Family Thankful To Be Out Of Croatia’s Carnage

The knife wounds in Denis Miljkovic’s back may have been caused by a Serb, Muslim or Croat.

The Bosnian emigre does not know who tried to kill him in 1994 or why. But the attack convinced the television journalist to get out of his war-ravaged native land.

“Fear of death,” motivated the family to come to the United States, he said. Miljkovic and his family spent Thursday in thanks they were away from the carnage, even if it is halted by a fragile peace.

Three months ago, Miljkovic, his wife, Merdina, and his two children left Zagreb, Croatia’s capital city, and headed for Boise.

Their photo albums are packed with pictures of the former Yugoslavia.

Roads, now mined. Castles, now damaged. Bridges, now demolished. Pictures recently sent to them depict ransacked homes and frightened neighbors.

Miljkovic’s film coverage shows friends before a battle. They would die minutes later.

“These were mainly young people, 20 to 35 years old. They all wanted to start their lives over again. They were talking about how they’d start new lives and live normally one day,” Miljkovic said.

Peace accords are meaningless to the Miljkovics.

“That’s only paper,” said Merdina, a former Serbo-Croatian language instructor. After the war ends, fathers will seek vengeance for dead sons. And it’s questionable whether anarchy can be quelled.

The family, here on refugee status, wants American citizenship. Denis Miljkovic is working at the Morrison-Knudsen cafeteria. His wife is making silk flowers.

Two weeks ago, Denis Miljkovic’s cousin came to Boise - an early Thanksgiving present, he said. His parents are coming in December.

What is to blame for the deaths in the former Yugoslavia?

“Politics and people in politics,” he said. War is just politics with guns, he insists.