Balkans Past And Present
The conflict in Kosovo is far away. But the women, men and children living the horror of ethnic cleansing are connected to families in the Inland Northwest. Here’s one writer’s view of why you should care about Kosovo.
Sometimes the door of life stands slightly ajar, letting in little bits of light and air, reason and opportunity. It was such a sliver of time that gave my stepfather, Joe Ivanis — a Bosnian Croat — and my mother, Margaret, the opportunity to visit Dad’s childhood home in what used to be Yugoslavia.
In October 1990, there was just enough peace between the death of the dictator, Josip Broz Tito, and the ethnic cleansing of Slobodan Milosevic to allow Dad, who had not seen home and family in 40 years, to feel safe enough to return. It was a skinny peace and even then tenuous. The politics and future of the country were not discussed; it was clear that Dad’s family did not trust their fragile democracy enough yet to do so.
The relatives who barely remembered Dad as a teenager, and the younger generations who knew of him only as the “uncle who had made it to America,” opened their homes and lives to my parents, showering them with beautiful gifts and wonderful parties and dinners.
Dad’s family was proud of its country. He and Mom were driven in borrowed cars to see the beauties of national parks, the Adriatic coast and Medjugore, the Place of Miracles.
It was pure joy for Dad to see his home again, and to touch and talk with his brother, sister and cousins. My mother, who did not speak Croatian, was amazed by the generosity of Dad’s relatives, but was also a little disconcerted at trying to make conversation with her newly met in-laws, who did not speak English.
Still, it was a pleasure to note the resemblances and shared mannerisms between Dad’s nieces and nephews and her own children. On one occasion Mom heard a laugh that sounded just like the laugh of my youngest brother, Dan.
For a second she thought, “How on Earth did Dan get here?”
But when she turned to look for him she found that the one laughing was one of Dad’s nephews. In that minute a door opened for Mom, the light came on, and she began to realize that she was with family.
Life in Banja Luka, Dad’s hometown, reminded Mom of what it was like in rural America just after World War II. Most homes in Banja Luka had indoor plumbing, but the bathrooms were clearly added on, not part of the original design. Electricity was available, but not to be counted on. Bare bulbs hung from ceilings instead of the light fixtures we enjoy here; kitchen cupboards were likely to have open shelves rather than doors.
Most of the relatives grew vegetable gardens, while only a couple of them owned cars. There wasn’t much merchandise in the stores, but Mom noted a hopeful attitude, that anyone with enough gumption could build a better life. The door of opportunity was slightly ajar in post-communist Yugoslavia, letting in light and air. Free enterprise was blooming.
Not for long. Within a year that country exploded in a misery of ethnic cleansing and all the degradations and deprivations of war. We got letters from our relatives detailing Serbian aggression and atrocities and begging us to ask our government to help. Over the next couple of years we learned that nearly all of our Croatian family had been driven out of Bosnia.
Some, especially the older ones, died for lack of food, medicine and warmth. The letters told of old men and boys forced to march at the front of Serbian armies, only to be shot by their own people or gunned down by the Serbian soldiers behind them.
In one letter there was news that one of our young cousin’s ears had been cut off. The family speculates that the mutilation was the least of what was done to her. Dad’s brother, Jure, hid out in his garden shed for almost a year, too old and stubborn to leave his home, which was taken over by Serbians.
The homes of several cousins were also taken over. They fled to what is now Croatia, near Zagreb, and lived eight to a room for months. Our cousin, Anto, was a medical laboratory technician in a Banja Luka hospital when armed Serbian troops invaded it. He was told that because he was Croatian, he no longer had a job there. His choice was to leave or die.
Anto fled to his family’s farm, only to have to hide in the nearby forest and watch as Serbian soldiers threw live grenades into the farmhouse.
Other cousins disappeared. We still don’t know if they are alive or dead. The rest of the younger ones are refugees, trying to build new lives in strange towns and diferrent countries. Among them is the cousin who laughs just like my brother.
Uncle Jure died, so did his wife. The Serbians did not have to shoot them. Like many of the elderly, they died of the hardships and heartbreaks of war.
Today Dad’s hometown, where so many Bosnian Croats once lived side by side with Muslims and Serbs, is identified in the media as the “Serbian stronghold, Banja Luka.” One of the worst concentration camps of the campaign to ethnically cleanse Bosnia is located nearby.
We did what we could from here in Spokane, but for the most part the door was shut. No light or air, no reason, very little opportunity.
We sent copies of relatives’ letters to U.S. government officials; nothing happened. We sent money to the family through relief agencies, only to find that it had to be hidden in the pockets of visiting clerics and sneaked into the country a few dollars at a time. Much of it never got there at all, but not for lack of trying.
We folded aspirin tablets inside of tiny aluminum squares and taped them to the inside of envelopes, hoping that X-ray machines would not detect this simple medicine. Our people needed so much more; we could only do so very little.
My parents helped a Bosnian refugee family of five find a new life in Spokane, in hope that someone, somewhere, would help Dad’s family, too. It was months before they felt safe enough to tell us that they are Muslim. We would have never known or cared.
It was clear from the beginning that they are decent, hard-working people, who are making the best of a miserable circumstance. They had a very nice home in Bosnia, much of which they built themselves. Then one day, because they were not Serbian, they lost it all.
After two years of sharing a cramped refugee’s room in Germany, our cousin Anto also made it to Spokane last February. He, like our Bosnian refugee family, is living a responsible American life.
He works hard at two jobs, studies his English, attends church on Sunday, pays income tax and hopes to learn to drive. For much of the rest of the family it is too late; Anto is one of the lucky ones. He will survive and probably prosper.
Dad died in June of 1997; he never knew that Anto made it to America.
Today’s news is again full of the nightmare of Milosevic’s campaign of ethnic cleansing. This time it is happening in Kosovo.
Families are again being torn apart, thrown out of their homes, their towns, their country. Civilians of every age and sex are being beaten, robbed, terrorized and killed by the Serbian army for no reason other than their ethnicity. Their houses are being burned, their possessions destroyed, their lives ground into the dust.
These abused people are human beings, just like us. Parents and children, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.
Friends. Just like mine. Just like yours.
They had hopes and dreams, homes and families, jobs and responsibilities. Just like us.
Sometimes I play with the idea that this is not my fight, that it is not my problem.
I tell myself that it’s too late for Dad’s family; they’ve scattered to the four winds. I should mind my own business; they weren’t even my real family; Joe Ivanis was only my stepdad.
Then I remember the cousin who laughs just like my brother, and I know that it is my fight.
I see young children hungry and grown men weeping on my television, new widows crying with grief and confusion in my newspaper. I hear tales of mass murder on my radio, and I know that it is my problem.
Whether or not I am related by blood, I am related by little slices of light and air, reason and opportunity. I cannot ignore this; none of us should.
What choice do we really have but to at least try to stop the atrocities? In honor, can we stand by and let the innocent suffer for the sake of one monster’s greed?
If we have the power to stop Milosevic, do we not also have the responsibility, regardless of what’s in it for us?
These are the questions we have to ask ourselves while the door is still a little bit ajar, while there is still the light and air, the reason and opportunity.