February 23, 1996

Serbs Leave Sarajevo Suburbs, Weighed Down and Terrified

By STEPHEN KINZER

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina -- In yet another of the heart-rending refugee flights that punctuated the Bosnian war and that now mar the peace, thousands of terrified Serbs trekked over snowy mountains on Thursday, away from their homes near Sarajevo.

With a shortage of vehicles putting many people afoot, men strained under the weight of sacks stuffed with whatever possessions they were able to carry, women harnessed themselves to sleds, and old people herded livestock ahead of them on their way, step by wretched step, toward the Bosnian Serbs' headquarters in Pale.

The refugees were coming from suburbs of Sarajevo that have been in Serbian hands since the war began here nearly four years ago, but which are due to come under the control of the Muslim-dominated government beginning on Friday. They fear that the new authorities will seek revenge for the long Serbian siege of Sarajevo.

One of the refugees, Dragana Vasa, fled on foot with her husband, daughter, and 85-year-old father. She said she was certain that the Muslim police would arrest her husband, who had served in the Bosnian Serb army, and perhaps the rest of the family as well.

Asked why she did not trust U.N. pledges that the new Bosnian government police force would protect human rights, she replied: "The U.N. has never protected the rights of Serbs in this war."

Before leaving, some smashed their windows, doors, furniture, appliances and whatever else they could not carry with them, not wanting to leave anything of value to the Muslims who may soon be occupying their houses and apartments. Several set fire to their homes as they left. Because there are no firefighters left, the fires smoldered all day.

Many of those who fled on Thursday lived in the northern suburb of Vogosca, where the government police are due to arrive on Friday morning. There is a good road connecting Vogosca to Pale, and the ride takes barely half an hour. But that road runs through Sarajevo, and many Serbs seemed convinced that they risk awful fates if they try to use it.

A handful passed through in trucks under a hail of rocks from Muslim children, but the rest chose to slog along a narrow, unpaved path on a freezing trip that could take 24 hours or more.

Efforts by U.N. and NATO officials to persuade residents of the suburbs that they have nothing to fear from government police officers had only marginal success. Appeals were broadcast on local radio stations, and leaflets were printed promising that the new civilian and police authorities moving into Serb-held suburbs would guarantee "equal opportunity and nondiscrimination for all peoples."

But Peter Fitzgerald, the chief of the U.N. operation that is to monitor respect for the Serbs' rights, conceded in Vogosca on Thursday, "Nobody can guarantee the people's safety here."

In any case, few in Vogosca seemed to have heard the radio broadcasts, and no one was seen distributing the leaflets. People flooded out of Vogosca on Thursday as if fleeing the advance of a deadly plague.

Relief agencies refused to help the fleeing refugees, arguing that to do so would make them accomplices to a form of ethnic cleansing. Kris Janowski, a spokesman for the U.N. high commissioner for refugees, said the refugees were fleeing largely in response to "propaganda hype in the Pale media."

"It's a fairly cynical political manipulation, and we do not want to play that game," Janowski said. "If we see old people on the road without being able to go farther, or if it's a life-threatening situation, we will have no choice but to go in and help."

No trucks or aid workers from relief organizations were seen along the tortuous mountain route on Thursday, however, and it would have been all but impossible for any to penetrate the miserable column. Hundreds of dangerously overloaded cars, trucks, tractors, and donkey carts clogged the road, passing dozens of others stalled in the snow and mud. Streams of refugees not lucky enough to have vehicles trudged slowly forward, facing a night without shelter in sub-zero temperatures.

The Bosnian Serb authorities, who oppose the Bosnian peace treaty's provisions calling for the Bosnian government takeover of the mainly Serbian suburbs of Sarajevo, have urged Serbs living there to flee rather than submit to government authority.

The Serbian leadership promised to establish rest stops and feeding stations for the refugees, but there were none. Nor had any visible provisions been made in Pale, a village of only several thousand inhabitants with no more than a few hundred guest rooms to spare.

Asked if he was angry at Bosnian Serb leaders for encouraging the exodus but failing to provide means for people to leave, the exhausted mayor of Vogosca, Rajko Koprivica, replied with deep sarcasm: "No, I love them."

"I am most angry at the people who created the Dayton peace agreement, and especially toward those who decided that Muslim police officers should be sent here so quickly," Koprivica said. "I'm angry at people who are creating panic here for their own political reasons. I'm angry at everybody, but mostly at myself because I trusted people, because I didn't know that people say one thing and do another."

"There is a God, and I think all politicians will be punished, myself included," he lamented. "People from this town should have been allowed to leave like human beings."

Next door, Police Chief Jovan Maunaga said he would leave town before government officers arrive on Friday. Nearly all of his men were already gone.

"It's complete chaos here," Maunaga said. "People are bitter because they have to leave their homes. Fire and vandalism are everywhere, and the international community is looking at this as if nothing happened."

In Vogosca on Thursday, banks, schools, and clinics were closed. Many people on the streets were at or past the point of mental collapse. One young woman stopped to chat, but when asked why she and her family were preparing to leave, she began breathing heavily and suddenly broke into tears. She blurted: "They killed my brother," and ran away.

The international official in charge of resettlement and other civilian issues in Bosnia, Carl Bildt, was among those surveying the barren scene in Vogosca on Thursday. Speaking of the town's residents, he said: "They have gone, to a large extent, and this is an empty suburb."

"If there is an orderly transfer, it could persuade people to come back," he suggested, trying to find some hope on a bleak and tragic day. "It's very, very late, but perhaps not too late."

Other Places of Interest
  • Operation Joint Endeavour (IFOR)