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Mine Awareness

Well, the former Yugoslavia was all a tizzy today. This morning, in a town in the Northwest corner of BiH, British SFOR forces shot and killed an indicted war criminal, Simo Drljaca (say: DERL-yaka). The rumors racing about on the radio this afternoon would have led us to believe all sorts of terrible fighting. But as the rumormill calmed down, the generally accepted version of what happened was that SFOR forces up in the Republika Srpska came upon Drljaca, the police chief of the town of Prijedor. They announced they were there to arrest him, so he pulled out a gun, shot and wounded a British officer in the leg (the British politely call this, "resisting arrest"). The Brits retaliated and killed him (in self-defense, the NATO rep stated). The TV news described at length and with horrible [file] videos, the concentration camps that Drljaca had set up, organized, and managed, as well as the starvation, tortures and murders of thousands of Muslims in these two infamous camps during the war. A second war criminal, Milan Kovazavic, was captured on his way home from a fishing trip without incident and is probably already at The Hague as I type this.

Part of this action today was a result of a NATO policy that was recently promoted and encouraged at the NATO Summit in Madrid to get a little more serious about gathering and prosecuting the Serb war criminals. Of course, the big boys like Mladic and Karadic are not only still at large (as are many other lesser knowns), but appear regularly on TV. The Bosnians were overjoyed with today's activity, no surprise, but I also heard from a couple of Serb professionals we work with up in Brcko (say: BIRch-ko) who are just as satisfied that these war criminals be captured. Most Serbs have complained bitterly about the fact that their country is being denied a significant amount of foreign assistance - of course, because their criminals are still at large, demonstrating an unwillingness to abide by the Dayton Accords. As is the case in most developed countries, the business and banking communities could give a damn about the politics and are just interested in getting the economy, and their sectors back in working order.

As an aside, there is a loud party going on down the stairs from my apartment. They must be watching the same news I am because they react every time Drljaca or Karadzic's face comes onto the screen, wild. They are singing and cheering and booing. I guess if you want to celebrate something worth celebrating - the death of someone who tortured your family members is a pretty valid reason....

I got a call a couple of days ago from one of our administrators who told me that he had signed me up for the SFOR's "Mine Awareness" seminar - open to any and all foreigners in country. Since I'd already traversed some of the countryside without complications, I figured it might be something to experience. Wow. Mine Awareness. (Actually, at first I thought he said, "mind" awareness - of which I've had plenty lately and was about to politely decline) The young man who delivered our seminar, Bojan Vukovic, was perhaps 27 years old. He had been an infantry engineer during the war, and was responsible for laying mines for the Republika Srpska. The talk was fascinating and rather grisly, in addition to copies of all sorts of mines, the delivery of this little course came complete with overheads and pictures of what a variety of these things would do to one who might happen upon them. A little like looking at pictures of failed amputation attempts during the US Civil War, whew. Between 1-3 million antipersonnel (AP) and antitank (TM) mines were laid during the war. The placement of few if ANY of these mines was accurately recorded. He himself said rather poignantly that he had placed thousands, and was directed not to bother keeping records. Fewer than 10% of the mines have been cleared, in part because many mine-engineers are either dead, or are trying to extort unreasonable amounts of money in exchange for a review of their memories (remember, no records were kept) The maps floating around town, and up on the walls in these barracks are absolutely bloody with the red circles indicating mine placement activities.

I would almost rather not relate the details of the variety of these mines: the amounts of explosives used to take off a foot (5 grams - almost nothing), legs, half a body, etc.... and which trip wires are used for which kinds of ordnance, and how really nasty the anti-tank "penetration" mines are (imagine what 5 kilos of explosives can do bouncing around inside a tank - very ugly. Although without graphics and diagrams they wouldn't be as horrifying.

We also got a magician’s-secrets sort of talk about how all these things were booby trapped, about where mines were booby trapped to catch people - including bobby-trapping latrines. We were told that mines were placed at militarily strategic sites including railroad crossings, at military checkpoints (to prevent people from crashing through them, or around them) along most major roadways (and were told, NEVER drive a vehicle onto a shoulder to avoid a hazard in the road). But we also learned that because food was scarce, many, many Serbs who took over Bosnian farms mined the orchards and the fields to prevent the starving Bosnians from stealing fruit back from their own trees. One of the most overwhelming comments made in both this class, and from a colleague who'd read a bit about this, that many, many mines set in the mountains regularly washed into the creeks, streams, and rivers during Spring thaws, and that most, if not all of the flowing bodies of water in BiH were extremely unsafe. These were in addition to the many mines designed with clever plastic coverings so that they could be used specifically to mine the rivers, specifically the Miljacko in Sarajevo which served as the front line for four years.

At the close of our informational session, we were shown a five-minute video created by the Brits to show what to do in case you suddenly find yourself in a mine-field. It was the funniest thing I'd ever seen - a good Saturday Night Live skit didn't hold a candle to this thing. Sort of a bizarre way to end what had been a devastatingly brutal examination of what men at war will do to each other and other human beings. The best thing about the whole morning was the fact that the Mine Action group at the SFOR barracks was doing everything they could to educate the public, especially children about the risks. Most of the posters they produced were aimed towards the kids.

Leaving the ordnance issues of the day... I have been thinking about cars lately. During the war, the UN and other non-aligned donors, and press travelled in white vehicles - usually with large letters or symbols on the doors. In wartime, a white vehicle meant "don't shoot me", and the holdover from that is very evident. I swear there are more non-profit, PVO, UN, Refugee, churchmice and general do-gooders here than there are natives. Every third car on the roads is either a white suburban or sport utility vehicle. Our own project vehicles are ("Buy American") Chevy Blazers. I am amused by the fact that like most of Europe, our drivers are not that familiar with the automatic transmission. As I watched how Boris drove me to USAID for a meeting the other day, I observed that he unnecessarily downshifted from "D" to "N" at every stop sign, and frequently used the "2" and "1" gears on flat surfaces, his hand was always moving that stick from letter to letter or number. Like most European cities, the cars here are generally small, Renaults, and lots of VWs. They are fairly wild drivers, even in the city, and lots of folks tell of being nearly brushed off the sidewalks by young men taking a corner a little too tightly (or liberally).

One of the big amusements for children in town are small battery-powered little motorbikes and cars that they can sit in and drive around the parks. There are a couple of pedestrian park areas between my home and the office, and there are men with money belts and a number of (what look like real car sized) large batteries, and 3-4 of these mini cars. The children (ages 4-7) line up to take their turn driving around. These things have little gas pedals, and brakes, and the child is, indeed, the sole manager of this vehicle. They are a bit of a hazard, and I suspect it's just practice for when they become young adults and continue to do it in their grown-up vehicles.

As I close this, I must mention that in addition to the headliner in today's news, we are also well informed about the Americans evacuating Cambodia, the senior North Korean defector, an earthquake in Venezuela, an explosion in a Brazilian airplane, flooding in India, the Protestants marching through Catholic sections of Northern Ireland, posters insulting the Prophet Mohammed in the West Bank causing anger and retaliation by Arabs, and funny thing, nothing about Paula Jones, or what the latest diet remedy is on the market. I love it here! The planet is so much smaller and less isolated in this world.

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