Rebel Muslims Face Life as Outcasts in Two Lands

In a bizarre twist to a tragic, absurd war, 30,000 Bosnian Muslims have been living for four days on the roadside near here, caught in an ethnic no-man’s-land that stretches three miles.

Desperate and hungry after being driven out of Bosnia-Herzegovina by fellow Muslims 12 miles down the road, they have become stranded in a country consumed by enmity between Croats and Serbs.

Food and medicine--even water--have been turned back by Croatian authorities, who have been more interested in looting and firebombing Serbian homes than dealing with refugees who do not fit neatly on the ethnic score card of this war.

“These people got lost in the whirlpool of history,” said Kris Janowski, an official with the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, which has been trying to reach the dispossessed. “They have nowhere to go, and they are in need of everything.”

The Muslims are the broken followers of Fikret Abdic, a charismatic chicken magnate who once was among the leaders of the Muslim-led but secular Bosnian government. More interested in making money than war, Abdic broke ranks with the government two years ago and declared autonomy for his people in northwest Bosnia.

He soon aligned himself with rebel Serbs just across the border in Croatia, making him an enemy of both Bosnia and Croatia. A wheeler-dealer who profited handsomely from the war, Abdic dragged his followers across the map as his fortunes ebbed and flowed. For five months last year, 17,000 of them lived in sheds at a chicken farm in Serb-held territory in Croatia after they were pushed from Bosnia by government forces.

Abdic always managed to bounce back from such problems.

But when the Croatian Serbs were overrun this week by the Croatian army, his “Autonomous Republic of Western Bosnia” fell to the Bosnian army.

It was the death blow. Abdic fled to Zagreb, the Croatian capital. The Associated Press, quoting police sources, reported Friday that he has been put under house arrest at the Palace Hotel there. His embittered followers were hastily thrust on the open road, miscast Muslims fending for themselves in a Serbo-Croatian melodrama.

“They are waiting for someone to sort out their destiny,” said U.N. spokesman Rida Ettarashany. “These people are in a desperate situation.”

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Negotiations are under way to let the refugees return to Bosnia. A deal is reportedly being worked out that would allow Abdic followers--including those who fought in his army against Bosnian government forces--to return to their homes in Bosnia. Soldiers would be granted amnesty and could either surrender their weapons or enlist in the Bosnian army.

“The Croatian authorities want to get rid of these people,” Ettarashany said.

But given the animosity between renegade Abdic followers and other Bosnian Muslims, it could be a nasty homecoming--though Lt. Col. Chris Vernon, a U.N. military official, said Muslim solidarity and family ties will probably smooth the transition.

“They are fellow Muslims,” Vernon said. “If they are given a promise of safe return to Bosnia, I imagine it would be honored.”

Relief organizations say the refugees have been living in their cars and have camped along the roadside; as many as 100 are said to be injured and in need of medical care. Most are drinking untreated water from a nearby river to stay alive. An emergency coordinator for Doctors Without Borders, a non-governmental international aid group, said a three-truck convoy of medical supplies and baby food was turned away by Croatian authorities Thursday, with no explanation.

Journalists who tried to reach the refugees Friday were hauled off to the local police station, but only after passing ugly scenes of Croatian soldiers pillaging villages behind heavily fortified checkpoints.

Croatian authorities said access to the area was restricted because of continued fighting. But it was clear Friday that the restrictions were also intended to conceal the ongoing destruction of Serbian property.

The air was thick with the stench of charred wood and rotting carcasses of farm animals. Smoke billowed from house after house as Croatian soldiers emptied them of the spoils of war. Stray cattle were loaded onto a large flatbed truck, while two soldiers were roasting a pig at an abandoned farm.

In one village, a lone horse shuffled down the highway, the only sign of life. In others, hungry farm animals grazed on vegetable gardens encircled by smoldering farm buildings.

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In Vojnic, just east of here, tanks rolled through the streets and soldiers dispersed along the highway, apparently searching for Serbian snipers who have refused to give up. Gunfire echoed from the woods.

The United Nations reported that in villages in the breakaway region of Krajina, 15 Croatian soldiers with antiaircraft weapons were “systematically setting fire” to Serbian houses. At least 60 houses burned to the ground because of the attacks, Ettarashany said.

Mirko Putric, a local politician, said the Croatian government wants Serbs to remain in the Krajina but said four years of war had made that virtually impossible.

“Unfortunately, you can’t ask people who suffered so much to welcome the Serbs with open arms,” he said. “It will take time.”