Victims of shelling in Central Bosnia.
UNL Serb criticizes media
Lditor s note: The following excerpt is
from a column published in the Daily
Nebraskan one year ago today. Biljana
Obradovic, a graduate student in creative
writing and poetry, is Serbian.
1 just received a letter from my childhood
friend.in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, telling me
that Serbs there were “celebrating” the ninth
month of the blockade. Three more months
and it will have been a year since the sanc
tions were imposed on my country, even
though it is not involved in the war and
doesn’t have its soldiers on Bosnian soil.
Yet, the sanctions are still there. The
people arc sullcnng, and
many arc dying because
there is not enough mon
ey to import medication.
Many people have been
laid off, including my
friend, because the econ
omy has practically col
lapsed. The Westhas suc
ceeded in that, but
■Serbian pride remains intact.
The media are representing us in an
incredibly untruthful manner, constantly
favoring the Muslim Bosnians and never
mentioning the deeds of the Croats, who are
grabbing more land than anyone in this
conflict and portraying the Serbs as people
eating monsters. All this, even though
Serbians owned 70 percent of the land in
Bosnia-Herzegovinabcforc this and arc sim
ply trying to retain it.
Ycs, simply keep it; call it what you will,
but Serbs did not vote for secession from
Yugoslavia—they were forced to remain in
the Republic. We have Tito, our late leader,
to thank; he drew borders of republics artifi
cially. Why the world community feels so
strongly about them is beyond my under
standing. They were internal borders within
a larger country — which didn’t count for
much.
And then the crime tribunal... Compar
ing it to those of the Nazi Germany
Nuremberg trials is so ridiculous. Again the
world has turned on the Serbs, as if the
Muslims who killed all those people waiting
in the break linedidn’t“commitacrime,”or
as if the Muslims who shot the people at the
Muslim funeral — all staged to look as if
Serbs were killing Muslims — didn’t corn
mi t a crime. And so on and so on. The endless
misunderstandings and misrepresentations
of the media never seem to stop.
The years of ethnic cleansing of the Serbs
from the province of Kosovo, which I have
personally observed, now show that it has
been cleansed and is 90 percent Albanian
Muslim. Most Serbian and Montenegran
people who lived there moved toother parts
of Serbia. My own grandfather’s village in
Serbia has grown from a mere 1,500 citizens
to more than 4,000 with the refugees who
have been fleeing Kosovo in the last decade.
And now Serbs are the aggressors — the
cleansers!
A Note from the Editor
In October 1992, two University of
Nebraska-Lincoln students, Abbas Ali
and Suleman Ahmer, began transport
ing food, medicine and humanitarian relief in
the war-torn region of the former Yugoslavia.
On June 30, 1993, Ali, a chemical
engineering major, and Ahmer, a graduate
student, were stopped at a military check
point inside the Bosnia-Croatia border. They
were searched, beaten and taken to jail.
Ali and Ahmer, both of Pakistan, were
accused of being spies.
After 18 days of starvation and being
threatened with death, the two students were
released.
Ali promised his fellow prisoners he
would never forget them.
Upon his return to Lincoln, Ali told the
Daily Nebraskan:
“Those 25,000 people don’t have food.
How can I just clean my hands and go
away?”
In December, Ali returned to his relief
efforts in the former Yugoslavia, but he has
maintained contact with the Daily Nebras
kan.
In addition to regular faxes about travel
conditions of various roads and areas, an
envelope from Ali arrived Thursday covered
with seals and stamps. The envelope con
tained a personal letter, a short feature story
and pictures.
The letter was written Feb. 8.
The Daily Nebraskan understands Ali’s
comments present only one perspective in a
complicated, multisided story, but the value
of a firsthand look at the suffering in
Sarajevo far outweighs the balance of sides
on which the suffering occurs.
In order to share other perspectives, the
Daily Nebraskan on Thursday contacted
members of the university community who
had Serbian and Croatian ties.
Student witnesses tragedy
as war devastates Bosnia
Bosnia
Analysis
By Abbas AN
For the Daily Nebraskan
j
SPLIT, Bosnia-Herzegovina—Words won’t
do justice. I don’t know what to write. Struggle
for survival is going on in Bosnia.
I spoke to a 17-ycar-old girl in August of
1993. Her name is Ediba Kapic; her father, a
medical doctor, is in a concentration camp in
Ljubuski, Bosnia-Herzcgovina. With her wet
eyes she uttered the words, “No one will help us
but God.”
That is true. Bosnia is a slap on the face of
humanity. The brutality by the Serbs and Croats
has never been seen in history.
Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia, hosted the
Winter Olympics. All the world gathered to
enjoy the scenic and beautiful sites of this city.
Residents opened their houses and hearts for the
spoils fans, but when Sarajevo called for help
against the Serb oppression, the world closed its
doors. Bitter cold, lack of food and electricity,
and human blood all over is the life of Sarajevo.
The famous city of Mostar, which was once
a tourist attraction, is now a picture of smoke
and ashes. The famous bridge of Mostar, Stari
Most (meaning old bridge), made by the Otto
man rulers, has been destroyed in the fight
between Muslims and Croats.
I still remember the time I was passing by the
Stari Most, when a weak, old man approached
me and asked, “What has happened to the
world?”
I had no answer.
The U.N. storage at Metkovic, the border
town of Croatia, is full of food and emergency
supplies, but the poor people of Mostar.just 70
miles away, arc suffering from Fierce cold and
hunger. Surrounded by the Serbs from one side
and by the Croats from the other, the residents
of Mostar arc waiting for their fate.
As Laila Jasar, a 13-ycar-old girl from
Sarajevo, told me during a brief conversation,
“Once I used to go to school. 1 had so many
friends and life was very good and rich, but
suddenly, one night, Sarajevo was attacked by
the Serbs.
“Everyone was crying. So many of my friends
were killed. My house was shelled, and I, with
my mother and sister, managed to escape. I had
not seen so much blood flowing into the street
in my life.”
With her dry eyes she said, “Please stop the
war; I want to go home.”
One high school teacher from Sarajevo, a 35
year-old, Pasha, told her story.
“In the summer of 1991, the Serbs came in
my house in Sarajevo. They kept me and my two
children on one side of the house and beat my
husband, a 36-year-old engineer. They shot him
in the head in front of us and left us weeping at
the dead body."
As the nightmare continues, there is very
little hope that the world community will try to
do anything. But, as the Bosnians say, “God will
help and everything will be OK.” These words
from crying mothers, raped women and small,
orphaned children show a light to the sleepy
world.
Croatians, Muslims
have own reasons
FromStatt Reports
While political science professor Ivan
Volgycs is unable to speak from a first-hand
Croatian perspective, he does have the point of
view of a scholar who knows both sides of the
story.
“Clearly the Croatian side is that they are
trying to establish a Croatian homeland,”
Volgyes said, part of which includes habitations
of Croatian people in what is now known as
Bosnia.
Volgyes said Croatians felt they had a histor
ic justice to recapture their homeland. Many of
the states in that area were artificially carved up
by world powers after World War I.
Many of the lines drawn, Volgycs said, arc
no longer justifiable.
Conflict also arises because a large chunk of
what Serbs claim is historically part of Serbia,
lies inside of Croatia.
Besides territorial claims, lines arc drawn on
ethnic and religious barriers.
“Croatians arc fighting against Muslims to
unite Croatians under one Croatian state, only
at the expense of Muslims,” Volgyes said.
“On the other hand, the Muslims are fighting
for survival. If the Muslims give up the territory,
they will not have a viable state.
The Daily Nebraskan made an effort to
contact people with personal ties to Croatia, but
was unable to obtain comments on the record.
Bosnia
update
Within Bosnia:
■ Artillery fire wounds five U N.
Peacekeepers near the besieged city
of Tuzia, 50 mdee north of Sarajevo.
It is not known who fired the shells.
■Thousands of Sarajevans take to
the streets while NATO nurptanee fly
overhead to enforce NATO’s threat to
bomb any artiflery positions that
shewed the Bosnian capital
■Relief convoys and flights resume
In Bosni‘i Thirteen planes drop 99
tons of food into Gorazde, a besieged
Muslim town in eastern Bosnia.