Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, August 24, 1993 TAG: 9308240136
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GEORGE RODRIGUE DALLAS MORNING NEWS
DATELINE: MOSTAR, BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA LENGTH: Medium
"All of us in the building have an agreement: We always knock on each other's doors," she said. "When a doorbell rings, we are terrified. Because the soldiers always ring doorbells."
The soldiers are members of the Croatian Defense Council who specialize in "ethnically cleansing" Muslims who live behind Croat lines in Mostar, such as Mirsada.
Already those squads of Bosnian Croats have arrested every Muslim man ages 18 to 60 in the city's western half.
They have kept tens of thousands of Muslims living in the eastern half of the city under a siege so severe that United Nations officials are warning of deaths from starvation unless aid begins to arrive this week.
Veso Vegar, a spokesman for the Croatian Defense Council, said that a U.N. aid convoy would be allowed to enter eastern Mostar on Wednesday.
While those in the east starve, Muslims caught behind Croatian lines in western Mostar, such as Mirsada, have been terrorized. Croatian fighters have killed at least one of Mirsada's neighbors, a 47-year-old policeman. They beat and starved another, 20-year-old Jusuf, and forced him to build their front-line fortifications. One week ago, he watched four fellow prisoners die in a cross-fire.
Aid workers said this pattern of terror outside the battle zones is the very essence of ethnic cleansing. Men and women are terrified until they cannot stand to stay home any longer.
It is a problem Western workers fear could worsen as all sides fight to control territories granted to their ethnic groups at the Geneva peace conference. By some estimates, the ethnic cleansing of Bosnia-Herzegovina expected once the Geneva conference divides the country into ethnic provinces will produce a million more refugees. That's on top of more than 2 million already produced by wartime ethnic cleansing.
Mostar, once a city of 120,000 divided evenly between Muslims and Croats, would become the capital of the Croatian region of Bosnia under terms of the Geneva conference. That realization has pushed the Croatian Defense Council to expel thousands of Muslims from their homes.
Mirsada, 27, stayed in Mostar during last year's Serbian siege (when Muslims and Croats fought side by side) so she could stay close to her boyfriend. Now he has disappeared in the daily Croatian pounding of the town's Muslim quarter. Mirsada wants to leave but can't.
At the squeal of a car's brakes she bolted from her chair and ran to the window.
"Muslims no longer have cars in Mostar," she said. She feared that it was a Croatian Defense Council patrol come to take her away. She kept a black nylon bag full of clothes and mementos tucked behind her television set, just in case.
At night she holds her radio antenna in her hand to amplify the feeble signal of the Bosnian army's radio station across the river. Her boyfriend is in that shell-blasted Muslim ghetto, and she hopes to hear from him.
Most such messages are terse: "To those who knew Senad, we regret to announce that he died one week ago." The radio also might bring word of her own death.
"Once a Muslim soldier mentioned the full name of his family on the air, and Croat soldiers went to their place and killed his sister, a friend and her 10-month-old baby," she said. "So we listen all the time and worry that some soldier will be stupid enough to mention a family name."
Compared to her Muslim friends on the eastern side of the Neretva River, Mirsada lives relatively well. The 55,000 Muslims trapped under Croatian guns have no food or electricity, and they must brave constant sniper fire just to fetch buckets of water. U.N. officials say those Muslims will begin to die within five days unless they can break a Croatian blockade on food supplies.
Many of Mirsada's Croatian neighbors are horrified at the terrorism practiced by some elements of the Croatian Defense Council. Those neighbors hid and fed her, at least until they got death threats from other Croats.
Even now, Mirsada has at least intermittent supplies of electricity and running water. Food is available for those with money.
But Mirsada has no money. She used to work in a shop, but it was owned by a Muslim, so the Croatian Defense Council put it out of business. Croatian militia leaders have decreed that only members of their organization (or their female relatives) can acquire new jobs, Mirsada said.
With all Muslim men imprisoned, Mirsada also feels very much alone. "I am the only young person left in my building," she said. "I am afraid that they will take me away and use me for the pleasure of the soldiers."
by CNB