Time - Man of the Year/Time_Man_of_the_Year_Compact_Publishing_3YX-Disc-1_Compact_Publishing_1993.iso/moy/060892/06089925.000

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                                                                                COVER STORIES, Page 32

THE BALKANS

Land of Slaughter


Serbia's dream of dominance has soaked in blood the republics
of what was once Yugoslavia. The U.S. and Europe can no longer
look away.

By JILL SMOLOWE -- Reported by Bruce Crumley/Paris, James L.
Graff/Zagreb and John Moody/Belgrade


    When war first broke out in Croatia a year ago, Americans
dismissed the senseless violence with a regretful tut-tut, while
Europeans clung to the hope that people would soon come to their
senses. But as the fighting has spread south and east, igniting
Bosnia-Herzegovina and threatening to engulf other independence-
minded regions of the former Yugoslavia, hope has evaporated that
sanity will prevail. The toll is terrible: more than 12,000
people dead, tens of thousands missing and wounded, 1.5 million
men, women and children forced to flee their homes. Those numbers
only begin to hint at the horror, which U.S. Secretary of State
James Baker characterized two weeks ago as a "humanitarian
nightmare."

    From Bosnia come daily tales of gut-wrenching savagery,
few more appalling than last week's butchery in the capital of
Sarajevo. Civilians were lured from their homes by a lull in the
fighting to line up for bread and ice cream, when three 82-mm
mortar shells smashed into the crowd. At least 25 people were
killed and an additional 100 injured. While the brutality may
have startled outsiders, Sarajevans were not surprised. Just
the night before, shells had slammed into a maternity hospital,
killing three newborns.

    In Muslim towns along Bosnia's eastern borders with Serbia
and Montenegro, Serbian guerrillas have been waging what
amounts to an "ethnic cleansing" campaign since early April.
Last week the village of Turalici took its turn. "They encircled
the place and cut off communications," says Nijaz Rustemovic,
36, a Muslim engineer who lives in nearby Kladanj. "They went
door to door and expelled the people who hadn't already fled.
Then they spilled oil all around and lit the village on fire."
Other cleansings have reportedly included executions of scores
of people. In Croatia, Serbian irregulars continue to expel
Croats from areas near the Danube where Serbs predominate,
despite the presence of U.N. peacekeeping troops. There are
reports that Croats and Muslims have responded in kind against
Serbs.

    Americans and Europeans can no longer wish the Balkan
problem away. "This is no ordinary war," says Sylvana Foa of the
office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. "We are
hearing stories about families having to watch fathers and sons
walk through minefields, and summary executions for the hell of
it." While comparisons to the international disbelief,
blindness and indifference that enabled Hitler to carry out his
"final solution" are overblown, Baker hinted at such a parallel
on May 24 at an international conference in Lisbon. It was just
bracing enough to renew Western determination to halt the
slaughter.

    Humanitarian considerations aside, Europeans have a keen
self-interest in seeing calm restored to the Balkans. When
people run for their lives across not only internal borders but
international ones as well, the financial consequences are
heavy. According to the U.N., 1.25 million people, most of them
Bosnians and Croatians, remain within the boundaries of old
Yugoslavia. An additional 250,000 have sought sanctuary, mostly
in Western Europe; tens of thousands more have probably slipped
over borders illegally to stay with relatives. Already the
largest forced movement of Europeans since World War II, this
flood may be just the beginning. The UNHCR fears that if the
fighting in Bosnia is compounded by an eruption of hostilities
in Kosovo, yet another ethnically divided territory about to
explode, the number of people in flight could rapidly escalate
to 3 million.

    The tide of people leaving Bosnia is not just a
consequence of the war; it is an objective. Serbs, who lay claim
to one-third of Croatia and some 70% of Bosnia's territory, hope
that enforced ethnic homogeneity will ensure their lock on
seized areas. Many are willing to go to almost any length to
realize their dream of a Greater Serbia. Abdulrahman, 26, a
Bosnian Muslim who fled from Zvornik, describes how he and two
friends were on their way to the bakery to buy bread when they
were nabbed by Serbian soldiers of the federal army and
subjected to a night of abuse. Threatened with beatings, they
were forced to kneel, butt their heads against a wall and sing
songs impugning the virtue of Muslim women. "We sang," he says,
"but they beat us anyway."

    Serbs, Croats and Muslims are fleeing Bosnia not only out
of fear but also because they cannot get enough to eat. The
food shortages hardly approach the crisis in Somalia, but for
people accustomed to a steady diet, the diminishing supply is
a hardship. "On even days we have beans," says Vladimir Pozek,
a software analyst in Sarajevo. "On odd days, macaroni." Little
relief is in sight. Both the UNHCR and the Red Cross suspended
operations in Bosnia two weeks ago after workers were repeatedly
threatened and a Red Cross official was killed while leading a
convoy of goods.

    Those who make it to other republics fare better. In
Croatia most of the displaced are put up in private homes.
People who have been relocated within Croatia qualify for state
aid; those who come from Bosnia rely on relief supplies from
international aid organizations. The majority of the almost
40,000 Bosnians who have sought refuge in the Serbian capital
of Belgrade have also been placed in private homes. While many
of these newcomers are Serbs, there are also large numbers of
Croats and Muslims. "No one so far has specified that they'll
only take a Serb or a Croat or a Muslim," says Vidanka Misic of
the Red Cross. "The people who want to help don't care whom they
help." No action has been taken against these Good Samaritans
by the nationalistic government of Slobodan Milosevic.
Presumably he views these resettlements as part of his
divide-and-conquer strategy.

    To handle fresh arrivals, international relief agencies
have opened shelters in hotels, schools and public buildings.
As these facilities rapidly fill up, tent cities are being
planned. But as more of the Balkans is consumed by ethnic
strife, safe havens may become harder to find. "Many of the
Croats who sought shelter in Bosnia are now paying for it," says
Foa. Last week 2,000 Bosnians who had fled to Belgrade were
packed off by the Red Cross to Kosovo. These people may soon be
on the move again: the territory's predominant Albanian
population recently voted to secede from Serbia, raising the
prospect of armed conflict there next.

    While the war is ripping apart the intricately entwined
ethnic mix of the old Yugoslavia, the makeshift arrangements of
the dispossessed sometimes forge new bonds. Jelena Pekez, 27,
a Croat from the Bosnian town of Jajce, is married to a Serb.
Vesna Gacic, 29, a Serb from the Bosnian town of Mostar, is
married to a man of Croatian and Muslim descent. Both women fled
to Kosmaj, south of Belgrade: Pekez left just ahead of a total
blockade of her hometown, Gacic after a frightening 20-day stay
in an underground shelter. When the two women's paths crossed
at a center set up by the Red Cross, they kept their distance.
But the things they held in common -- a loss of home, a hatred
of the violence -- drew them closer. Now they operate the center
together, coordinating the lives of 79 residents, almost half
of them children. When one woman grieves, the other supplies the
strength. There are more bad days than good. "I've lost my
identity," says Gacic. "I'm no one now."

    Both Pekez and Gacic are lucky in one respect: they have
their husbands with them. It is far more common for the men and
boys to stay behind to protect their homes and fight. Aida
Catovic, 32, left Sarajevo on May 18 with her two small
children. They escaped just in time: the next convoy out was
detained by Serbian gunmen, who took 5,000 people hostage for
three days. After taking the grueling bus ride to Split in
Croatia, Catovic flew to Zagreb. Now living with distant
relatives of her in-laws, she waits anxiously for the daily call
from her husband in Sarajevo. "The only question I ask is, `Are
you all still alive?' " she says. "And every day I worry what
the answer will be tomorrow."

    Families are not always in agreement about whether they
should separate -- and they do not always have a choice. Desanka
Blacic, 36, a Serb, turned up hysterical and penniless in
Belgrade last week with her three-year-old son, having fled the
Bosnian village of Kastilj. Her husband, a member of a militia
protecting the self-proclaimed Serbian state within Bosnia, had
told her, "Just get out, go anywhere." She tried to compel her
13-year-old son to leave with her, but he refused. "If Father
is killed here," the boy said, "I want to die with him." Just
recounting that story reduces the woman to tears.

    Marica Josipovic, by contrast, is dry-eyed when she tells
her tale. A sturdy, hard-faced Serbian woman of 50 years, she
fled to Kosmaj from Prud, a predominantly Croatian town in
Bosnia. Her husband remains behind, not by choice but because
he was forced by a Serbian militia to fight. Josipovic says
neither she nor her husband has any interest in killing
neighbors with whom they have lived harmoniously for years.
Before Josipovic left, she was on comfortable enough terms with
the Croatians next door to ask them to mind her goats. She says
conscripts on both sides of the conflict sneak home at night to
guard their own property, often standing shoulder to shoulder;
when the sun rises, they report for duty in opposing camps.

    Such accounts speak to a reality that the current carnage
obscures: in many villages, ethnic groups have coexisted
peacefully for centuries. Probably they would have continued
that way had it not been for the zealous ambitions of their
nationalist leaders. Serbia's Milosevic is not the only one to
whip up ethnic hostility. Croatian President Franjo Tudjman, no
less brutal a dictator or ardent a nationalist, used the
fighting in his republic to pummel Serbs and attempt to impose
total control over any who stayed in Croatian territory. Now
Tudjman is taking advantage of Bosnia's war to occupy areas
settled by Croats. His government has reportedly negotiated with
Belgrade to carve up Bosnia between the Serbs and Croats,
leaving the Muslim population with next to nothing. It is an
open question whether citizens will be able to set aside their
anger and return to their neighborly habits when the guns are
silenced.

    As it is, few can hope to return to their homes in the
foreseeable future. Most know that the lives they built have
been razed to rubble. Red Cross personnel have noticed that when
children first arrive at temporary shelters, they speak of
coming from Croatia or Bosnia; within a few weeks, however, they
identify themselves as refugees. Adults are also relinquishing
former ties. "I grew up with Serbs. We chased women together
when we were young," says David Becirovic, 35, a Muslim
businessman from Sarajevo who now camps with his wife, two
children and 100 other people in a sports hall in downtown
Zagreb. He says the drumbeat of Serbian leaders, who declare
that any Serb who doesn't join the battle is a traitor, has made
Sarajevo an alien place. "I used to have the feeling I knew half
the city," he says. "Now that's gone."

    Not surprisingly, some of the homeless have concluded that
a more promising future lies elsewhere in Europe. But the E.C.
countries, their economies already strained by recession, are
not eager to be swamped by refugees who will need housing, jobs
and welfare benefits. Germany has been particularly responsive,
shelling out $51 million this year in refugee assistance and
taking in 115,000 refugees -- almost twice as many as Hungary,
which has the second largest influx. Germany's appeal owes much
to its 800,000 guest workers of Yugoslav origin. "Practically
everybody has a relative or a friend living in Germany," says
Wolf Oschlies, a Yugoslav specialist at Cologne's Federal
Institute for Eastern European and International Studies.

    Bonn made one feeble attempt to stem the flow in early May
but backed down when an international outcry ensued.
Understandably, Germans are a bit irked that other countries
should be so quick to criticize and so slow to act themselves.
Many countries haven't even paid their full portion of the
UNHCR'S $140 million aid program; as a result, the organization
has received only about a third of the funding. Germany fears
that the incoming refugees could reach 1 million. "Why would
they go back?" asks Oschlies. "All they have there is inflation,
unemployment and war, and many of them have no homes to go back
to."

    For many of the homeless, this is all just so much
dithering. Becirovic, who would like to move abroad, has been
on a wild-goose chase since late April. First, he tried to make
his way to Germany, where a generous asylum law enables refugees
to stay for an extended period. But the Austrians wouldn't let
Becirovic and his family across their border without German
visas. Then he turned to Western embassies in Zagreb. "The
Americans refer me to their embassy in Vienna, but I can't get
there without a visa," he says. He has run up against the same
problem with the Swiss and British. There was a bright moment
when he secured a visa from the Swedes -- but once Bosnia
received Western recognition as an independent state, the Swedes
were at a loss what to do with a Bosnian who has a Yugoslav
passport. "It's a vacuum," he says. "No one knows how to treat
us."

    Europe is beginning to devise a plan. At a meeting two
weeks ago in Vienna, representatives from 10 countries, the
UNHCR and the Red Cross adopted a strategy to offer displaced
persons on-the-spot shelter from the conflict rather than asylum
in other countries. While the message can be read as "Stay
out," the plan is not entirely cynical: most displaced persons
would rather stay put anyway. Fully three-quarters of a group
of 2,000 refugees who fled from Dubrovnik to the Italian border
province of Friuli last November crossed back into Croatia
within three months.

    The question is whether there will be anything to return
to when and if Croats, Muslims and Serbs end their fighting. So
far, property damage is estimated as high as $100 billion. For
the youngest generation, home has become a threat, not a
refuge. Last week at the center in Kosmaj, four-year-old Natasha
ran up to her mother in tears. A boy had taunted Natasha,
saying she had to return home to Mostar in Bosnia, where the
girl had recently spent three weeks underground. "Don't worry,"
her mother soothed. "We won't ever go back to Mostar again."
When the little girl smiled, the mother looked as though she
would cry.