ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Tuesday, March 26, 1996                TAG: 9603260043
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL   PAGE: A-3  EDITION: METRO 
DATELINE: TUZLA AIR BASE, BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA
SOURCE: GEORGE ESPER ASSOCIATED PRESS 

YOUNG BOSNIAN POET TRILLS `PEACE HAS COME'

Emina Bicakcic endured four years of siege in Sarajevo in great fear. So on the night the Dayton peace agreement was signed in Paris last December, the tiny blonde 8-year-old wrote a poem of peace.

On Monday, Emina read that poem to Hillary Rodham Clinton at Tuzla Air Base, where Clinton was visiting U.S. soldiers in Bosnia.

Emina greeted her with a kiss on each cheek, and, in the little English she had practiced for the occasion, told her: ``This poem is for you and for President Clinton.''

Emina read the poem in her language, and her mother translated it into English. Titled ``Peace,'' the poem says:

Peace has come,

Peace has come, knocking at the door,

And there will be no shooting any more.

There is another atmosphere,

Because of peace, of peace

I know it, I live in this country.

There is peace now,

Because Mr. Clinton signed it,

All this peace,

I love it, I love it,

I love peace.

Her mother, Nermana Bicakcic, who works for the Sarajevo Chamber of Commerce, said afterward it was ``very difficult to explain four years of suffering, of hopes and disappointments, with words. You must go through all this suffering.''

Emina said she wrote the poem ``because I was very happy peace has come.''

No wonder.

From April-August 1992, the Bicakcic family lived in a basement because of shelling. It was cold. They had little food. ``It was very difficult,'' Nermana Bicakcic said.

She said she sent her daughter's poem to the U.S. Embassy in January and was invited to bring the girl to Tuzla to greet Clinton with other schoolgirls.

Clinton and her daughter, Chelsea, brought them letters from American children.

Later, Chelsea joined the children for breakfast at a military mess hall

LENGTH: Medium:   54 lines
ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO:  AP. Hillary Rodham Clinton kisses Emina Bicakcic, 8, 
          from Sarajevo. Emina dedicated a poem, "Peace," to Clinton shortly 
          after her arrival at the Tuzla Air Base.