Yes, the show is continuing... Serbs were not responsible for 10,000 dead Sarajevans, among who are: my grandmother, died suffocating (she could not be sent to hospital because of the heavy shelling for two days); her brother, a sevetny years old man died by a sniper shot, unmistakebly fired from Grbavica (formerly Serb-held part of Sarajevo); his daughter, killed in a mortar attack while trying to preserve the books from the National Library, set on fire by the Serb forces' shelling; my friends: Karlo, Lado, Samir. My neighbors, school teachers, parents of my friends....
The world has heard the tape, made on May 1st, 1992, the first time Sarajevo was shelled heavily, the day mladic took control over the Bosnian Serb army. On the tape there was a voice of gen. Mladic, ordering to target "Velusici" (it should be Velesici, a part of Sarajevo with dense Muslim population) because "there are no Serbs living there." Two days later, in a park surrounded with buildings, Serb woman threw a hand grenade, killing two children and wounding several more. That was the first time I saw dead people. Litlle girl's jaw was missing. Her foot completely torn apart. That was the first time I saw someone's brain leaking, along with blood, through a hole, where used to be the lower jaw. The girl was ten.
The reason that woman threw a grenade was becuase that day Police was searching apartments in that bloc, looking for hidden arms, snipers, mines and so on. While they were on the lower levels, she panicked and threw a grenade from, her 5th or 6th floor apartment.
I saw more dead people later. The worst casualties were from the Serb mortar attacks, and their sniping fire. I was shot at dozens of times. The first time bullet passed by my head was a very funny experience. It sounded like an insect. Only later I realized that someone was shooting at me, after I saw the sparks that bullets made hitting the concrete. I lived only about 300 meters from the front line. later on, I got used to being fired at. heck, everyone in Sarajevo got used to.
But what I could never bear was the body parts lying on the streets. Sometime in June or July of 1992 I was riding my bike, going to visit friends living only about 500-600m from my home. About ten minutes before I came there, there was another mortar attack. One woman died. When I came, they took her body, and the people were trying to extinguish fire from a few automobiles set on fire by mortars. I stopped, and looked down. On the floor, right by my front tire, two of her fingers were laying in a small pool of blood. I remember there was a ring on one of the fingers. I felt sick. Couple of meters further, one of her shoes was lying . One of the people went to pick it up and put it in the garbagge bag, and said the her foot was still in the shoe. I couldn't see that, but when he took the shoe to show other around, I looked other way. It didn;t metter if the poor woman was a Serb or Muslim or Croat, she was an innocent civilian who paid with her life the price the Serb nationalist were asking for.
As I've said before, I didn't live far from the front line. As if it wasn't enough that we were deprived of food, water, elecricity and gas, being shelled and sniped constantly, the Serb forces also found a way to deprive us off our sleep. When they didn't shoot sporadic night fire (or sometimes very heavy fire), they played a tape of dog's barking on loud speakers. It worked. I couldn't sleep at night, nor could my father. We all moved into one room on the other side of the building, away from the speakers. there was four of us crammed into this small room, trying to hide from annoying barking.
Later that summer the Serb forces started putting on fire all taller buildings. The one we lived at was only 8 floors high, but the next one to ours, popularily called "Sibica" (a match-box), was about 16-18 floors high. When they wanted to set on fire something, they fired incediary bullets. They looked like those red tracers. They put quite a good show, unless they're coming your way. I was watching from below: it took 6 bullets to set one apartment ablaze. Of course, another appartment followed, and another. Pretty soon, the 10th and 11th floors were in flames or thick black smoke. The fire was spreading rapidly. Nothing I have ever seen before. But then I realized that there are people trapped on the higher floors, and the fire was coming their way. Many of them went to other side of the building, away from the incoming bullets, where the fire was smaller, and tried to go down from balcony to balcony. Luckily, all the balconies had some sort of steel fences and support polls, and with a lot of caution, one could go down like that. But that option was out of question for the elders. Many people were trying to throw some of their belongings, mainly clothes, from their appartments, and then go down. So you could see a lot of things just pouring from the windowns, down on the street. There were few smaller explosions in some of the appartments, which would push things out forcibly. So there were some things engulfed in the fire that were falling down as well. One of the "things" that was on fire, falling from one of the top floors was a person. He/she fell right down on the street. There was no help.
There were other such cases where people had to jump out of their windowns, from 10th up to the 20th floors, mainly in "Trg Pere Kosorica" appartments, and three tall red skyscrapers in the "Ivana Krndelja" street. Those three bbuildins were almost right on the front line. they were shelled so much, that there front side, pointed to Serb positions, was completely torned off.
One time, when I was carrying two 10-litter jars with water home, a mortar landed a couple of meters from me. It didn't explode. Our army specialists have dug it out of the ground, where it fell, and then they said that someone had pulled out the detonator, purposely, so the shell could not go off. The Serb soldier, who pulled out that detonator, had saved my life. That is the reason I still believe in living together, there are a lot of people who oppose their nationalist leaders and their sick psychologies of hatred, and those who work for them. I know many such people. I lived there. No one, including you, Ms. Petrovic, including Karadzic and Mladic and Tudjman and Izetbegovic and Boutros Ghali and the UN and the Ec and the Nato and the US can tell me who I can live with and who I cannot. For your information, the things in Bosnia have already started to settle down. there are bus lines working between Tuzla and Belgrade, the air traffic is soon to be opened between Sarajevo and Belgrade. The people will win over the nationalist psychopaths, like you, because WE ARE ALL FED UP WITH YOUR HATRED!
vanja filipovic