The Washington Post
August 17, 1992
BANJA LUKA, Bosnia – Warfare has prevented many Serb farmers here from planting their fields, but they are collecting a bumper harvest of loot.
Along roads gouged by mortar fire, unabashed farmers drive hay wagons heaped with rugs, sofas, lampshades and kitchenware. A wife or child of the farmer might be sitting in the wagon, smiling, wedged amid the belongings of a Slavic Muslim or Croat family forced to flee their home with just a suitcase or two.
Across the devastated swath of northern Bosnia-Hercegovina that Serb militia forces control, there is little activity aside from the ransacking of deserted and often shattered houses. Serb militiamen usually get first pick — the stereos and television sets. Local farmers take the bulky leftovers.
Like those of a comatose patient, the vital signs of northern Bosnia are sagging. Most villages along the road to this regional capital are empty, either gutted by warfare or abandoned out of fright. At night, it is bandit country, a time when everyone hunkers down and watches tracer bullets arc through the sky.
The Serbs who control northern Bosnia are applying their brand of “ethnic cleansing” — driving out Muslims and Croats with threats, intimidation and force. Sometimes, when the wind blows from a village where a “cleansing” has taken place, there is the scent of death.
The 180-mile drive from Belgrade, the capital of neighboring Serbia, to Banja Luka used to take about three hours. Now, it can take three hours to travel 30 miles. Bridges have been blown up, their wood beams shattered like toothpicks. The road zig-zags in a crazy pattern because fighting continues in some places, unseen but heard in the thud of falling howitzer shells. At one point, the road is diverted through a corn field. Turns are marked by hand-drawn signs, and at some crossroads the arrows to Banja Luka are painted on empty houses.
There are roadblocks every few miles. Uniformed militiamen, relatively disciplined, ask foreigners for cigarettes and smile politely if they don’t get any. Journalists with identification papers are waved through without a hitch.
But off the main route, armed Serbs manning roadblocks have different uniforms, many with no markings. Often they have been drinking. They wave their guns recklessly and demand cigarettes. International relief officials say such roadblocks may sometimes bar the way to a surrounded Muslim village, perhaps a prison camp, perhaps a town being looted.
The guards refuse to let outsiders through, despite the promises of local Serb political leaders — who claim sovereignty in the region — that foreign reporters and relief workers can move about freely.
Back on the main road, the sparse traffic consists of civilian buses, gasoline tankers and military trucks that the Yugoslav army handed over to Bosnian Serb militiamen. Fuel is crucial for the Serb war machine. The tankers have Belgrade license plates, and diplomats say there is no doubt that the fuel is supplied free.
But there is no gasoline for the noncombatants still living in northern Bosnia. Cities like Banja Luka and Bijeljina, where electricity and phones rarely work, have a slightly Asian air because many people now pedal around on bicycles. The numbers are limited, though — waves of Muslims and Croats have been expelled by Serb forces, and even some Serbs are getting out. “There are a lot of decent Serbs, but they are terrified,” said a Muslim in Banja Luka.
Many shops are closed. Those run by Serbs may have run out of things to sell, or perhaps their owners decided it would be safer to stay with relatives in Belgrade for a while. Most Muslim or Croat shops have been subjected to the intimidation tactics of radical Serb militiamen — looting, bombing, shooting, burning.
The Serbs who leave, after locking their doors, often paint “Serb” in huge strokes on the front wall so that militiamen or local farmers-turned-looters will steer clear. In some villages, those are the only untouched houses.
A bus carrying about 30 civilians, including 2 foreign reporters, and 6 Serb militiamen wound its way past such villages but broke down as twilight neared. The village was empty. Roofs were collapsed; every wall bore bullet holes. It had been a Muslim village.
With night falling, the few passing cars and gasoline tankers roared on through. The passengers would spend the night sleeping in their seats, the six combatants’ AK-47 assault rifles hanging from the luggage rack.
The militiamen made a fire, toasted corn from a nearby field and talked about their battles against “fundamentalist” Muslims and “fascist” Croats. As tracer bullets from a distant battle lit the sky, a patriotic folk song played on the bus sound system, and the militiamen belted out the lyrics:
“Sing Serbia, you country of heroes,
“Sing stronger and louder, so everyone will fear you.”
