home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- <text id=93TT2424>
- <title>
- Feb. 08, 1993: The Verge of Collapse
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1993
- Feb. 08, 1993 Cyberpunk
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- THE WEEK
- WORLD, Page 18
- The Verge of Collapse
- </hdr>
- <body>
- <p>Serbs signal the depth of their hatred by sabotaging a Croatian
- dam
- </p>
- <p> The Peruca hydroelectric dam, north of the Croatian city of
- Split, may not yet be doomed. But it is in serious trouble.
- Though the dam is located outside the areas designated for
- Croatia's rebellious Serbs by last year's peace plan, the Serbs
- had threatened to blow it up rather than hand it over to their
- Croatian rivals.
- </p>
- <p> They weren't kidding. When Croat forces took the dam on
- Thursday, after a week-long struggle to regain territories that
- U.N. troops had failed to clear of Serb forces, the mines had
- already been detonated. Gushing water threatened to burst the
- 210-ft.-high (65-m) structure altogether, washing away the homes
- of 20,000 people downstream. At week's end Croatian officials
- were working feverishly to shore it up and drain the reservoir
- behind it.
- </p>
- <p> A tottering dam wasn't the only prize. The Croats also got
- a destroyed bridge, an unusable airport, and a stinging
- condemnation from the U.N. Nevertheless, the action has given
- Croats new confidence that they can give the Serbs who pummeled
- them in 1991 a taste of their own medicine. Though another
- emergency cease-fire was declared Friday, such sentiments betray
- the more likely future for Croatia.
- </p>
-
- </body>
- </article>
- </text>
-
-