THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 7, 1996 TAG: 9607050024
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 22 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAWSON MILLS, CORRESPONDENT
LENGTH: 126 lines
Dario Kosarac was uncomfortable. He had been an altar boy. Still, it felt strange, wearing the shirt of a priest, with its stiff clerical collar.
It was necessary, however, to maintain his disguise as a divinity student. And that was necessary to get the lanky teenager out of war-torn Sarajevo with his most important possession.
His life.
Sitting in a comfortable family room in Virginia Beach, relating events that began just over a year ago, Kosarac's story seemed surreal, separated from the present by more than time and distance.
``It was May 30,'' he recalled in English. ``I was on the street with some friends and we saw foreigners with cameras. There was a woman from England and another from New York. I was desperate. Things were really bad. I was trying to finish school and thinking about going in the Army. The English woman, who was with Through Heart to Peace (an English relief organization), came up and asked if I wanted to go to America.''
Kosarac said he jumped at the chance, but the wait was long.
``For months, we didn't hear anything from them,'' said Kosarac. ``I didn't have any hope. When you're waiting too long, you lose hope. Then they called a friend's home, from Zagreb, to get names and information.''
In the middle of a war zone, amid shooting and shellings, with electricity an occasional thing and the post office shut down, some of the phones still worked. Incoming calls reached Sarajevo, but its residents couldn't call out.
Kosarac, 15, obtained a passport. Had he been 16, he would not have been able to get one because 16-year-olds were being drafted into the Army to fight.
In August, a small notice appeared in the newspaper. It instructed those whose names were included to go to Zagreb. The distance, though great, wasn't the major obstacle. Zagreb was three war zones away.
``At the time,'' remembered Kosarac, ``it was impossible to get out.''
He and two friends frantically scoured the city, locating a special phone from which they placed a call to Zagreb. But when their call was answered, they were told the English woman wasn't there. They would have to call back.
``It was impossible,'' Kosarac sighed.
But on Oct. 25, the foreigners came again to Sarajevo. They told Kosarac and his friends to be in Zagreb on Friday. Kosarac had his Bosnian passport but lacked a visa from Croatia, and it was a long process to get one.
It was then that he turned to his priest.
``He said there is a special road,'' Kosarac explained, ``used for humanitarian missions. It couldn't be used by people seeking to leave, but he said, `You will go. You will be a priest, a divinity student.' ''
And he gave him the shirt.
The next day Kosarac, wearing the shirt and without a visa, was on his way. The priest had also given him some German marks.
All went well until he reached Mostar, in the middle of Bosnia. In Mostar, the bus he was riding had to pass through three checkpoints.
``The first was run by the Bosnian police,'' recalled Kosarac. There he was stopped because he didn't have a visa. ``I showed my passport and baptismal record. In that part of the world, that identifies you as being Croatian. Finally, they said, `OK, you can go.' ''
He didn't have problems at the next two checkpoints and, after several delays, reached Zagreb and finally got through to the English woman who was helping him. With her was Jackie Poarch, of Petersburg. Poarch and her husband, Bill, are volunteers working with press photographer Robert Azzi, who has used his press credentials to get about 100 teenagers out of Sarajevo.
But Kosarac's problems weren't over. At the U.S. Embassy, he encountered more bureaucracy. ``I didn't have a bunch of documents,'' he remembered. ``I didn't have approval from my mother. My I-20 (student visa), originally issued when they thought I'd be leaving in August, had expired. And I didn't have a Croatian visa. I explained that my passport and baptismal record were just as good, but the official at the embassy didn't believe me.''
A Croatian woman who worked at the embassy finally convinced the official, and Kosarac's mother was somehow able to fax some documents, including her permission, from Sarajevo to the embassy.
It was fall when Poarch flew from Zagreb to Frankfurt with Kosarac and two other youths and they landed in Newark, N.J., the next day during a blinding storm.
Diana and Phillip Peterson of Cypress Point had agreed to take Kosarac to live with them. The two military pilots (she flies Navy transports and he flies Marine helicopters) had arranged for Catholic High to sponsor Kosarac. They are both Catholic, but didn't know then that the teenager was Catholic, too.
``All we had was his name and age,'' said Diana Peterson. ``We thought he was Moslem.''
She added, ``After all he'd been through, the weather was so bad, he thought he was going to die landing in Newark.''
They met his plane in Richmond. His first day of school in Virginia Beach was Halloween.
``It's not a holiday they celebrate in Europe,'' said Diana Peterson, laughing. ``We tried to explain that the kids wouldn't be dressed like that every day.''
Kosarac, now in Levi jeans and Nike shoes, blends in with the crowd. It wasn't hard, he said. Even during the worst of the war, movies, music and MTV still reached Sarajevo.
He follows events closely in his homeland. His father died two years before war came to his city, but he left behind his 42-year-old mother, a 21-year-old sister and other relatives. Since the first of the year, he added, the situation at home shows signs of improvement.
Just after Christmas, his mother reported that she had received his draft notice.
Diana Peterson said: ``We are trying to get more children in the Norfolk area. People don't understand that just because of the cease-fire things aren't wonderful there. Teachers aren't getting paid. The economy is ruined.''
The intent of the program that brought Kosarac here is to rescue a small number of children who are fluent in English and can do well in school in the United States. There is a hope that, when peace returns to the region, they can play a role in its rebuilding. The students' visas permit them to stay as long as they are in school.
``First of all, I'm happy,'' says Kosarac, recounting his good fortune. ``I'm getting good results in school. I have a good family here and good friends. I am homesick, but sometimes you have to give something to get something.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo by DAWSON MILLS
Dario Kosarac was given this cleric-collared shirt by his priest to
help disguise himself as a divinity student in his escape from
war-torn Sarajevo.
Diana Peterson and her husband, Phillip, who live in Cypress Point,
agreed to take in Dario Kosarac to live with them. The two military
pilots had arranged for Catholic High to sponsor Kosarac.
KEYWORDS: FOR MORE INFORMATION, WRITE THE BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA
EDUCATION FUND, 2014 WOODLAND ROAD, PETERSBURG, VA. 23805, OR PHONE
804-733-9795. by CNB