Rose of Sarajevo

by Ayşe Kulin

  “There’s no way in the world you could do that, Nimeta. Take it from me, you’d get depressed in no time. The thrill of chasing a lead isn’t so easy to give up.”

  “I know that as well as you do. I’ll even admit that a part of me is secretly praying that Ivan will send me. But staying here would be the right thing to do.”

  “Do what’s right then, but just be sure you won’t regret it later,” Mate said. “They’ve been planning this event in Kosovo for months. It’s really going to shake things up, believe me.”

  The time had finally come for the Serbs to avenge Tito, an ethnic Croatian, for all the years he had suppressed Serbian nationalism. In particular, the Serbs were determined to regain control over Kosovo, which, in light of its Albanian majority, had been granted autonomy by Tito after World War II.

  When Mate got back from Pristina, his voice shook as he reviewed for Nimeta the Gazimestan speech given by Milošević.

  “The images on TV don’t do it justice, Nimeta. You had to be there to feel that incredible electricity. A million people had fallen under his spell. Milošević seemed to have possessed the very souls of his listeners. Even you’d have believed that the Serbs were in grave danger—as though some phantom army was on the march to destroy them. As though Serbs were being crushed and slaughtered all day long. Milošević gave the performance of his life, trembling and thundering. He’s an amazing actor. And the Serbs were enraptured. It was horrifying. Mark this day, the 28th of June 1989, as the day Milošević ignited Serbian nationalism in a speech marking the six hundredth anniversary of the defeat of the Serbian kingdom to the Ottoman Empire at the Battle of Kosovo.”

  “No, Milošević already did that exactly two years ago, on June 28, 1987,” said Nimeta.

  “That’s true in a sense. But the spark he ignited two years ago has turned into a blazing torch today. God help us all, Nimeta,” Mate said, his face furrowed with anxiety.

  DISINTEGRATION

  The Knin Incidents, 1990 to 1991

  Reporters were left reeling by the dizzying series of events that took place in the first months of 1990.

  Burhan had worked in Knin with some frequency over the years, so he was well aware of the rising tensions in the town. The region was ripe for strife, and the local Serbs hadn’t decided what they wanted. While some of them favored taking up arms and seceding from Croatia—as supported and planned by Babić—others thought they should secure their rights through peaceful means.

  The company Burhan worked for had initially been run by Croatian administrators. With the shifting political winds, the Serbs in particular had been purged, as had other “foreigners.” Tenders were cancelled, salaries went unpaid, and business relations were severed, until the majority of the employees were of Croatian origin.

  Then the tables suddenly turned. When Babić emerged victorious in municipal elections, ultranationalist Serbs took over. By the time they were done, not a single Croatian engineer remained at the company. Burhan knew that he would be next, along with all the other non-Serbian contractors and subcontractors. However, he and his team were working so quickly and productively that the higher-ups never quite got around to him.

  He kept his anxiety from his wife. Nimeta was under a lot of stress at work, and he didn’t wish to add his burden to hers. They both sensed that their lives would soon be at the mercy of sweeping changes beyond their control.

  Near the end of April, Burhan went to Knin to inspect some roadworks washed out by heavy rains. When Nimeta called, she was in the office. She didn’t usually call him from there unless it was an emergency, and he was alarmed to hear her voice.

  “Is everything all right, Nimeta?” he asked. “I hope nothing’s happened.”

  “Actually, I’d like you to let me know what’s going on out there,” she said. “Something’s happened in connection with the Knin police force. We’ve heard some rumors, but I was hoping to get a true account of things from you. Do you think that’s possible?”

  “What happened?”

  “The policemen of Knin are refusing to wear their new uniforms.”

  Burhan guffawed. “Why?”

  “Apparently the new uniforms remind them of the Ustaše. And the shields they’ve distributed supposedly bear swastikas. The ethnic Serbs refuse to put them on. We’ve learned that someone has written a letter of complaint to Belgrade. There must be someone at the municipality who can get to the bottom of this.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” Burhan said. “This is all too ridiculous. What are they, a bunch of kids?”

  “I know it’s absurd, but we need to confirm the veracity of these reports.”

  “I’ll see what I can find out at lunch,” Burhan said. “I’ll give you a call if I learn anything.”

  Nimeta’s phone rang that afternoon.

  “You’re right,” Burhan said. “Knin Police Inspector Martić has bypassed Zagreb and written directly to the Ministry of the Interior in Belgrade regarding the new uniforms. You’ve got it right. The uniforms are black, and the emblem on the shield does resemble a stylized swastika. These guys are nuts. They’ve got no idea what they’re doing. And as if that wasn’t enough, Nimeta, they’ve refused to meet with the delegation Tudjman sent all the way to Knin to handle the matter. Just imagine if a spat over uniforms led to war.”

  “It would be the first fashion war,” Nimeta said. She was still laughing when she hung up.

  On May 5 the Croatian Ministry of the Interior sent a three-person delegation to Knin to investigate the headstrong policemen. They returned having accomplished nothing, sorry that they had even bothered to go. The Serbs had presented the delegation with a long list of demands. They didn’t want the Croatian flag to wave within the municipal limits. They insisted that all the street signs written in the Latin alphabet be replaced with signs in Cyrillic. Meanwhile, Babić was doing all he could to spread rumors that the Croatians had begun rekindling their ambitions, which explained why they were supposedly even designing police uniforms in fascist colors.

  The Serbs of Krajina decided to hold a referendum in August to legitimize their control of the region. If they won the referendum, a separate Serbian entity would be established within the borders of Croatia. The rumor spread that Zagreb would not permit the referendum to take place, so the Serbian police began distributing arms to the Serbs of Krajina.

  When Nimeta heard on August 17 that the Croatians were sending heavy vehicles laden with arms to Knin, she gave thanks that her husband was home in Sarajevo. There were also reports that helicopters transporting policemen from Zagreb to Knin were intercepted and forced to return by Yugoslav National Army (YNA) jets sent from Belgrade.

  If the wrong order were to be given by a restless madman, it could lead to full-scale war. Knin radio had been calling on the public to be prepared since dawn. Shops and offices were closed, and the people had taken to the streets. When the radio announced that Babić had declared a state of war, panic broke out. As bells clanged in the towers of all the Orthodox churches, people took to the hills and fled to the mountains. Politicians seething with mutual hatred and distrust in Zagreb and Belgrade hurled accusations at one another across the phone lines.

  The following day, the interior minister of the Republic of Croatia announced that he had averted bloodshed by calling back the police forces making their way toward Knin. The Serbs indulged in yet another example of televised theater, frequently rebroadcasting the claim that it was only their own heroism that had saved them from this most recent Croatian attempt at massacre.

  At first, it was a cold war. All of the media organs continuously propagated allegations of the mortal threat posed to the Serbs of Knin and Krajina. They searched for and found fascist terror behind every step taken by Tudjman, fabricated artificial terrorist incidents, frightened the public with bogus news accounts, trafficked guns to the villagers and townsmen, and, when t
he police arrived and found a heavily armed local populace, even Serbs who had never so much as imagined joining in a popular revolt found themselves in opposition to Croatian police, whether they wished to be or not.

  Five months later, in January of 1991, the area was declared to be “the Autonomous Region of Krajina.” As if that weren’t enough, an armed group from Krajina surrounded Plitvice Park, one of Croatia’s most popular tourist attractions. Croatia could no longer look the other way. Soon, bullets would be fired, and then what had been a cold war would become very hot indeed.

  INTRIGUE IN SLOVENIA AND CROATIA

  April 1990 to January 1991

  “I need you guys to write up a report with specific examples,” Ivan said. “It’s time we told the public what the YNA is really up to.”

  “Which guys are you referring to?” Ibo asked.

  “You know who you are,” Ivan said, laughing.

  “I’m telling you, Ivan,” Nimeta said, “I’m tired of doing all this research and writing up all these reports. It’s time the men did some work. Ibo hasn’t sat down at a computer for two weeks.”

  “Yeah, but I’ve been out in the field chasing down a story,” Ibo said.

  “Sit down at a desk for a bit while we chase down stories,” Sonya said.

  “Go ahead. Take a little trip through Slovenia and Croatia and see the cunning of the YNA with your own eyes, like I have. The army is stealthily confiscating all the weaponry of the local defense forces in both republics.”

  “I want a comprehensive news program on this very issue,” Ivan said.

  He was becoming unbearable. Even though he knew their hands were tied and that he’d be unable to use any of the hard news they found, he still demanded the most of his team.

  YNA, the federal army, was an army created by the communist revolution and owed its very existence to that revolution. If the regime in Yugoslavia were to be toppled, it was only natural that the army would be toppled with it. Not only would the officers lose their jobs, they’d also lose all the attendant privileges they’d accumulated over the years. The transition to a multiparty democracy would mean an end not only to the state’s power but to the army’s as well. Who would wish to saw off the branch on which they were sitting pretty?

  As soon as elections ended in Slovenia—merely two days after the new government was formed—the YNA began disarming Slovenia’s Territorial Defense forces. The Slovenian government didn’t become aware of this for quite some time. How could it? The commanders of the YNA concealed everything from Slovenia’s minister of defense, who was none other than Janez Janša, the man they’d imprisoned two years earlier for leaking confidential military documents.

  When Sonya burst in upon Nimeta, she had a funny look on her face. “Nimeta, you won’t believe what I’m going to tell you. Slovenian President Milan Kučan has finally found out something that Ivan’s known for ages. That’s how formidable the YNA is. Can you believe it?”

  “Journalists across the world always get the first whiff of news,” Nimeta said. “And Ivan hears about things before they even become news.”

  “Kučan has ordered the Territorial Defense forces not to surrender a single weapon to the YNA. The arms depots are now being guarded by the police.”

  “Well, they’re too late,” Ibo said, joining the conversation. “Janša’s already admitted that over half of the weapons in Slovenia had been turned over to the YNA by the time the defense ministry woke up to what was going on.”

  “How’d you find that out?” Nimeta asked.

  “Where do you think I was the other day, huh?”

  “You weren’t in Lubliyana, were you?” Sonya asked.

  “That’s right. While you sat here on your bottoms, I was chasing after intelligence. There’s something else I learned. You’ll love this.”

  “But we were the ones assigned this report, weren’t we?” Sonya asked.

  “Well, I’m a few steps ahead of you girls,” Ivan said. “Janša wants to set up his own Territorial Defense force, completely independent of the YNA. If it were up to him, he’d sever all ties with the federal army tomorrow. Kučan wants to be a bit more cautious. The lack of consensus between the president and the defense minister is making things difficult for the government.”

  “Those two haven’t been on good terms ever since Janša was imprisoned. Janša has always suspected Kučan of playing a role in that,” Nimeta said. “If Janša weren’t so widely admired and supported by the public, Kučan would never have appointed him defense minister.”

  And because Janša didn’t trust Milan Kučan, he had begun slowly procuring weapons and smuggling them into Slovenia without informing the president. The day would come when he had his own armed forces. That is, when the citizenry voted in a referendum to secede from Yugoslavia and declare independence.

  Nimeta followed the events in Croatia with her heart in her mouth. If war broke out, Stefan would be out on the battlefield, either as a conscript or a journalist. She hadn’t had any news of him for such a long time. She hadn’t called him even to learn about the political climate in Zagreb. The pace of life had accelerated so much, and the winds of war were blowing so hard, that nobody had time to lift his head from his work and listen to his heart. Nimeta was grateful for this. Despite her heavy workload, she’d been able to forge a stronger bond with her family. Burhan was home more; he almost never went to Knin anymore, and found plenty of time to spend with the children. When they gathered around the dinner table, they were once again the close-knit family they’d once been.

  Hana, however, wasn’t entirely happy with these family dinners. Unlike when she was younger, her family didn’t listen to her stories about school. Even her grandmother, who’d once seem transfixed by her every utterance, told her granddaughter to hush so that she could listen to Hana’s parents discuss the latest current events. This just happened in Slovenia; that just happened in Croatia . . . Bozo was the only one who paid her any attention. The cat too had been unable to get anyone’s attention and was forever weaving patterns between her feet.

  They were all seated around the dinner table again. For the first time in ages, her grandmother had made a persimmon dessert.

  “It’s unavoidable,” her father said. “There’s going to be a showdown between Croatia and Yugoslavia. When Kadijević wanted to seize all the weapons in the Croatian police’s possession, Croatia refused. Am I right, Nimeta?”

  “That was America’s doing, not the Croatians’,” Nimeta said. “When the deadline for turning over the weapons passed, Milošević put his army on high alert and was poised to seize all the police weapons in Croatia by force. It was the American ambassador who warned the Serbs in the strongest possible terms not to use military force. So the Serbs have retreated, at least for the moment.”

  Fiko ran over and turned on the TV so that they wouldn’t miss the news. The entire family, with the exception of Hana, eagerly waited for the broadcast to start.

  “Mom, since you already know what’s going to be on the news, why do you have to watch it again?” Hana asked.

  There was no answer.

  “Mom. Mom! Why aren’t you presenting the news anymore? You used to be so good at it.”

  “Because your mother wants to be at home with her family in the evening,” her father said.

  “But I love watching Mom on TV.”

  “Stop it, Hana!” Fiko said. “Shut up so we can hear the news.”

  “You think you’re so special just because you got tall of a sudden,” Hana said. She lifted the cat off her lap and tossed him at Fiko.

  “Whoever got you a cat . . . You kids don’t know what it is to love animals!” Raziyanım scolded.

  “Please be quiet while the news is on!”

  They held their breaths and watched.

  Afterward, Nimeta said, “Actually, Milošević doesn’t favor the
army using armed force. Unlike the generals, he wants to carve up Yugoslavia, not unite it. The Serbs want to break away. That’s why he informed Kučan that he wouldn’t object if Slovenia declared its independence.”

  “He couldn’t care less what Slovenia does,” Burhan weighed in. “There’s no Serbian minority in Slovenia!”

  “They’ve reached an understanding. If Slovenia is allowed to go its own way, Kučan will vote the way Milošević wants him to on Croatia.”

  “And why not? Kučan’s not interested in Croatia’s internal affairs. He’s only interested in saving his own republic.”

  “But Tudjman’s gone berserk,” Nimeta said. “Because Milošević and Kučan are cutting deals without bothering to consult him.”

  “Dad, can you explain what’s going on? I don’t get it.”

  Fiko always asked for a personal summary of the day’s news. Hana thought him a bit thick. The beanpole! He was always asking silly questions.

  “Serbs are the majority in Knin and Krajina, which are both regions in Croatia,” Burhan explained. “If Tudjman demands autonomy for Croatia, he’ll have to sacrifice those two regions. Milošević has been hatching plans for a Serbian Republic for years now.”

  “And that’s why he’s prepared to reach an agreement with Kučan. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.”

  Hana was fed up with all this talk of Croatia and the Croatians. Dinner was no fun anymore. When was the last time they’d laughed and talked about anything she was interested in? They wouldn’t even let her sing any of her new songs.

  “Come on, talk to me too,” Hana said, tugging on Fiko’s arm.

  “You’re too young to understand.”

  “No, I’m not. I understand everything. Go on.”

  “Kučan’s bargaining with Milošević in order to save his own ass,” Fiko said. “Do you understand?”

  “Go to your room this instant!” Burhan shouted. “Is that any way to talk in front of your elders? What kind of example are you setting for your little sister?”