Interference from Serbs
LIPA, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Dozens of Bosnian Croats visited family graves in Serb territory Sunday, apparently making the first peaceful trip by a large group across Bosnia’s former front lines. U.S. soldiers along with Serb police provided security as a Roman Catholic priest said Mass in the overgrown cemetery near the Croatian border in northern Bosnia.The trip by 47 Bosnian Croats was believed to be the first time since the Bosnian war ended in November that a sizable group has been able to cross old front lines without encountering angry demonstrators from the other side, the U.S. military’s Joint Information Bureau said. Freedom of travel within Bosnia is a tenet of the peace accord that ended the war, and the United States has threatened Bosnian Serbs with renewed economic sanctions for failing to honor that commitment.
Zlatko Matanovic, a 60-year-old Franciscan priest from Gornja Dubica, said it had taken about a month to arrange the visit. He ended the Mass with thanks to U.S. soldiers and “all people of good will who enabled us to make this visit.” Then the Croats, who before the war made a practice of tending the graves at least twice a year, resumed pulling out high weeds and righting toppled gravestones.
“This visit was very important for them because they have very strong ties to their deceased,” Matanovic said.
War damage was everywhere. The cross had been blown off the top of a little chapel at the top of the hillside cemetery. The chapel bore bullet and shell holes and was strewn with rocks and litter inside. “The tombstones are broken. The more expensive ones are gone,” said Ljubica Zecevic, 54, of nearby Potocani. In another part of the cemetery, Kata Matic stood and cried over the toppled black stone that marks the grave of her son, Pero, 21, killed in a motorcycle accident six years ago. The stone bears a nearly life-size engraving of her son and the motorcycle.
Zecevic had trouble finishing work on the graves she was tending before the group left. Ordinarily, the four-hour visit would have given her enough time, but she said the Croats were forbidden to bring tools with them. Stana Matic, also of Potocani, used a kitchen knife, and a plastic bag in lieu of a glove. Marko Bozic said he was pleased to finish clearing the grave of his parents. He set the gravestone upright again, propping it up with two sticks.
Perhaps aiding the peaceful nature of the visit was the remote location of the cemetery, reachable by a mile-long road nearly covered by the branches from the surrounding woods. The visitors rode in open trailers behind tractors, followed by international police in a pickup truck and U.S. soldiers in Humvees. “It was a superb precedent for future visits,” said Lt. Col. Neal Anderson, commander of the 4th Battalion, 67th Armored Regiment, who oversaw the visit.
Already Matanovic has plans for visits to two other Serb-controlled areas, Srnava and the Pecnik district of Modrica.
Anderson, 39, of Colonial Heights, Va., denied that he had pushed the Serbs to agree to the visit. “The Serbs were great,” Anderson said. “We did a little bit of facilitation, providing them opportunities to get together, some encouragement, but there is no amount of enforcement that the IFOR could have done to make this a success had the Serb side and the federation side not had the will to do it themselves.” IFOR is the acronym of NATO-led peace Implementation Force.
As the visit wound up, Anderson congratulated the Serb police chief for the smooth operation. The Serb responded that he hoped to have other peaceful visits in the future. As the group returned to Croatian territory, the local Croatian police chief was asked whether the visit would have been possible without the presence of U.S. forces. “Maybe later on,” he responded. “
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