From: mtaghavi@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Amir Taghavi)
Subject: Warming story from Bosnia despite of conflict
Summary: Exceptional Friendship 
Organization: The Ohio State University
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 04:52:14 GMT


	SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (UPI) -- An armed Serbian guerrilla in
army green uniform knocked on the door of a Croatian home in the Serb-
held Grbavica neighborhood of Sarajevo. The door was opened by a pale,
bearded man. The two embraced and kissed each other three times on the
cheek.
	``How are the children? Do you have enough food?'' asked Stojan
Sljuka, as two little blond girls rushed out to greet him.
	He and Blagoje Rosso were next-door neighbors and they have remained
best of friends since a bomb shattered Sljuka's home three months ago,
prompting him to move his family away to safety. He then joined the
Yugoslav army-armed Serbian forces fighting to partition Sarajevo into
ethnic districts.
	``In this war, one man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter,''
said Sljuka, whose wife is a Muslim Slav.
	Despite the savagery of the conflict that has shattered Bosnia-
Hercegovina's delicate ethnic comity, exceptional friendships still
endure, remnants of Sarajevo's success in embodying the deceased
Yugoslav ideal of ethnic ``brotherhood and unity.''
	Sljuka now exchanges gunfire daily with Muslim Slavs, crouching in
one of the earthen bunkers dug into the steep slopes of Grbavica.
	He believes he is defending the homes of friends and neighbors,
including the Rosso family and several Muslim Slavs who remain trapped
just behind the Serbian frontlines around Sarajevo.
	Non-Serbs cannot leave Serb-held territory without special passes
from Serbian commanders, whose offices are located deep in Serbian
territory and can only be reached by running gauntlets of sniper fire
and militia checkpoints.
	``We are relatively safe here,'' said Rosso, sitting in his bullet-
riddled living room with a view of Sarajevo's Holiday Inn. ``But we
would like to leave this place as soon as possible because of the
children.''
	Those caught on the frontlines frequently lose all sense of danger.
	Rosso's children, Ines, 10, and Ivana, 8, did not even flinch at
nearby blasts of machine gun fire and mortar explosions. They continued
thumbing through books as they sat on the floor amid large trash bags
full of clothing, prepared for possible flight at a moment's notice.
	Local Serb, Croat and Muslim Slav families provide one another with
elementary foodstuffs as they share the same hardships of no electricity
or working telephones.
	``We are not hungry,'' said Rosso's wife, Vlatka. ``After having
lived here for six years, we have good Serb and Muslim friends with whom
we share whatever food we have.''
	But she turned visibly distressed and tears began streaming down her
cheeks as she recounted pre-war Sarajevo, saying: ``We all used to live
together so nicely.''
	She seemed mostly upset about the uncertain fate of her children.
	``They used to be the best students and best athletes of their class,
'' said Vlatka. ``Since the war, they have not been able to leave the
house in three months.''
	Confinement has left parents and children with the pallors of siege
victims.
	``I will not allow politics to dictate who my friends will be,'' said
Sljuka, while stroking the hair of one of the girls. ``For years we
lived together in peace. I have friends and relatives who are Muslim
Slav and Croatian, and I alone will decide if they will remain my
friends after the war.''
	Sljukic, a well-known designer of high fashion clothing before the
conflict, said he had never dreamed of taking up a weapon for any
reason.
	``But things are different now,'' he explained. ``When someone shoots
at your children, bombs your house, and destroys your car, you start
thinking differently.''
	Sljukic said that he bears no hard feelings toward Muslim Slavs who,
he believes, have been misled by the Muslim Slav-led government.
	But, he continued: ``In reality, we have all been taken advantage of.
All three sides told us that there would be no war and look what has
become of us.''
	``I think the best solution would be if we parted ways for a while,''
said Rosso, refering to proposals for the partition of Bosnia-
Hercegovina into separate ethnic regions.
	``We just don't get along,'' said Rosso. ``Serbs and Croats have more
in common than Serbs and Muslims or Croats and Muslims.''
	Rosso said that he always had difficulties climbing the social ladder
in Muslim Slav-dominated Sarajevo.
	``In the end I decided to open up my own business so that I wouldn't
have to deal with it,'' said Rosso.
	He said his family wants to escape to Croat-dominated western
Hercegovina. But, he added: ``We haven't had a chance to go out of house
to make contact with people and find a way out of here.


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mtaghavi@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu                          Amir Taghavi

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