£3jls 'i
three years of war, the Dayton Accord
means little to the Bosnians who must live under its terms
By Most Rosenblum
AP Special Correspondent
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina
— On the bombed-out fringe of
Sarajevo, Edin and his pal glanced at
a reassuring French patrol before ven
turing over to buy heroin on the Serb
side of the street.
In Mostar, Europeans charged with
unifying two police forces took heart
when Croats named a tough new chief.
But they aren’t allowed to talk to
him; the Muslims denounced him as a
war criminal.
As Saturday’s nationwide elections
approach, workaday Bosnian vignettes
like these suggest that the Dayton peace
accord, promising as it might be in
theory, is paper-thin on the ground.
By now, Muslims, Serbs and Groats
are supposed to move freely within
Bosnia. Whatever may be in their
hearts, they should be preparing insti
tutions and systems on which to base a
future.
Much has been done, especially
where peace is overseen by NATO gun
barrels bristling from armored ve
hicles. Yet almost anywhere one lodes,
something seems to be going wrong.
A symbolic site of the 3 1/2-year
war is the blackened patch of former
buildings in Dobrinja, a Sarajevo sub
urb split by the border between Serbs
and Muslims. During the war, besieged
Sarajevans sprinted for their lives
across the airport runway located in
Dobrinja for a few dozen eggs.
Today, the old front lines are open
to anyone who cares to cross. From
both sides, that number is small.
“Are you crazy?” said Edin, an un
employed former soldier, when asked
ft
Don’t talk to me about Dayton, or
elections. I can’t even visit my old house...”
FahiraStosic
head of Bosnian Muslim-search agency
if he would penetrate Serb territory.
“I’ve already been wounded three
times by those guys.”
He is glad of the French patrol’s
protection when he ducks across the
street to the edge of Serb territory to
buy heroin, which he takes to ease pain.
Last week, two Bosnian Muslims
went over the line for a drink. Serbs
pushed them into a basement, beat
them bloody and shot them in the knee
caps. Then they dumped them on the
old airport standoff line.
A Muslim police officer drove up
to investigate, and they also shot him
in the kneecaps before driving back to
the safety of their own side.
On Thursday, a day like any other,
small knots of people gathered at ei
ther side of the mined center strip and
coils of barbed wire, waiting to do busi
ness or visit with friends on the other
side.
Edin, who preferred that his last
name not be used, bought his (hugs,
paying $65 a gram for heroin worth
twice that in Sarajevb. Others haded
food-aid sugar for cigarettes and co
gnac.
From the Sarajevo side, a flashy
blonde clicked across the pocked pave
ment in high heels to chat with two
Serbs in a battered red Porsche. She
walked back and the Serbs burned rub
Ij
ber in the other direction.
The divided city of Mostar is a 1
grander symbol of the lingering fear j
and unbridled loathing that threatens i
dreams of peace.
After Goat toughs forced scores of i s
Muslims from their homes in West 1 j
Mostar, authorities under international j
pressure replaced the police chief. The P
new man, Marko Radic, slowed expul- i
sions.
The West European Union police
contingent can have no contact with
Radic because the Muslim government i
in East Mostar sent a file to the U.N. i1
tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, J
accusing him of war crimes.
Radic has not been indicted, but
officials are under orders not to talk to
such people until the cases against them
have been cleared up.
Two weeks ago, European officials
named six Goats who they claimed
were involved in organized crime. But
local authorities have taken no action.
The European police, with no_
power to investigate, were to have built
a single, effective unit from disparate
Muslim and Goat forces. They are
scheduled to leave in mid-October, and
most officers admit privately they are
leaving a mess behind.
“We have not managed to unify the
police,” said Berthold Hubegger, an
Hurricane strikes Puerto Rico,
rescue efforts still under way
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) —
Hurricane Hortense lashed Puerto Rico
with punishing winds and torrents of
rain Tuesday, killing seven people as
it snapped trees and power lines,
swelled rivers and collapsed hillsides,
sweeping away homes.
Eleven people were spotted float
ing in their home down the raging
Guamani Canal. Maritime police pur
sued the house in a boat, trying to res
cue the occupants.
Police said the death toll could rise
once they reach areas cut off by the
storm, which passed directly over
southwest Puerto Rico before dawn
Tuesday.
Later Tuesday, Hortense skirted
along the northeastern coast of the
Dominican Republic, which hasn’t
been hit by a hurricane in nearly 20
years.
Die entire north coast of the Do
minican Republic was undo* a nurri
:ane warning, as were the Turks and
Caicos islands and the southeastern
Bahamas.
Tourists were ordered off beaches
and evacuated from oceanside resorts.
Authorities at eastern- Punta Cana air
port canceled 14 flights after clocking
90 mph wind gusts around noon.
There was a 10 percent chance of
the hurricane striking West Palm
Beach, Fla., the National Hurricane
Center in Miami said.
In Puerto Rico, victims included a
2-year-old boy killed in a mudslide in
the southwest and two 8-and 13-year
old sisters swept away by flood waters
in the southeast. The girls’ bodies were
found under a bridge. Four family
members were still missing.
A 75-year-old man was carried
away by floods in the east-central part
of the island and a woman was found
dead—presumably of a heart attack
— inside her car in the west-central
farming town of Lares. Two unidenti
fied adults drowned in eastern
Humacao.
Hortense cut water and electricity
to most of Puerto Rico’s 3.6 million
people. The water supply could be con
taminated by rivers overflowing into
reservoirs, Scott Stripling of the U.S.
National Weather Service in San Juan
said.
Residents of Guayama, 30 miles
south of San Juan, spoke of watching
the father of two drowned sisters try
ing to save the younger girl, only to
have the surging waters drag her from
his hands, volunteer rescue worker Jose
Melendez said.
“There are a number of people still
missing, but we don’t know how many.
They could be in the sea,” Melendez
said.
All Part of the Peace Process
Last November, sophisticated computer programs enabled
mediators for the Bosnia war to redraw boundaries within hours.
An initial agreement Negotiations phase Final agreement
Using a combination of computer simulation and satellite imagery,
negotiators could see the land's contours. Also available were population,
ethnic and religious demographics, and information about schools,
hospitals and other public institutions.
■* _ r-r> r»i an
3out uo. uoni
EU police official in Mostar. He said
he was not surprised since Croat and
Muslim police had only recently been
shooting at each other in war.
As in Dobrinja, the grand scale of
ten translates in microcosm to bitter
ness or amused contempt.
In East Mostar, Mohamed Taslidza
joked with a friend he hadn’t seen in a
while. Near . Sarajevo, the friend had
gone out for cheese, taken a wrong
turn, and spent two months in a Serb
cell.
Thslidza grew serious when he in
troduced Fahira Stosic. She is head of
a local agency still looking for 1,160
missing Muslims, including her only
brother.
“Don’t talk to me about Dayton, or
elections,” she said. ‘1 can’t even visit
my old house at Capljina (in Western
Herzegovina). My mother went,-and
they wouldn’t even let her off the bus.”
On the Dobrinja line, Edin thought
even less of Dayton. Still, he acknowl
edged, there was at least some
progress.
“Yesterday, we were shooting at the
Serbs,” he said. “Today, we are talk
ing to them. Maybe tomorrow, I’ll go
over there. Maybe.
“In Bosnia, everything is always
maybe.”
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