Bosnian War Stirs Desire for Revenge

Omer Burovic never thought he had it in him to hate.

But after Serbian rebels shelled his home and business into rubble and relatives disappeared in “ethnic cleansing,” Burovic says he is consumed with an unfamiliar anger and a burning desire to get even.

“I want revenge, and I am surprised at that. I always considered myself a peaceful person incapable of such emotions,” said the 53-year-old Muslim Slav, menacingly wielding an ax he had been using to trim salvaged lumber. “But now I wake up every night at 1 a.m. and think about those people who did this to me. I cannot sleep because of this hatred.”

Across town, at a park now studded with graves for those who fell during the past 11 months of combat, pensioner Safet Gogic mourns his dead son and vows to fight in the 18-year-old’s place for Bosnia’s liberation.

“I wear this uniform to feel he is still with me,” said the stooped, gray-haired warrior, brushing the chest of his camouflage jacket. “I am fighting for him now.”

Radicalized by grief and unmitigated brutality, victims of the Bosnian war--predominantly the republic’s Muslim Slavs--say the days of integration and tolerance are unlikely to be restored in their lifetimes.

More than 70% of Bosnia has been conquered by rebel Serbs who seek to create their own ethnically pure state that can be annexed to a Greater Serbia, the blueprints for which were drafted in Belgrade.

In the course of vanquishing the territory, Serbian gunmen have routed hundreds of thousands from their homes, swelling the flood of refugees from the wars in the remnants of Yugoslavia well beyond 2 million.

Tens of thousands have been killed--Sarajevo officials say more than 130,000, if one includes those long missing--with most of the casualties suffered among Muslim civilians.

More than 100,000 others have been maimed by shelling and gunfire, and looting and gang rape by rebel forces robbed countless others of their property and self-respect.

While declarations of progress toward a diplomatic settlement of the conflict in Bosnia continue to emanate from intermittent peace talks, those who live among the ruins say their losses and hatreds cannot be negotiated away.

Throughout the wreckage of Bosnia, once an integrated land of gentle people, citizens now speak with one voice when predicting a future of retribution.

“The Serbs are getting what they wanted. They wanted everyone to hate each other so it would be necessary to separate,” said Becir Kurasepi, whose father and sister were killed in a massacre at Nevesinje, 15 miles to the east, when Serbian gunmen overran the town last spring. “Some Serbs talk about coming back and settling here after the war, but I don’t think that can happen. Our pain and memories are too fresh.”

Mostar, a favorite tourist haunt for centuries because of its 400-year-old marble bridge and ancient bazaar, suffered four months of shelling last year while Serbs and a Croatian-Muslim alliance fought for control of the city.

The teal-blue waters of the Neretva River passing under the marble bridge mark the boundary between traditionally Serbian areas to the east and Croatian and Muslim villages to the west. That transformed Mostar, which spans the river, into a dangerous battleground and exposed its residents to successive waves of terror.

Kurasepi, a gregarious souvenir seller now rebuilding his stall at the old Turkish bazaar, shares the bitterness felt by many Bosnian Muslims toward Western countries that they hoped would intervene to protect them.

“We are angry and disappointed. The West could have done a lot to prevent much of this,” the merchant said, sweeping his hand across the city center’s vista of bombed-out buildings. “But to the West, this part of the world has always been ‘the Balkans.’ They consider it the ghetto of Europe.”

Resentment of Western indifference to the Muslim Slavs’ suffering inspired untold numbers of Islamic mercenaries to infiltrate Bosnia and take up the defense of what they saw as fellow followers of Islam victimized by Christian hostility.

But the foreigners waging a reckless holy war are largely unwelcome here and are blamed in part for recent fractures in the Muslim-Croat resistance against the Serbs.

“They are a serious factor of destabilization . . . because they operate outside of anyone’s control,” Bosnian Defense Minister Bozo Rajic said of the Islamic warriors’ effect on the weakening cohesion of Croatian and Muslim defenders.

Bosnia’s predominantly secular Muslims stem from the same Slavic stalk as Serbs and Croats. Their ancestors adopted the faith as a form of protection during centuries of Ottoman Turkish rule in Bosnia. Most Bosnian Muslims today adhere to the more liberal Western lifestyle.

Despite the Bosnians’ rejection of Muslim fundamentalism, the influx of several hundred Islamic fighters has made Bosnian Croats fearful of eventually falling under extremist rule.

Fighting between the erstwhile allies has flared repeatedly in central Bosnia in recent weeks as Croatian forces have sought to take over those towns and villages where Muslims now govern.

Confronted by hostile forces from two sides and squeezed into ever-smaller enclaves in the overrun republic, Bosnia’s Muslims argue that now is no time to call an end to the fight.

“The war will continue and more deaths will occur,” predicted Mehmet Mujazinovic, a 22-year-old policeman. “There is too much hostility now, and many want revenge.”

Evidence of Muslim counteroffensives can be seen in southern Herzegovina around the city of Stolac and in eastern Bosnia around the town of Bratunac, where men whose families were evicted by Serbian gunmen last spring have formed fierce fighting units to retake some of the occupied territory. Serbs in both areas, which were ethnically mixed before the war, claim that the expelled Muslims have returned and committed atrocities against civilians.

Commanders of the U.N. forces in Bosnia, now numbering over 6,000, forecast years of more unrest and violence for the republic, whether or not a negotiated settlement is eventually achieved.

While many Bosnian Muslims have amassed grudges against the rebellious Serbs, rare voices speak in favor of burying the emotions stirred up to poisonous levels over the past year.

“I want everyone to go back to the old way, of living together and not knowing or caring who is what,” said Neaz Gruspic, a 41-year-old blacksmith selling hardware and a vast array of knives at the rubble-strewn central market. “I feel I could turn the other cheek and forget what has happened.”

But as Gruspic spoke of forgiveness, a grizzled customer looked on skeptically. Fingering the blade of a gold-handled saber, the middle-aged Muslim listening to the shopkeeper’s conciliatory words slowly shook his head in disagreement.