Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
sniper fire in an almost medieval-style siege. Many people were executed onthe spot, while
others were arrested and taken to concentration camps. Survivors were forced to leave the
towns their families had lived in for centuries.
It was during this initial wave of Bosnian Serb ethnic cleansing—orchestrated by
RadovanKaradži
ć
andhisgenerals—thattheworldbegantoheartalesashorrifyingasany-
thing you can imagine. Militia units would enter a town and indiscriminately kill anyone
they saw—civilian men, women, and children. Pregnant women mortally wounded by gun-
fire were left to die in the street. Fleeing residents crawled on their stomachs for hours to
reach cover, even as their family and friends were shot and blown up right next to them.
Soldiers rounded up families, then forced parents to watch as they slit the throats of their
children—andthentheparentswerekilled,too.Dozensofpeoplewouldbelinedupalonga
bridge to have their throats slit, one at a time, so that their lifeless bodies would plunge into
the river below. (Villagers downstream would see corpses float past, and know their time
was coming soon.) While in past conflicts houses of worship had been considered off-lim-
its, now Karadži
ć
's forces actively targeted mosques and Catholic churches. Perhaps most
despicable was the establishment of so-called “rape camps”—concentration camps where
mostly Bosniak women were imprisoned and systematically raped by Serb soldiers. Many
were intentionally impregnated and held captive until they had come to term (too late for an
abortion),whentheywerereleased tobearandraiseachildforceduponthembytheirhated
enemy. These are the stories that turned “Balkans” into a dirty word.
The Bosnian Serb aggressors were intentionally gruesome and violent. Leaders roused
their foot soldiers with hate-filled propaganda (claiming, for example, that the Bosniaks
were intent on creating a fundamentalist Islamic state that would do even worse to its Serb
residents), then instructed them to carry out unthinkable atrocities. For the people who car-
ried out these attacks, the war represented a cathartic opportunity to exact vengeance for
decades-oldperceivedinjustices.EverydaySerbs—who,forcenturies,havebeensteepedin
messages about how they have been the victims of their neighbors—saw this as an oppor-
tunity to finally make a stand. But their superiors had even more dastardly motives. They
sought not only to remove people from “their” land, but to do so in such a heinous way as
to ensure that the various groups could never again tolerate living together.
Bosnia-Herzegovina was torn apart. Even the many mixed families were forced to
choose sides. If you had a Serb mother and a Croat father, you were expected to pick one
ethnicity or the other—and your brother might choose the opposite. The majority of people,
who did not want this war and couldn't comprehend why it was happening, now faced the
excruciating realization that their neighbors and friends were responsible for looting and
burning their houses, and shooting at their loved ones. As families and former neighbors
trained their guns on each other, proud and beautiful cities such as Mostar were turned to
rubble, and people throughout Bosnia-Herzegovina lived in a state of constant terror.
