balkan anecdotes: voices from post conflict croatia

NARRATIVES

Balkan Anecdotes: Voicesfrom Post Conflict Croatia

The monumental tasks inherent in the post-war re-settling of a variety of displacedpopulations are illustrated by the author through her personal letters.

byEve Weisberg

Eve Weisberg, Organiza-tion for Security andCooperation in Europe,Mission to Croatia.

Introduction:

The war in Croatia startedin 1991, with fighting between separatist Croatian

Serbs and newly independentCroatian forces. The result washundreds of thousands of dis-placed persons (both Croats andSerbs), widespread destruction ofproperty, and a cease fire policedby the UN. In 1995, Croatia un-dertook two large-scale militaryoperations that enabled it to takeback some of the areas that hadbeen occupied by rebel Serb forces,and drove out over 200,000Croatian Serbs who had been liv-ing in these areas for generations.In January 1998, via a UN-brokered agreement, Croatia re-gained the last remaining Serb-held sector in Eastern Sloverüa (in-cluding Vukovar).

I have been working withwar-affected displaced popula-tions in Croatia for the past threeyears. In March 1997,1 took a jobwith the U.S. Refugee ResettlementOffice in Split, interviewingBosnian refugees who had appliedto go to the U.S. In September1997,1 was hired by the Organi-zafion for Security and Coopera-tion in Europe, which was ex-panding its operations in Croatia.The OSCE is mandated to moni-tor and assist the Croatian Gov-ernment in fulfilling its interna-tional commitments related to hu-

man rights, with a view to even-tually enabling Croatia to enterEuro-Atlantic insfitutions such asthe EU and NATO. I worked forthe OSCE in Vukovar for 1-1/2years, then took a posifion at theMission Headquarters in Zagreb.During my time in Croatia, I heardthe stories of numerous displacedpersons, refugees and returnees.The pieces below are taken fromletters I sent to friends when I wasin Vukovar and Zagreb.

Vukovar Wildlife 9 May 1998

It's a beautiful sunny Sat-urday, but unfortunately I'm onduty in the Field Office inVukovar. That's okay, because I'msitting out here on the balcony, lis-tening to the birds and looking outover the rooftops (some of whichare traditional Balkan red roofs,and some of which are destroyed,which I suppose is also now tradi-tionally Balkan). In addition tobirds there are also a lot of flyingbugs, and somewhere I can heara sheep baa-ing. Then there arethe landlord's ragtag group ofdogs and cats running around.The landlord is from one ofVukovar's oldest families, but helost almost everything in the war.Anyway, things have been inter-esting here. May 6 was St.George's Day, a holiday celebrated

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by Serb families who have St.George as their patron saint. Sincethis is the case for a lot of Serbfamilies, the day is a big deal here.The food is, of course, heavy onthe meat, but there's also delicioussoup and good rich pastries. Un-fortvmately, by the time the past-ries arrive you're usually too satedwith everything else to enjoy them.My favorite dish is spicy cabbageroUs, called sarma.

I was invited to theMarkusica Mayor's celebrationduring the day, then to a friend'shouse at rüght. (Markusica is asmall farming village not far fromVukovar. It's about 98% Serb andsuffered some damage during thewar.) In both places I had conver-satioris that n\ade me realize thepain that is lurking just under thestirface for most people here. Inboth cases, I innocently asked awoman, "Where are you from?"The first woman, who is well re-spected as the only doctor inMarkusica, said that she was arefugee from the nearby Croattown of X^nkovci. She said that in1991, she had first fled to Bosnia,then to Serbia after the war startedin Bosnia, then she came toMarkusica. I asked her whethershe ever went back to Vinkovci,which is only a 15-minute drivefrom Markusica. She said shewent but she didn't feel comfort-able there. I was curious aboutthat, because it's usually just mili-tary-age men who feel uncomfort-able in areas dominated by theother side. When I tried to pressher about it further, a friend of herstold me that the doctor didn't liketo go back to Vinkovci because herbrother was killed there in 1991,and it reminded her of that. So,although I tried to ask an innocent

question and avoid polines therewas no getting away from theevents of the past 7 years.

The second woman I askedthe question to was also a dis-placed person. She's young (26),pretty, smart and trying to put to-gether a life for herself after flee-ing her home elsewhere inCroafia. Her home is destroyed,she has no job, and she is trying toorganize an NGO (Non-govern-ment organization) to work withchildren. She feels like a second-class citizen because she is a Serbin Croatia, but when she goes toYugoslavia she says that peoplethere treat her as pro-Croat. Shealso told me that the Croat policeseem to be singling her out, andeven accused her of calling the UNCivilian Police to a recent incident.

One problem in this areais that there aren't many places foryoung Croatian Serbs to go out.The one disco closed last week, andmany of the Serb-owned bars areclosing because they are havingtrouble registering. Yoimg peopleare driving across the border toSerbia when they feel like goingout. It's too bad, because I thinkthis is another small example ofhow Serbs here are giving up onCroatia and finding what theyneed in Serbia (like universities,cultural events, many aspects ofsecurity). Other young people con-tinue to leave for Denmark andNorway to ask for asylum. Mylandlady's daughter, son anddaughter's fiancé left a couple ofweeks ago. So...the situation hereis stable, but I think many Serbsare going to make a reasoned de-cision to leave after the end of theschool year. The statisfics aboutschool registrafion for next year aretelling: compared to 642 students

taking the first-grade Serbian lan-guage program this year, only 280have signed up for next year.People have to get on with theirlives, and they're not going to stayin a place v^here they see little ef-forts from their govemment to in-clude them as part of what is sup-posed to be their own country.

Some new developments:First, we're being approached bymore and more frustrated Croatdisplaced persons, who want toreturn to their homes but findthem occupied by Serbs. Some ofthe Serb occupants are not dis-placed persons, but are occupyingthe houses Ulegally. The Croats tellus they have gone to variousCroatian Govemment offices (likethe Office for Displaced Personsand Refugees), but have not got-ten any response. I can sympa-thize with these people, becausethe Croafian govemment bureau-cracy and the lack of responsive-ness of their bureaucrats angersme at times. I think it's a culturalthing. As an American I'm used togetting all of the informafion I de-mand, and service with a smile. Inmy opinion, Croafia needs somehelp with its administrafive prac-fices. The other new developmentis that we're seeing more Serb dis-placed persons "deciding" to leavethe Croat villages where they're oc-cupying houses, then moving toempty houses in Serb villages. It'sunclear what their rights will bein the new houses they move into.Will they be protected vmfil theyretum home, like they have beenin their former accommodafion?The situation is becoming morecomplicated.... The intemafionalcommunity talks about two-wayretum (Croats to Vukovar, Serbsfrom Vukovar to the rest of

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Croatia), but there are also BosnianCroats in Croafia, Croatian Serbsin Bosnia and Yugoslavia, KosovoCroats in Croafia.... The CroafianSerbs in Bosnia are oeeupyingBosnian Croat houses, and theBosnian Croats in Croafia are oc-cupying the houses of CroatianSerbs...What a mess... And I'm surethere's a Bosnian Muslim connec-fion as well...like Bosnian Muslimsoccupying the houses of BosnianSerbs, who are occupying Croathouses in Vukovar...and maybethere are Croatian Serbs occupy-ing Bosnian Muslim houses in East-em Bosnia.

On a humorous note, wehad a threatened case of PIG evic-fion on Thursday. Our monitorwho went out to invesfigate re-ported that a Serb family werekeeping their pigs in an empty pigsty, but the Croat owners of the pigsty retumed and wanted to evictthe pigs. Actually, the Croat owner

said that if the Serb owner of the"occupant" pigs did not tell herwhere her husband was buried,she would kiU all of the pigs. Thewoman's husband was kuled (ap-parently by Serbs) during the fight-ing here. The local Police and UNCivilian Police were called in aswell, so you ean see that it was aserious ineident. The Serb pigowner is going to try to find an-other home for her two large pigs.I think that this situafion, at least,wiU be resolved peaeefully. Strangethings in Zagreb and elsewhere...

21 March 1999

Another weekend gone.I'm sitting here and watehing theromanfie lights of Zagreb, wfiiehactually are lights from the un-ro-manfic apartment blocks of uglynew ZagTeb. I've finally leamedwhat the mysterious smokestacksthat I see from my windows are.It turns out that they're part of apower plant that supplies thiswhole secfion of the city with cen-tral heating. This explains why myapartment is so hot. I was relievedto find out what they are, becauseI was tfunking it could be some sortof nuclear reactor complex. Iknow that's a ridiculous thought,but w hen the whole plant startshumming loudly you start toworry.... The city authority de-cides when to tum on the heatingfor the whole city, and when totum it off. It sounds very post-com-munist. My bill is the same amoimteach month, regardless of howmuch heat I use. I actually usevery little, since the heating fromthe hall makes it so hot in here. Ihave a meter that gives exact read-ings, but the government doesn'tseem to have made it to that stage

yet.One thing I've noficed here

is that the costs seem wildly out ofproporfion to people's income, orlack thereof. I often wonder howpeople can survive here, given thehigh unemployment rates. In theVukovar region it's as high as85%, although the official num-bers are lower. You see a lot ofpeople at the central market herein Zagreb, selling old clothes andleft-over hiunanitarian aid. At thesame fime, there are glitzy storesselling (for example) women'ssuits for over $300 each. Somesample prices: A DKNY skirt, 50%off, is $150. A ficket to an operawith an intemafional singer is 150Kuna (about $25). The amount adisplaced person ean get eaehmonth if they don't have any otherineome, is 250 Kuna (about $40).

I wanted to write some-thing about a field trip I took toeentral Croafia, to a town ealledLipik in Westem Slovenia. Thisarea was on the frontUnes until itwas "liberated" by the Croats dur-ing Operafion Rash in May 1995.There's a lot of destruetion, al-though not as mueh as in Vukovar.I went around with the Demoera-tizafion Officer from our field of-fice there. Our first stop was theTopolik collecfive center, which isa set of around 15 barracks by thetrain tracks in Lipik. The residentsof this coUeefive eenter are all Serbswho fled in 1995 and now haveretumed to get their houses baek.Unfortunately, some of them havebeen there for months, sinee it's nota priority to the Croafian govem-ment that these people reelaimtheir homes. As we pulled up inour car, we saw a group of menjust hanging around. One of them,an elderly bald man with a neat



beard, caught my eye. He recog-nized me too, and I realized he wasa Serb displaced person I hadknovsm in Vukovar. His name wasKonstantin, and he had come toour office because he was beingharassed by the ov^ner of the househe was occupying. Konstantinhad fled in 1995, and had subse-quently lost his tenancy rights tohis apartment near Lipik. Weknew it would be extremely diffi-cult for him to get the apartmentback, and we told him that he hada right to stay where he was unfilthe Croatian govemment offeredhim acceptable altemative accom-n\odation. We told him he couldcall the police if the owner keptgiving him problems, but the placewhere Konstantin was staying —a summer resort near Osijek —was so remote that there were nophones nearby. Konstantin camein a couple of times, and I felt badthat I couldn't give him any morehelp than that. The tenancy rightsissue is such a mess, and nobodyin the international community isreally doing anything about it. Iguess that eventually Konstantinwas tired of being threatened, andapplied to live in a collecfive cen-ter closer to his former apartment.I asked him how he was, and heshook his head. But at least hewasn't being threatened anymore.It seemed like it would be reallyboring for these people in the col-lective center, since there was littlefor them to do. We went in andsaw a couple of "apartments." Itdidn't look too bad, but Konstantinshowed us some damp mold spotson the ceilings and places wherethe stairs were rotting away. Itdidn't seem like a good place tospend the last years of your life. Ifelt bad leaving Konstantin there.

since I knew it would be a longtime before his situation would beresolved (if ever). Still, I'm gladthat he's no longer in the insecuresituation he had been in before.

After driving around a bit,our next stop was Kusonje, amairüy Serb village that was be-ing reconstructed with funds fromthe European Union. Every timethe international community re-constructs a Serb village or Serbhouses, the Croats complain abouthow one-sided the internationalefforts are. However, I have yet tosee the Croats reconstruct any-thing other than Croat villages or

houses. It's sort of a vicious circle.The best efforts are those programsthat try to rebuild mixed commu-nifies. But it's a long process. InKusonje, I decided to track downone displaced person, a woman Ihad known in Vukovar. Thewoman (named Helena), her chil-dren and her parents had been oc-cupying a Croat house in the vil-lage of Sotin, just outside ofVukovar. Last year when I wasworking in Vukovar she called usin a panic when the ov Tier of thehouse came and threatened them.Luckily, she called the Croatian

police and the UN police as well.We got there after the Croatianand UN police, so we didn't haveto deal with the owner. Appar-ently, he had come with a gun andhad kicked in the bedroom doorin the house. The situafion in Sotinwas (and still is) quite tense. Prob-ably there are few domiciles or dis-placed Serbs left there. As we ar-rived, we could see the ownerhanging around across the streetwith a couple of tough-lookingguys. We spoke to Helena, whosaid she was waiting for her housein Kusonje to be reconstructed.After that, she would go home. Itold her that she was lucky, becausevery few people in her situafioncould say that their houses werebeing reconstructed. She said shewas particularly scared for herdaughters, who were going to highschool in Vukovar. I heard fromHelena once after that. She saidthat she w as almost ready to goback, but that her daughterwanted to stay one more monthto finish high school. Helena hadarranged for her daughter to staywith a friend, but the woman atthe government Office for Dis-placed Persons and Refugees saidthat she couldn't register Helena'sdaughter at that address and thatshe had to go straight home toKusonje. I told Helena just to pre-tend her daughter was goinghome, and to have her finish highschool in Vukovar anyway. Wedidn't hear from Helena after that,so I wanted to make sure that shehad made it home safely toKusonje. We finally managed tofind her mother and father, livingin their newly reconstructedhouse. They said that Helena wasnow working as a maid in Italy,but that she would be home for

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Easter They invited me to spendEaster with them, but unfortu-nately I don't think I will be ableto.

Reading back over thesetwo paragraphs, I feel frustratedand angry. Things are going soslowly for all of these people, aswell as for the Croat displacedpersons I know. If they're verylucky, they can get their housesback in the near future. Mostpeople are waiting and waitingand w^aiting.... In my current jobI feel like I'm doing very little tospeed up the process. I don't re-ally want to get into higher-levelpolicy stuff, and my other work isbasically to support the field moni-tors who do what I used to do.And when I talk to people inVukovar, I feel like it's the samestory over and over Someplaces you have to write off for agenerafion. They say that resettle-ment to places like the US is an-other form of ethnic cleansing,since it enables people to leave ter-ritories where they would be in theminority. Sfill, I totally understandpeople taking their families andstarting their lives over where theyhave some hope of having a life. Ithirik most Serbs in war-affectedareas of Croafia would agree thatthey can't have normal lives here.

Orthodox Easter, 11 April 1999

Today is Orthodox Easter,although you would barely knowit in Zagreb, the heart of CatholicCroafia. Work goes on as usual.My colleagues and I have been in-structed by the OSCE Head ofMission here that we're not sup-posed to talk about the airstrikesand the events in Kosovo, sincewe're from many different coun-

tries and — after all — we're theOSCE Mission to Croafia, not toanywhere else. Sfill, it's difficiiltfor those of us who have workedwith Serbs here to not feel con-flicted about what is going on.This is highlighted for me when Italk to my former colleagues inVukovar, and when I made a fieldvisit to Petrinja, a tov nn about anhour southwest of Zagreb.

One of the perks of beingthe "liaison" to the field on retumissues is that I actually get to getout of the office from fime to time.On Tuesday I drove to Petrinja tovisit our field office there. Petrinjawas taken over by Croafian Serbsin 1991, and was part of the"RepubHka Srpska Krajina" (RSK)unfil the Croafian military opera-fions in 1995 drove the Serb-rungovemment and most of the Serbcivilians out. Most of these peoplehad lived in the area for genera-tions, but when the Croats at-tacked they had no choice but toflee to Yugoslavia and the Serb-held areas of Bosnia. The Croatsinsisted that the Serbs were leav-ing voluntarily, and even "invited"them to stay (sound familiar?), butI suppose that acfions speak louderthan words. Anyway, last year theinternational commvmity finallygot the Croafian government toagree that these Serbs could comeback. Starfing in the fall of lastyear, they began to retum, both ontheir own and on UNHCR con-voys. The average age of return-ees is over 65, indicating that mostyoung Croatian Serb refugeesdon't see a future for themselvesin Croafia.

Our first stop was theOSCE sub-office in a small towncalled Glina. There, the nafionallegal advisor was holding office

hours. Basically, he was sitfingaround a desk listening to com-plaints from a group of elderlymen. Most of the men had re-tumed recently, but still couldn'tget into their houses, which wereoccupied by Bosnian Croats oreven domiciles who had moved inillegally. The men seemed re-signed, as if they had gone overtheir problems many times before.The legal advisor was interesting.At first I thought he was one ofthe clients, because his hair wasmessed up and his eyes were sortof wild. However, it turned outthat he had been a judge in thePetrinja area, back when Yugosla-via was whole. After the Croafianmilitary operafions in 1995, thelegal advisor and his family fled toBelgrade. He retumed to work forthe OSCE, but he goes back toBelgrade to visit his family almostevery weekend. He told us thatw hen he tried to retum this fime,the Yugoslav border guards heldhim for six hours, and almostwouldn't let him leave. TheYugoslav govemment is refusingto let men of military age (18-60)leave the country, because theywant to be able to mobilize peoplefor the army. Another nafional le-gal advisor, who works in EastemSlavor\ia, is now stuck in Yugosla-via for this reason. But this legaladvisor managed to convincethem to let him cross — probablybecause he has a Croafian pass-port.

We didn't stay in Glinalong, because we had an invitafionto attend an Orthodox mass in asmall village nearby. We drove toa small church on top of a desertedhill, where a few run-down Yugosand similar cars were parked. Wewere late for the mass, but Ortho-

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dox masses are long and so it wasstill in progress when we arrived.The church hadn't been damagedmuch during the war, but youcould see that the building wassuffering fiom neglect. Inside werethe typical icons and paintedwooden screens. There weren'tany seats, so we stood at the back.Most of the attendees were oldercountry people. It made me feelsad. The Head of Field Office toldme that these old Serbs basicallycome back here to die. The youngpeople have left, which means thatin 10-20 years the area really willbe ethnically "clean." The oldpeople in the church quietly litcandles and listened to the priestas he said things about peace andhope (at least that's what I man-aged to figure out). After the ser-vice, an old lady offered us home-made cherry liquor, and the priesttalked with us about the numbersof people returning. The priesttold me that the church had beenbadly damaged in World War II,but that in this war the Croats hadleft it alone. The priest was quiteoverworked, because he was theonly Orthodox priest in the area.He was busy running from churchto church, overseeing christeningsand funerals, as well as leadingholiday services.

We left to go visit a re-turnee in a remote village near theBosnian border. To get there, wedrove along a long dirt road pastdeserted houses, with broken win-dows. They were different fiomthe typical painted brick Balkanhouses you see everywhere. Thesehouses were made of dark wood,and you could see faded carvingsalong the roofs. It must have beena nice, albeit quiet, place to live.The Head of Field Office told me

that these had been Serb villages,but that these people had beendriven out by Croats in 1995. Hesaid that most of the roads hadbeen closed off by the army, so thepeople were forced to flee in a long,agonising traffic jam along thisnarrow dirt road. Some of thepeople had been sent out on buses,and there were incidents wherethe Croatian army ordered peopleoff and then burned the buses. Wecould see some of the burned outbuses along the road. It was in-teresting that the houses were van-dalized, but not looted. I've seenplenty of looted houses in EasternSlovenia, with almost nothing leftbut the frame. These houses hadbroken window^s and lots of trashinside, but the Croats apparentlyhadn't wanted to salvage the shut-ters or window frames. The Headof Field Office told me that as faras he knew, nobody fiom these vil-lages had expressed a desire to re-turn. The whole area was creep-ily silent and sad.

We finally reached a littlevillage where several people hadreturned. Stanko, a returnee whohad been living as a refugee inYugoslavia, was waiting for us inhis yard. You could see theBosnian border from his house.The Head of Field Office told methat when Stanko first returned in1997, people had stolen his live-stock and shot at his house. Thelocal police at first said theycouldn't do anything, because thethieves were probably fromBosnia. Eventually, the OSCEmanaged to convince the police tosend more patrols. Since thenthere hasn't been trouble, but thatmight also be because most ofStanko's livestock was alreadygone. Another effect of the crime

was that Stanko sent his wife andgrandson back to Yugoslavia, be-cause he didn't feel it was safe forthem to stay there. He hasn'theard from them (or fiom his twosisters) since the airstrikes started.Although Stanko came back twoyears ago, the local authorities stillhaven't hooked up his electricityor water. We asked him how hefollowed events in Kosovo, and heproduced a wind-up radio. Heserved us rakija (plum brandy),and coyly asked my age. He did. itby wondering aloud whether Ihad been alive when he visited theUS in 1967. I told him that I hadbeen alive for one year at thatpoint. Stanko said that his grand-father had worked in Pennsylva-nia, but then his father returnedto Yugoslavia in the 1920s. Atsome point his father died, and


BALKAN ANECDOTES: VOICES EROM POST-CONFLICT CROATIA NARRATIVES

Stanko's mother was left with 7children. During World War E,when the family fled to Bosnia,four of his brothers and sistersdied, leaving just Stanko and thetwo sisters who are now some-where in Yugoslavia. Stanko toldus that he started smoking afterhis son was killed during this war.Apparently his son was walkingnear the border, and was shot bya Bosnian Muslim soldier. Stankosaid that he also drank more now,so he could sleep at night. It wasvery sad. What made it sadderwas that Stanko asked if we couldtalk in the house, so nobody wouldoverhear us. He said that some-times the police came around andasked him why the OSCE came byso often. He said he told the po-lice that the OSCE just camearound because it was their job.As we were leaving, Stanko gaveus a bottle of rakija and asked us— "Do you know why I came backhere? Do you know why I'm here?Because this is my home." That'sthe whole idea of refugee retum,but it's rarely easy or painless.

I left Petrinja feeling sad,but also glad that this field visit putme in touch with reality again.One reason I feel sad in generalabout the situafion in Yugoslaviais because I can see that it meansthat the people I work with —both clients and local colleagues —have fewer and fewer options.When I was in Eastem Slovenia,most of our local staff went to visitfamily members in Serbia everyweekend. Belgrade was the localmetropolis, not Zagreb. Peoplecould go there and not be afraid ifthey had the wrong (Serbian)name and not be afraid to speakwith their own regional accent.Displaced persons who couldn't

retum to their homes in Croafiacould always view Serbia as a lastopfion. Now it's as if this exit, thisbreathing space is being shut offfor the Croafian Serbs. It's not evena matter of choice, although theborders are still open. Any mili-tary-age Serb man who goes toYugoslavia might not be allowedto leave. It's as if the roof has sud-denly been lowered, trappingpeople in a dark, dim place wherethey can't express themselves orlive full lives. And the uncertaintyabout what's happening to theirfamilies must be terrible. One in-terpreter who is originally fromnorthem Croafia (but whose fam-ily fled to near Novi Sad when theirhouse was blown up) managed tobring her mother and her sisterback to Vukovar before the bomb-ing started. Her father stayed be-hind to guard their house in Yu-goslavia, and now he's stuck therebecause men can't leave the coun-try. One legal advisor, who fledfrom Karlovac, can't visit his fam-ily in Belgrade because he wouldn'tbe allowed to return to Croafia.One woman, whose husbanddidn't get Croafian documents, isvisiting him in Novi Sad right now.She's also worried because her sonis 17 and might be taken by thearmy. Another interpreter at ourcoordinafion center told me thattwo of her male friends in Yugo-slavia have been drafted and shehas no idea where they are. Shesaid that while driving to work onemorning, she heard a newCroafian song called "Bombs arefalling on Belgrade." I saw thesame cassette featured in thenearby market in Zagreb. To meit shows an ugliness lurking im-der the surface of this calmtov^m.It's obvious that I have a dif-

ferent view on the events going onin Yugoslavia than I would if Iwere working in the US. There areno easy answers, but I do want toget across — in a personal way —that it's not just one side that's suf-fering. You see the same thingsover and over, done in differentplaces and by different people.The really sad thing is that evenwhen the physical fighting finallyends, people sfill suffer materiallyand emofionally for years.

On the Edge of War 20 April 1999

I managed to get out ofZagreb last weekend and traveleast to my old AOR (area of re-sponsibility) of Vukovar, in East-em Slovenia on the very edge ofCroafia. I was looking forward togoing, because I felt kind of like Iwas on another planet in Zagreb.I would speak to my formerVukovar coUeagues on tiie phone,and if they were Croafian Serbs Iwould try to express my sorrowand frustrafion about the NATOstrikes on their coimtry just acrossthe border. But talking on thephone wasn't enough. Also, I feltlike I needed to see the wdde, flatcoimtryside again.

So, I drove out of the city,going east down the smooth,speedy Highway of Brotherhoodand Unity. I felt a sense of relief asthe buildings gave way to newgreen fields, and then a sense offamiliarity as I passed bombed outgas stafions and shells of unrecog-nizably burned buildings. Aboutan hour into the trip, I finally man-aged to pick up a Bosnian Serbradio stafion. I could tell it wasn'ta Croafian radio stafion becausethey were using certain words spe-cific to both Bosnian and Serbian.

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It was a news broadcast, and Itried to listen to understand whatthe newscaster was saying. I ex-pected to hear blunt propaganda,but to my surprise I heard themquofing American news sourcesand cifizens. At one point theyeven replayed something Clintonsaid about how a loss of life wasregrettable, but that sometimesthat unfortunately happened asyou tried to meet your goals. Itseemed to me that they were play-ing this sarcastically, and I wasimpressed by the sophisficafion oftheir propaganda. Then they an-nounced the radio's website:wrww.voa.gov. So, I had been lis-tening to the Voice of AmericaSerbian language program andassuming it was Serb propaganda.Oops. I've got to keep studying thelanguage. But at least that ex-plained why they were speakingSerbian and not Bosnian language,which they should have beenspeaking since I was driving alongthe northern edge of Bosnia.

A couple of hours later, asI neared Eastem Slovenia, I triedto find my favorite Serbian radiostafions. The first one, Kosseva(named after a wind — no rela-tion to Kosovo) is owned byMilosevic's wife and plays reallytrashy techno/disco music. It's afavorite among interpreters whohave a lot to leam about music. Imanaged to find it, but wasshocked by what they were play-ing. Instead of the techno versionof "Macarena," they were play-ing something that sounded like across between a U.S. state tourismsong ("You've got a friend in Yu-goslavia") and the worst of syrupy"old-new" Croafian music. It wasterrible. I thought that if my coun-try played pseudo-nostalgic music

like this during a war, after twodays I would be running to NATOwith a white flag. And the sec-ond stafion, which had really beenmy favorite, had also undergonean unfortunate metamorphosis.Instead of eclecfic rock and blues,they were playing strange elec-tronic music (some of whichsounded like modem jazz muzak)and — according to myLithuanian former boss — manyRussian songs! The news was thesame on both stafions. After twoyears of hearing about "theSerbian aggressor" from theCroats, it was interesting to hearnewscasters menfion "the NATOaggressor" and "American aggres-sion." Different enemy, samescript. They said things like, "Themorale of our army is good" and"Despite the NATO aggressionthere was a soccer game yester-day." It would have been funny,except that there is basically no in-dependent news in Yugoslavia.On the other hand, our own CNNand BBC aren't much better. Thepropaganda is more sophisficated,but I think we're a less sophisti-cated audience than the Yugoslavsbecause we don't expect to hearpropaganda.

When I got to my formerboss's house, a party was in fullswing. I spoke to a couple of eth-nic Serb colleagues and realizedthat their bravado on the phonewas only superficial. They werereally pretty upset, even if theydidn't have family in Serbia. Myformer boss told me that two of thefemale interpreters had been jok-ing about their futures, becausethey didn't have one in Croafia forethnic reasons and now it seemedthey wouldn't have one in Serbiaeither, given the economic destruc-

tion the airstrikes are probablycausing. The bombing of just theZastava plant — certainly a mili-tary target — put thousands andthousands of people out of work.The two interpreters decided theirbest future for them was to bewaitresses at a fast food restaurant:"You can work at McDonald's,and I'll work at Pizza Hut." Sadly,once the intemafional communityleaves and interpreter jobs disap-pear, they'll be hard-pressed evento find something like that in a re-gion of over 85 percent unemploy-ment. One of the interpreters, anormally cheerful blond woman,said to me in an upset voice, "Ihate Milosevic. Why do they haveto bomb us? Why can't they justkill him?" My former boss put ongypsy music to cheer everyone up.She began dancing, and convincedother people to join her. One ofthe other people dancing was aninterpreter whose Croat motherhad been injured by flying glass inBelgrade when the bombing firststarted. She told me her motherwas doing better, and kept danc-ing.

Novi Sad television, whichof course is run by the state,showed the same type of resolvedgaiety. It was interesfing to watchSerbian television and actually seethe people standing on the bridgesand dancing at concerts in themiddle of Belgrade. There werepeople of all ages, and singers ofmany genres. I thought about howpeople in Belgrade had marchedfor democracy for several monthsduring a cold winter. It didn'tseem like they would give up theirbridge concerts too easily, espe-cially since they believed theywere defending their homes. Oneinterpreter from Vukovar who had



gone through the war here felt dif-ferently. She said, "They're feel-ing the euphoria now, but after amonth it vvill be different. You'llsee." In other words, the peoplewill be depressed when reality hitsthem, when they realize that theirlives will for years be worse thanthey were before the war. This in-terpreter, who has many friendsin Novi Sad, said she was just try-ing to stay calm and concentrateon her work. She said that hav-ing gone through a war here andhaving had many internationalfriends, she could see how bothsides were really one-sided.

This everung on CNN, oneof the Pentagon briefers saidstraight out that the bombingmight hurt the people of Yugosla-via, and that it was up to Milosevicwhether his people had to be hurtor not. Does this Pentagon guyreally think Milosevic will act outof pity for his own people? Peopleare used to looking for "good guys"and "bad guys." However, fromwhat I've seen in the Balkans,none of the leaders have problemswith capitalizing on the sufferingof their own people to influenceworld opinion. It's scary to thinkabout the massive Kosovo Alba-nian refugee exodus in terms ofthis pattem. Because of the refu-gee exodus—caused by Milosevic,probably triggered by NATO, and(in my opinion) provoked in partby the KLA - we will have somesort of Kosovar protectorate, po-liced by our armies.

On Saturday night, myformer boss and I sat on her porchwhile she had a cigarette. Thenight was quiet and was lit spo-radically by a sliver of moon.From fime to time we could hear amuted rumbling sound. My boss

told me it was the NATO planesflying over to bomb Vojvodina. Itwas a strange feeling. It made mewish Clinton and Blair could beunder the same clouds. It re-minded me of a scene fromLawrence of Arabia, whenLawrence and Sharif Ali are ridingto Damascus. They can hear theheavy booms of British gunspounding the Turks, not far away.Sharif Ali says, "God bless the menwho are under that." Lawrenceprotests, "But they're Turks."Sharif Ali says emphafically, "Godbless them." Something about thedarkness of that moment in themovie connected with how I feltsitting on my friend's quiet porch,listening to the distant thunder ofmy NATO planes above theclouds.

Having met and spokenwith hundreds and hundreds ofrefugees by now, I know a lot aboutwhat these planes and other in-struments of w ar mean. Theydon't just mean damaged build-ings or night-fime fear. They meanthe destrucfion of normal lives, thesad, painful climb back to somesemblance of routine, and the on-going ache of dreams that cannever be realized. Sorry if thissounds sappy, but most of us re-ally don't know how lucky we are.I think anyone who is tempted touse military force as a quick an-swer should know what it's liketo exist in a post-war society. It'snot romanfic, and it has nothingto do with the strutting and pos-turing we've been seeing on TV.My former landlady, who alsowent through the war in Vukovar,expressed it best, "Better one yearof negotiations than one day ofwar." The Hippocrafic Oath —"First of all, do no harm," would

also be appropriate. Radical sur-gery isn't always the best solufion.The Kosovo Albanians were cer-tainly oppressed before all thisstarted, but I truly believe they'reworse off now. You can't go back,and hindsight is always 20-20. Sfill,this is a principle to keep in mindwhen considering what to do next.Q


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