From: pnmideast@igc.apc.org
Newsgroups: soc.culture.yugoslavia
Date: 15 Aug 92 15:05 PDT
Subject: SARAJEVO: EYEWITNESS REPORT
Nf-ID: #N:cdp:1475300359:000:9291
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!pnmideast    Aug 15 15:05:00 1992


From: <pnmideast>
Subject: SARAJEVO: EYEWITNESS REPORT

/* Written  2:46 pm  Aug 15, 1992 by rkopec in cdp:yugo.antiwar */
/* ---------- "SARAJEVO: EYEWITNESS REPORT" ---------- */
[From The Militant, issue of August 21, 1992]
SARAJEVO: VICTIM OF A ONE-SIDED MURDEROUS ONSLAUGHT
By Argiris Malapanis

     SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina -- The hills on the north end of
this town, surrounded by the mountainous Trebevic national park,
look lush under the afternoon sun. But the sense of beautiful
scenery disappears within seconds as the driver races to avoid
constant sniper fire toward the edge of the city. Most  of the
houses have been destroyed. 
     Near the top of the hill we are less than half a mile away
from the front line where Bosnian fighters face Radovan Karadzic's
Serbian Democratic Party forces.
     Ramiz Beshlija is a shepherder whose house is last before the
forest begins. Artillery shells have already wiped out most of his
sheep.  The front of his house facing a Serbian ourpost on the next
hilltop is pecked with  bullet holes. The roof has caved in twice
from mortar shells. His brother's house next door is burned to the
ground.
     The  shooting intensifies as the whole family gathers in the
back of the  house. "Don't worry, the Chetniks won't get here,"
says Ramiz Beshlija in reference to Karadzic's troops. His brother
proudly displays his Kalashnikov rifle. The third brother Meho
takes aim with an old machine gun at enemy positions.
     The Beshlijas are among the very  few    families left in the
neighborhood but they    are  determined  to  stay.  "Nine  out 
of 10 neighbors had  to  leave  or are  dead," said  Ramiz. "We
will defend this land with these   old  weapons  and  handmade 
bombs," he adds emphatically.
     There has been no electricity in the neighborhood for four
months. The UN supplies of food do not reach this hilltop either.
Despite that the family goes out of its way to offer this reporter 
homemade  bread  from  scarce  reserves of flour. Milk from the few
remaining sheep,  and  spinach  pie fresh from a wood oven. The
treat is followed by Turkish coffee.
     "ln terms of food we are still better off than most people in
the city," says Ahmed.   The family cultivates a garden, hidden
behind trees, at night when the shelling is not too heavy. The
family  sleeps  in a dug-out basement. No light of any kind is
allowed. 

*******************
Not an ethnic war
*******************
     "Tell America this is not an ethnic war," says Ramiz. He
offers to take me to the front line where one of his Serbian
neighbors, he insists, is among several Serbs in the Bosnian
defense forces in this end of town, but the guide who knows the way
through the minefields cannot be found. "Before Sarajevo  was
attacked  he  went  and  fought  in  Vukovar against the Yugoslav
army," Ramiz says proudly about his neighbor. 
     Most  people  interviewed  explained  the same thing. Down the
hill my driver Hasan Gluhic stops in the middle of the
predominantly Muslim  "Old Town" to show me a  mosque,  a  Catholic 
church,  and a Serbian   orthodox  church  right  next to each 
other  "Here we all  used to live together with no problems," he
says. His  sister,  Amra  Gluhic,  does  not have  much sympathy
for any of the Serbs in the  city. "Serbians are waiting for the
victory of  the Chetniks,  that's  why  most of them  are  staying
in the city," she says angrily. ''Look  at those Serbian women
snipers in Grbavica and Vraca," she adds, referring to sections of
Sarajevo controlled by rightist Serbian forces.   "No I don't think
so," argues Azra Gluhic. "This is a war between primitives and
humans." The  100,000 Serbs that are still in the city along with
another 200,000 Muslims and Croats are prepared to defend the city,
she explains.

*************************
Heavy hombardment resumes
*************************
     The relative quiet of that afternoon of July 24 did not last
long. A few days Iater heavy and indiscriminate bombardment of the
city by  serbian artillery,  tanks,  and  mortar resumed. The death
toll in Sarjevo that had reached  1,400 in the first  100 days of
the  fighting is rapidly approaching 2,000.
     July 31  was the heaviest day of shelling in weeks as Bosnian
government forces organized an attempt to break through Serbian
siege lines. The Bosnian offensive was answered by a Serbian
barrage that pounded civilian areas throughout the city. At least
40 people died July 31, the greatest toll of casualties in one day
since the siege began. 
     After 36 hours of fighting Bosnian military  officials 
admitted  the  offensive  had failed to break the siege. A breakout
would have put Bosnian forces in position to drive north toward
Vogosca, an industrial center eight miles from Sarajevo, and link
up with Croatian-controlled  territory  further north. Expected aid
from Croatian forces in Bosnia did not materialize.
     "Boban 's  forces  have  the  same  aim  as Karadzic, to
partition Bosnia between Serbia  and Croatia," said Goran Milic in
a telephone  interview. Milic, himself a Croat, is the head  of the
international press center in Sarajevo.
     Mate Boban, a Croatian arms dealer and leader of  Bosnia's  
Croatian   Democratic  Union,  has  declared  up  to  a  third  of
the  territory of the republic to be the new state  of
Herzeg-Bosnia. Croatian forces have entered Bosnia through the
Dalmatian Adriatic  coast and occupy part of the republic's
territory, including the city of Mostar, south of  Sarajevo. Mostar
is a strategic city with an  aircraft  assembly plant,  an  air
force  base, and  other  industry.  Slobodan  Praljak,  an 
official of the Croatian defense ministry, is  head of this
operation.
     A brief lull in the fighting following the  failure   of  the 
 Bosnian  forces   to   break  Sarajevo's  siege  ended  at  dusk 
August  I  with intensive shelling of the city. Sarajevo television 
reported  that  a  bus  carrying  50 children  as  refugees  out
of the city  came under  machine-gun  fire  apparently  from
Serbian  Democratic  Party  positions.  The UN  Protection  forces 
(UNPROPOR)  had refused to provide an escort for the bus.
     Two infants, one  14 months old and the other two years old,
reportedly died during the attack on the bus, which was driving on
the city 's main street known as "Sniper Alley." 
******************
'Ethnic Cleansing' 
******************
     Meanwhile, Serbian rightist forces, who  control two-thirds
of the republic's territory,  continue their "ethnic cleansing"
operations  in many areas in Bosnia. The August 2 issue of New York
Newsday reported that Serbian  paramilitary groups established  two 
concentration  camps  in  northern  Bosnia  where more than a
thousand civilians have been executed  or starved.  The report was 
compiled  from  interviews  by  recenlly  released prisoners from
these camps. Repoters have no access to those areas of Bosnia.
     A similar report of atrocities committed    against  Muslims 
at  concentration  camps   had  been  released  earlier  in  July 
by  the   Muslim News Agency (MINA) in Sarajevo. 
     MINA issued a press release with an "Appeal   trom  Gorazde's 
children,"  July   17.   Gorazde, a majority-Muslin town of 30,000
in eastern Bosnia with 70,000 refugees from other towns in the
area, has come under siege   and is the target of an offensive
named the "Storm," by Karedzic 's forces since July 11.          
"We, the children of Gorazde, bear sufferings which are hard to
imagine; we have   run out of food, we eat leaves, no drinking
water," says the appeal. "We spend all the time in cellars without
electricity not distinguishing day from night."
       Many of our friends trom Visegrad, Foca,  and Zvornik, the
appeal continues, "are either executed or are in columns of
refugees  snaking their way" to a a safe place.

********************************
Debate on military intervention
********************************
     The  seemingly  endless  murderous  onslaught  against  the 
people  of Bosnia  has produced calls by its govemment for direct
military  intervention  by  Washington  and other imperialist
powers. This is echoed by many citizens of besieged Sarajevo.
     A large picture of Josip Tito hangs in the   small tire repair
shop of Nenad Colic in the north end of the city.  "These  Serbian 
extremists are terrorists," said Colic, himself a Serbian. "I don't
know how long we can hold against them. American troops should come
in."
     Most people interviewed in Sarajevo had the  same  view.  "The 
American  air  force should   bomb   Serbian  positions,"   said 
Ramiz Beshlija, the sheepherder. "There is no way for us to win
this war because we  don't  have  artillery,"  asid  Amra Gluhic.
"We need military intervention." 
     Her sister Azra, in one of the rare exceptions to this view,
disagreed. "Look, American troops went into Kuwait not for
democracy but for oil," she said. "Hussein is still in power  and 
look  what happened  to  the  Kurdish people." Azra Gluhic said
she was against a U.S.  or European military intervention.  "But
we need weapons to defend the city, heavy weapons," she added.[] 

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USA



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