THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 10, 1996 TAG: 9603100154
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: OPERATION JOINT ENDEAVOR
BOSNIA
Reporter Jack Dorsey and photographer Martin Smith-Rodden traveled to
Bosnia to report on the drudgery, pain and occasional terror
confronting U.S. troops who are part of a NATO force helping restore
peace after four years of fighting.
SOURCE: BY JACK DORSEY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: DUBRAVE, BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA LENGTH: Long : 178 lines
Even without the interpreter's help, it was obvious Anna Tomic's life over the past year had been horrible.
As she stepped in front of her son's grocery store and began telling her story, the tears gathered in her hazel eyes. Her voice shook with anger at times, quivered with sorrow and hurt. She raised her shaking hand, holding her plastic-rimmed glasses, while she wiped away the tears with her sleeve.
Her sobs were real. Her anger pointed at no one, yet everyone, for causing her hurt. She's mad at the Serbs. She's mad at the Bosnians. She's mad at the Croatians too - her own people.
Unaccustomed to television cameras and questions from a half-dozen reporters, but sensing she was at the center of some kind of important event, Anna began to reveal her family's difficult life in this little farming village where she was born in 1931.
It possibly was the first time she had told her story to anyone outside her village - a community of 300 people, three years ago - about 30 of them her relatives.
Today 20 people live here, most behind boarded-up windows, with wood stoves for heat and candles for light. Electricity, provided by the war-damaged, coal-burning power plant in Tuzla 30 miles to the south, is available sporadically, and then is insufficient for the television or washing machine. Natural gas for heating and cooking is available four hours a day.
Many of the villagers were killed in the war. Many more fled to Croatia, Germany, Austria or Hungary. Anywhere there was no war.
The wood-frame and cinder-block homes, once covered with white or yellow stucco, are pockmarked from machine-gun fire. Mortar rounds tore away roofs, walls and doors. Barns were scorched.
They resemble scenes from World War II movies.
``It was awful here,'' Anna began, speaking through the interpreter, a 19-year-old Serbian high school graduate named Ivana Cdetkovic. Ivana was hired by the U.S. Army as a translator for the year that the Americans plan to stay here as peacekeepers.
Ivana had met Anna before.
``She's a great lady,'' said Ivana. ``I took her son to the sergeant major (and) made it possible for him to sell food down there to the Americans.''
Although the two women represent groups that are distinctly different - Croats are Catholics, Serbs are Eastern Orthodox and Bosnians are Muslim - it didn't matter at the moment. They seemed to be friends.
At 65, Anna is a Croatian Catholic, mother of six, married for 50 years and apparently ``everybody's'' grandmother, said Ivana.
When Anna's eyes are dry, they sparkle. When the smile returns to her rotund, delicate face, it warms her Western visitors.
But Anna wants her visitors to know about this war that has rifled her country for too long and has ruined her life.
Her church, just a half-mile up the road - the Franciscan Church of Dubrave - was destroyed. Mortar rounds tore away its steeple, leaving its bronze bell dangling from a single metal rod. Its roof was caved in. The church schoolhouse was ruined as well.
Anti-personnel mines covered its soccer field and lined both sides of a dirt road leading past a small shrine, which is now ``off-limits,'' said the Army.
The priest and nuns have fled.
``They had to run away and hide in shelters,'' said Anna.
A year ago, said Anna, a mortar round exploded in her back yard, killing her sister and brother. It left an 8-foot crater.
``My house is empty now. It looks OK from the front. But from the back, it is ruined,'' she said. ``It was scary. I am so sorry about my brother and sister.
``Those are things you can never forget.''
Ivana, trying to retain Anna's words as she talks non-stop for five minutes, said Anna remains afraid.
``The soldiers were hiding in bunkers by that small river over there. They made something like earth cabins and hid there.
``During the war, while they were sleeping, is when the mortar shells came,'' said Ivana. ``She is still afraid when someone touches her. She is afraid when someone screams. She is afraid of trains, or when someone sneezes.''
The fear continues, said Anna, despite the peace treaty.
``She is more afraid now than during the war because she is not sure about all this. She hopes the peace will come true, but she doesn't know,'' said Ivana.
``Maybe tomorrow something else will happen,'' said Anna, covering her mouth and shaking with fear.
In the last year, Anna has lost six members of her family. Four of her sons and all of her grandchildren fled to Croatia and Sweden. One son, a doctor, is in the United States. Only one grandchild has returned. She wants all of them to return.
``They can't come back here because they are afraid,'' she said.
She and her family have been attacked, not only by Serbs, but also by Muslims. She is more concerned today about the Muslims because they are closer to her home.
Asked if she sees a time when they can all live peacefully in the same community, Anna begins yelling and said that is all she wants.
She remembers her family in World War II when the Germans came first, then the Russians who chased away the Germans.
``It was something like this after World War II,'' she said. ``We all lived together - the Serbs, Muslims and Croats - and that is the way it should be now.''
The Americans have made a difference, Anna said. They are manning armored vehicles in front of her son's store and are camped less than a mile away where they watch over the Zone of Separation, designed to keep the warring factions apart.
``We are afraid only of the Americans leaving. If they pull back, it will happen again,'' she said.
As she sobbed, Anna began talking so rapidly that Ivana could not keep up with the translations.
``So many children died here,'' Ivana quotes Anna as saying.
``She says it was so awful to look at . . . their torture. She said the children were murdered in some awful ways.''
One such atrocity happened in Brcko, about 10 miles northeast of here, on the Sava River, according to Anna.
``I don't know how to tell you this,'' Ivana told the reporters. ``Anna says they made food for the animals from the children. She said those who escaped jumped in the river and drowned.
``The bridge on the Sava River was blown up then and parts of human bodies flew up into the air from the bridge. It was awful to see.''
As Anna began to end her conversation, telling Ivana that the peace since December has been a blessing, and that life is better and the future brighter, Anna becomes excited.
``She wants you to come inside for Turkish coffee,'' said Ivana.
Telling us not to worry about muddy boots - ``I will clean later'' - Anna invites the eight visitors to sit on her sofa and on the floor as she grinds the coffee beans, recently sent to her from a relative in Austria.
Ivana, sitting on the carpeted floor in front of a coffee table, lights a cigarette. All Bosnians, it seems, smoke.
``We get along,'' Ivana said of her association with Anna, a Croat. Being Serbian and seeing what they had done to Anna's village could have made Ivana uncomfortable. But it didn't.
Only once during the hour-long interview did their differences surface.
Anna said something to Ivana and Ivana shot back what appeared to be an angry reply.
Asked what happened, Ivana said Anna had used a ``bad name'' to describe the Serbian soldiers.
``I ask her not to say it again, please,'' said Ivana. ``We have ugly names for their soldiers, too, but I not use it.''
Anna, apparently realizing she had caused a problem, reached down to Ivana, grabbed her shoulders and gave her a firm hug and kiss. Ivana smiled.
The conversation quickly returned to the lighter side, with Anna showing off photographs of her children and grandchildren and insisting we drink more Turkish coffee. We each had five cupsful.
``She'll be insulted if you don't finish it all,'' insisted Ivana.
As we said goodbye, Anna turned to the group, kissed each one and said: ``God bless you. With peace my life will be much easier. I am happy now. I only want my children back.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN/The Virginian-Pilot
Anna Tomic welcomes a passing soldier in her native village of
Dubrave in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Anna is one of only 20 residents
remaining.
MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN photos/The Virginian-Pilot
At left, Anna Tomic jokes with Ivana Cdetkovic, a 19-year-old
interpreter hired by the U.S. Army as a translator for the year that
the Americans plan to stay in Bosnia as peacekeepers.
A damaged Catholic Church in Dubrave serves as a reminder of the
toll the civil war has taken in the former Yugoslavia.
Outside her son's grocery store, Anna Tomic recounts the losses that
she has endured. Last year, a mortar round exploded in her back
yard, killing her sister and brother. ``It was scary,'' she said.
``I am so sorry about my brother and sister. Those are things you
can never forget.''
KEYWORDS: BOSNIA YUGOSLAVIA CIVIL WAR OPERATION
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