A lengthy drive shows how impossible it is
to repair Bosnia’s delicate ethnic tapestry.
The writer, Associated Press bureau chief in Vienna, recently drove through formerly Serb-held lands in Croatia and northwestern Bosnia and into the Bosnian Serb stronghold of Banja Luka. Here are her impressions.MRKONJIC GRAD, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Trudging through torrential rain outside this ruin of a town, the two Serb soldiers were overjoyed when a foreign car stopped to give them a ride. For these men — soaked, ill-shaven and wrinkled beyond their relative youth — this was the lucky break of the day, salvation from hours of walking through the mountains.
As my car snaked north toward the Bosnian Serbs’ biggest city, Banja Luka, along a dramatic gorge carved by the Vrbas river, one soldier outlined his woes: no money, no work, a family to feed, a sham of normality lived out in a house not his own. It is the story heard on all sides of the former front lines one now crosses with such ease. The passage, which even wary locals are starting to regard as routine, is proof of some peace.
But the stories, and the relentless devastation seen on any lengthy drive, show how impossible it is to repair Bosnia’s delicate ethnic tapestry which was repeatedly slashed during almost four years of war. The systematic nature of that destruction emerges clearly in Kozarac, a town where Serbs drove out Muslims early in the war, and which has remained in Serb hands ever since.
For 10 minutes, one passes by the houses in what was once a settlement of some 25,000 people. Someone has taken the time and trouble to blow up, neatly, from inside, almost every house, ensuring their owners would not return. In spring sunlight, they are mute memorials to families now dead, missing or living elsewhere.
Devastation at Kozarac
Kozarac is near the town of Prijedor, infamous for nearby death camps, and the particularly brutal expulsion of Muslims and Croats by local Serbs. In the middle of town stands the Keraterm factory. Its central location shows how impossible it was for locals — victims, perpetrators and intimidated bystanders — to remain unaware that non-Serbs were being imprisoned, beaten and killed there.The way Kozarac’s houses are destroyed — not from fighting — underlines that this Balkan war aimed simply to drive civilians from their homes and thus rearrange the ethnic map. This ghastly goal is proclaimed everywhere along the road from Banja Luka south and west to Bihac, across into Croatia and up through some 60 miles of what was Serb-held land until Croatian troops recaptured it last August. Nowhere on this four- to five-hour journey can you drive more than a few miles without seeing a blown-up building. Sometimes, it is a church — Roman Catholic for Croats or Orthodox for Serbs. Often, it was a mosque, although these are mostly so thoroughly flattened that only locals know where they once stood. Almost every former cafe, restaurant or motel that dotted the breathtaking landscape is a mere skeleton of brick or concrete, windows and roof gone, drainpipes clanking uselessly in the wind.
Mostly, one sees destroyed homes, representing the ruination of tens of thousands of families. The destruction continues nearly to Banja Luka, which was a Bosnian Serb stronghold throughout the war.
“Three wars in one century,” shudders a middle-aged Serb woman in Banja Luka, referring to this century’s two world wars and the just-ended conflict. “This was the worst, because we were all fighting ourselves. We did it to ourselves. I know of so many cases where the children of a mixed marriage were fighting each other — one son with the Serbs, another with the Muslims. Terrible, terrible.”
Memories of Bihac
I tell the woman and her husband that I have passed through their hometown of Bihac. What does it look like? they ask. They last saw their home almost four years ago, as hundreds of thousands of Serbs fled Muslim-dominated areas in the creepy, anticipatory fear that preceded war itself. In the conflict, Bihac indeed was something special. On the whole drive, from Banja Luka to just southwest of Zagreb, it is the only — small — pocket of territory that, until last summer, was not held by Serbs. No wonder the Serbs of Bosnia and Croatia feel so defeated and betrayed. From July to October, they lost vast tracts of territory they had seized as Yugoslavia fell apart.The biggest single exodus of the entire war drove 200,000 Serbs virtually overnight from Croatia, their home for centuries. Last fall, Bosnian Serb towns fell rapidly to Bosnian government and Croat forces whose avenging wrath scarred or destroyed most of the few buildings the Serbs had left untouched. Here and there, people attempt order. Neatly planted daffodils bloom around the windowless hulk of a home. A woman meticulously collects leaves and debris before the rubble once called her house. A man unloads a car driven from west European exile back to his family’s village.
Will the refugees come back? the Serbs ask, nervously. Certainly, a swift return of Muslims and Croats seems impossible.
One of my Serb soldier-passengers hails from Jajce, a town of stunning views, waterfalls and rivers. The Serbs took it in October 1992, the Croats three years later. The road between Jajce and Banja Luka, where the soldier now lives, is cut because a bridge was blown up. Jajce is now in the half of Bosnia controlled by the Muslim-Croat federation. The two halves of Bosnia — Serb and Muslim-Croat — are supposed to grow together. But the soldier doubts he’ll see Jajce soon. His consolation now is daughter Bogdana, whose name means “given by God.” Bogdana and my daughter are both 3½. As we part in glum, rain-sodden Banja Luka, I ask the soldier to greet his child from mine. He flashes a radiant smile.
Berserkistan is a world news service of Michael Linder Productions, Inc.
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