sIhowOiWotD
Sarajevo showing signs of
relief after NATO action
The Michigan Daily -- Wednesday, September 6, 1995 - 11A
The Washington Post
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina
- In some places, shifts in well-
being are measured by changes in
prices on billion-dollar stock ex-
changes.
Here, it's about the price of a bunch
of bananas. Or whether you can take
your cow for a walk.
Both those indexes showed positive
signs yesterday, following a week of
intermittent NATO airstrikes against
the Serbs who besiege this mountain
capital. Whether the relief will last,
however, is another matter. Serbs
shelled the city during the night, shat-
tering a fragile pause and punctuating
their refusal to withdraw their artillery
once and for all beyond range of the
city.
This city is still surrounded, electric-
ity is scarce, running water is scarcer,
most stores are shut up, other com-
merce is all but shut down, and coming
ortoing is difficult and dangerous, not
justto and from the city, but sometimes
to and from next door. So in a town
starting from alniost zero, even the most
minor gain seems dramatic.
Take the price of bananas and other
commodities smuggled into the city by
truckers who make their way across
Bosnia to bring fresh fruits, vegetables,
cooking gas, batteries and other goods
in short supply.
Until Monday, part of the route into
the city was through a makeshift, two-
abreast pedestrian tunnel beneath the
aitport here.
Traveling above ground on the run-
way is usually impossible because of
deadly Serb sniping.
After the first round of airstrikes, the
United Nations opened the road. The
Serbs bitterly objected to the "unilat-
eral move," but no one has fired on the
more than 100 trucks that have made
the passage.
Yesterday, in markets across the city,
prices of commodities fell.
The price of bananas dropped from
the equivalent of$1.70 a pound to $1.
The cost of cheese pastry, a favorite
here, fell from $1.66 to $1.33. The
price fora little canisterof cooking gas
the kind campers use - went from
$5.33 to $4.66. In a city where many
people depend on remittances from
relatives abroad, these are major re-
ductions.
"Bananas are good for the children,"
said Zlatko, a middle-aged shopper.
"So now they can eat some extra.",
The cow factor is a gauge of the
safety of city streets. After a Serb shell
fell near the downtown market Aug. 28
and killed 37 bystanders, the streets
emptied for a time.
But yesterday they appeared about
as full as when the Serb attack oc-
curred.
Among the dangerous strolls is one
down so-called sniper alley, a wide
boulevard that bisects Sarajevo and for
several blocks parallels a divide be-
tween Serb and Muslim parts of the
city. Serbs frequently shoot at cars and
pedestrians from tall apartment build-
ings near the road.
For refugees who brought livestock
to Sarajevo when they fled rural areas,
grassy strips along sidewalks provide
feed for cows and goats. "The airstrikes
were good for me," said Hamid, who
had his cow on a leash along sniper
alley. "Less sniping. More grass for the
cow, more milk for the family. There is
no feed in Sarajevo."
Laterin theday, somesnipersdidfire
briefly on the road, but by then it was
largely empty, and there were no casu-
alties. Sirens warning the Serb side of
the city of impending NATO strikes
also had the effect of warning pedestri-
ans on the boulevard, who feared Serb
retaliation.
Nightfall, however, brought the re-
turn of danger of the kind that makes
Sarajevans want NATO to persist in its
bombing campaign. Mortars fell in at
least one residential area. Tanks fired at
least three rounds toward a U.N. peace-
keeping encampment, just blocks from
U.N. headquarters. Even through a
heavy rain, the flash from the gun bar-
rels was visible from near the U.N.
front gate.
At a hospital close by, Bajro
Arahodric watched as a surgeon re-
paired the shattered right knee of his
son, Alen, 6. Alen was sleeping in a
second-story bedroom when a mortar
shell hit, his father said. Shrapnel tore
into his knee.
It was one of about six mortar shells
that fell within a fewminutes, he said.
"There is no doubt this is because of
NATO's air raids, revenge for them,"
Arahodric said. "But the NATO bomb-
ing must go on. We had afew days of
peace, but you see, we live in fear."
Arahodric's tone was sadder than
that of others who spokeduring the day,
perhaps because of his son, or perhaps
because of his familiarity with
Srebrenica, another town that, like
Sarajevo, was supposed to be under the
protection of the United Nations.
Srebrenica fell to the Serb forces in
June. The United Nations and NATO
made no effort to save it. Arahodric
said friends told him his father was
taken prisoner by the Serbs,.and no one
knows what happened to him.
Arahodric and his wife and son fled
to Sarajevo a year ago, shortly after his
mother was killed by a sniper. "I don't
want this also to happen here to us," he
said.
t
AP PHOTO
British Rapid Reaction Forces drill yesterday in preparation to deploy to Mt. Igman from Pioce.
Renewed airstrikes on rebel Serb areas draw
mixed response from international community
The Washington Post
Although NATO's avowed aims for
yesterday's renewed air attacks.on rebel
Serb strongholds in Bosnia were re-
stricted to lifting the siege on Sarajevo
and deterring future attacks on the other
three U.N.-designated "safe areas,"
some Western political leaders sug-
gested the attacks also are intended to
make the recalcitrant Serbs more flex-
ible in peace negotiations.
Delegates from the warring factions
are scheduled to meet in Geneva on
Friday as part of a U.S.-brokered peace
initiative, but the Bosnian Serbs have
balked at surrendering any of their
battlefield advantages.
"The goal is to bring the Pale Serbs to
the bargaining table," French President
Jacques Chirac told a television inter-
viewer, referring to the secessionist
Serbs' headquarters 10 miles southeast
of Sarajevo. "If there had been a with-
drawal, if the Pale Serbs had kept their
promises that they made (Monday),
there would not have been a resumption
of the bombardments."
Assistant Secretary of State Richard
C. Holbrooke resumed his protracted
negotiations with Serbian President
Slobodan Milosevic in Belgrade, the
Serbian and Yugoslav capital.
Holbrooke, who hadmet with delegates
of the Muslim-led Bosnian government
earlier in the day in Ankara, Turkey,
declined to discuss his talks with
Milosevic except to describe them as
"productive."
Other Western leaders closed ranks
as the bombs again began to fall. Presi-
dent Clinton, wrapping up a political
trip in California, is "fully supportive
of the action," according to a White
House spokesman.
The loudest dissenting voice came
from Moscow, where Russian authori-
ties condemned the renewed attack in
somewhat stronger language than last
week. A Foreign Ministry statement
last night bluntly declared, "We deci-
sively condemn the military actions by
NATO and demand their cessation."
Little was heard from the Bosnian
Serbs. Ratko Mladic, their military com-
mander, maintained his defiant stance in
an interview with Reuter Television in
Pale shortly before the first bombs fell.
"If you bomb us, we will defend
ourselves. The more they bombard us,
the stronger we are," Mladic said. "They
can cause destruction and violence, but
we are on our land, and we will win."
.It was similar rhetoric from Mladic,
contained in a five-page letter sent to
Janvier shortly before Monday's 11 p.m.
deadline, that helped set in motion the
military action. "No one, not even my-
self, has the right to order the with-
drawal," Mladic declared.
"This is ... not in the jurisdiction of
generals."
At the same time, U.N. officials were
poring over a conciliatory letter signed
by Nikola Koljevic, chief deputy to the
Bosnian Serb political leader, Radovan
Karadzic. Notwithstanding Mladic's
unambiguous defiance, U.N. officials
appeared eager to believe that the Serbs
were repositioning their weapons from
Sarajevo as demanded.
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