TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/112591/1125000.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 5.9 KB | 129 lines

                                                                                WORLD, Page 52

YUGOSLAVIA

The Human Cost of War


After 12 failed cease-fires, Croatians and Serbs are starving
and dying -- and wondering why no one stops the bloodletting

By JILL SMOLOWE -- Reported by James O. Jackson/Belgrade


    The scars may be just months old, but they cut deep
enough to last a lifetime. In Dubrovnik, the architectural jewel
of the Adriatic that has been under siege since Oct. 1, 50,000
civilians spent last week huddled in underground cellars and
shelters while shells tore apart their matchless city. With
potable water and food in ever diminishing supply, terrified
Yugoslavs subsisted on powdered milk and the forlorn hope that
the international community might finally come to their rescue.

    To the north and east along the banks of the Danube River,
the stench of decomposing livestock, pets and people wafted
through the rubble-strewn streets of Vuko var. Through 12 weeks
of fighting, 58,000 townspeople had fled. The 12,000 who
remained behind cowered in the town's cellars and sewers,
rolling cigarettes from tea leaves and burning strips of doused
cloth for light. "This is hell," Vesna Vukovic, a Croatian
television reporter, pleaded over the airwaves. "We just cannot
stand it anymore."

    It was a cry of despair from a civilian population that
has seen its collective lives, homes and loved ones laid waste
by artillery and gunboat bombardments. The relentless barrages
on Dubrovnik and Vuko var were only the most dramatic reminders
of the human toll in this vengeful war between Europeans -- the
worst on the Continent since 1945. No one had even begun to add
up the economic and physical damage to the country. Was anybody
with the power to stop the carnage listening?

    Only perhaps. After almost five months of hostilities, 12
failed truces and a death tally of more than 7,000, the Croatian
and Serbian militias signaled last week that even they may
finally have had enough. In the most promising bid yet for a
true cessation of hostilities, both sides agreed to the proposed
dispatch of United Nations peacekeeping forces. Croatia, which
has lost control of almost a third of its territory, for the
first time invited U.N. troops to be stationed in areas
populated by Serbs. In exchange, the Yugoslav federal army,
which has acted in tandem with Serbian militias, announced that
it would withdraw from Croatian territory if the security of the
Serbian enclaves could be assured.

    The move toward a resolution of the crisis seemed to take
a little of the ferocity out of the fighting. In Dubrovnik,
where the guns were stilled at midweek to permit the evacuation
of wounded civilians and 14 European Community monitors, a
tenuous cease-fire held from one hour to the next. In Vukovar
the fighting also subsided, largely because the Serbs seemed to
have subdued the Croatian forces, despite reports that an
organized force of holdouts had taken refuge in the sewer
system. Although the army continued to pound Vu kovar with
rockets and artillery, a Western diplomat said, "They're not
doing much now but making the rubble bounce."

    Silencing of the guns in Vukovar would be a symbolic
achievement. The quaint town in the eastern Slavonian region of
Croatia is one of two largest areas in the republic populated
predominantly by Serbs, which gives it a significance
disproportionate to its size and population. The federal army
intervened in force to show that it could defend embattled
Serbs; the Croatians dug in to demonstrate that they could hold
out on their own soil. The results proved only how futile this
war really is. The ill-armed paramilitary forces fielded by the
Croatians learned they could not stand up to the overwhelming
military superiority of the army. As for the army, it "defended"
Serbian civilians so thoroughly that barely a single Serbian
house is left intact.

    The months of war have touched every pocket of Croatia,
where the lessons learned are certain to breed hatred for
generations to come. An estimated 500,000 Croatians and Serbs
have fled the republic since war erupted following its June 25
declaration of independence. Zvezdana Miovic, 30, is one such
refugee, currently living with 136 others in a children's summer
camp south of Belgrade. The daughter of a Croatian mother and
a Serbian father, Zvezdana and her Serbian husband had lived
peaceably among mostly Croatian neighbors in the western town
of Zadar until the fighting began.

    "Suddenly my neighbors refused to greet me," Zvezdana
says. "My husband lost his job as a watchman in a factory." The
fabric of her family life also unraveled quickly. "My uncle, my
mother's brother, cursed the Serbs in the most awful language,"
she says. "I can see that he had to say those things in front
of others, but he never came to me privately to apologize. That
hurt me very deeply." The psychological strain became so great
that Zvezdana fled with her two children. "There is nothing in
Zadar for me anymore," she says. "I have no contact with my
mother." Zvez dana's husband joined the legion of jobless,
estimated at more than 1.5 million, fully 12% of the Yugoslav
labor force. Frustrated and angry, he has signed up with one of
the many local paramilitary forces in a Serbian-dominated area.

    It is precisely such groups that give Serbian, Croatian
and federal army authorities little hope that the fighting will
soon end. Although officials reached agreement on a 13th truce
late last week, none of them exercise full control over the
hotheaded paramilitary forces. Major General Milav Pujic, a
Deputy Minister of Defense, estimates that to hold territory one
peacekeeping soldier will be needed for every 10 civilians. It
remains an open question whether the international community has
the manpower, the stomach or the sympathy for such a massive
operation.