A couple of hours from Ribnik, in the city of Banja Luka, the past and the future are seen in a far less ingenuous way. Although not directly affected by war, Banja Luka was not spared by some of the most perverse effects of this confrontation. The Serb majority conquered the city in the beginnings of the war without encountering any significant opposition. Tens of thousands of Muslim and Croats remained in the city during most of the war although enduring great hardships and fear. At least half of all Roman Catholic churches in the area as well as 16 mosques were burned down or blown.
Buildings are still intact.
But spirits are broken, and the once defiant pride is shattered. In a sign of how desperate once-proud Bosnian Serbs have become, they are now welcoming the international aid that until recently they disparaged as fit only for the weak. Aid agencies have started to arrive in an effort to deal with the roughly 140,000 Serbian refugees displaced by Croatian and Muslim military victories. Half a year later, the empty lots where religious buildings were located look like the silent proof of Serb intolerance meanwhile in the very center of the city, the pillars of a monumental Orthodox Church under construction symbolize the attempt by the conquering Serb faction to rewrite the history of this once multi-ethnic city. I did not dispute the generalized consensus prevailing in the Western press that the Serbs were the primary aggressors in this tragic war.