PERSPECTIVES

A BOSNIAN PEASANT (in early 1995)

In almost four years, my nation has been destroyed by a war that killed my family, destroyed our house, and forced me to flee to avoid being killed myself. I know firsthand how brutal and savage the Serbian soldiers are, and believe they will not stop until they have completely defeated my country and stolen most of our land. The United Nations never tried to stop the Serbians, and I fear even the United States cannot save us from further destruction and suffering.

Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, the "Butcher of the Balkans," is more responsible than anyone else for this destructive war. Over 200,000 people are dead or missing and two million people, like myself, have been displaced. In the early days of the war my village was ravaged by the White Tigers, a paramilitary group led by Zeljko Ruznjatovic, known as Arkan. Its members are respected in Serbia as model patriots. The Tigers attacked my village by raping scores of women, burning houses, and shooting every non-Serb person in sight, including women and children. The Serbs have used rape as a weapon of war. They rape Bosnian women so they will become pregnant with Serbian children. Their brutality is beyond description.

The United Nations has delivered a lot of food and supplies to Bosnians, but it has not stopped our suffering or stopped Serbia's rape of my country. In Sarajevo, the old capital of Yugoslavia, residents put wheelbarrows under drainpipes to catch water droplets which they use to wash dishes. Their suffering will continue, I am afraid, since Serbs continue to lay siege to many Bosnian cities. My life, like the lives of thousands of other Bosnians and non-Serbian minorities from Yugoslavia, has been destroyed. The troops from the United States may stop the fighting, but they cannot stop the suffering. My family is gone forever.

NOTE: This "personal testimony" and others included in this project were written using published sources to provide an accurate depiction of the perspectives of different individuals involved in the conflict in the former-Yugoslavia. Direct quotes were used when possible, and inferences made to complete each perspective.

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