Serb Reconnects With Idaho Pair To Avoid Fighting 21-Year-Old Flees Yugoslavia, Finds Couple He Met 3 Years Ago In Greece

A 21-year-old Serb who refused to fight in his country’s civil war smuggled himself out of his homeland with the help of an Idaho couple and a U.S. senator.

Just after his best friend was drafted into Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic’s army, Zeljko Mijatovic sneaked his way across the Serb border. While the car he had come in was being searched, he walked into Bosnia without his suitcase.

Mijatovic eventually made it to Italy where he stayed for six weeks. He might still be there if his family hadn’t met a Moscow, Idaho, couple on a beach in Greece three years ago while on vacation.

After that chance encounter, the Mijatovic family and the Dopp family of Moscow stayed in touch.

Three weeks ago, Mijatovic’s father wrote the Dopps and asked them to help his son.

Circe Dopp, a violin maker, and her husband, Scott, a law student at the University of Idaho, were shocked when they received the plea for help but acted quickly. Circe Dopp began calling everyone the couple knew. She called immigration offices in Spokane and the office of Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho.

“I didn’t know what we could do in the beginning,” Dopp said.

As she started raising money to help bring Mijatovic to the United States, she found more and more people willing to offer support.

With the help of Crapo’s office, Mijatovic obtained a student visa. He will live temporarily with the Dopps in Moscow and attend the UI.

“I’m young and I want to have a family,” he said. “I don’t want to kill or be killed.”

Mijatovic said he doesn’t agree with the ideas or actions of Milosevic. But he doesn’t agree with NATO either.

“I don’t see the difference between yellow people, white people or black people,” Mijatovic said.

He said he likes the fact that different groups in the United States live together and do not demand homelands of their own. And as an American citizen, he understands he is expected to learn English, which he is willing to do.

He admits there are problems in his homeland.

“It is a Yugoslavia problem,” he said. “Not a NATO problem.”

He doesn’t expect Milosevic to give up soon.

“He is hard-headed, but he is sly,” he said.

Mostly, Mijatovic is concerned for his family.

“It’s a difficult time for them there,” he said. The electricity cuts on and off. There’s not always water to drink. “The worst thing is NATO’s mistakes, which kill innocent people. That’s no good. That’s not the way to peace.”

His parents and an older sister are living in a bomb shelter in Belgrade. Day and night, they can hear bombs landing, he said.

In a press conference Wednesday afternoon at the Spokane airport, Mijatovic met Crapo for the first time, shook his hand and thanked him.

“To me, it represented an immediate opportunity for us to reach out,” Crapo said. “I just think it was great people in Idaho could help.”

Crapo has been against U.S. involvement in Kosovo.

Scott Dopp said he’s had mixed feelings about the NATO bombings. It was hard to watch his country bomb the home of his longtime friends.

Back when both families met, the tables were turned. The Mijatovic family helped the Dopps in a time of need.

The Dopps were on a two-month hiking trip through Europe in 1996. While swimming on a beach in Greece, Scott Dopp cut his hand on a sea anemone.

Vladimir Mijatovic, the head of the family, approached the two Americans and explained that the cut wasn’t that bad and that it had happened to him once.

The Mijatovics had rented a house near the motel where the Dopps were staying in Platamon. Vladimir Mijatovic invited the Idaho couple over to meet his family, including a gangly teenager named Zeljko. For three years, they traded letters and e-mail.

Even as the civil war tore the former Yugoslavia apart, the letters kept coming to Moscow. The notes always focused on the positive.

On May 15, a letter arrived in Moscow with an Italian postmark. Not sure who it was from, the Dopps saw a note written by Vladimir and his son, Zeljko.

It read, “Dear friends, these are bad times for our family.” He explained how their son fled the country. “If you can do anything to help my son, help him please.”

“We were shocked, but it was exciting,” Circe Dopp said. “We always talked about the possibility of them coming over here.”

The Dopps made what seemed like a million phone calls. Circe Dopp thought it might be hopeless when her research revealed a tremendous waiting list for visas. The wait for student visas was much shorter, she discovered.

Crapo’s office wrote a letter to the consulate in Italy and another to the admissions office at the University of Idaho.

She opened an account at U.S. Bank in Moscow called the Vladimir Fund. She called the community for donations.

A week ago, days before they were to leave on a vacation to Salt Lake City to visit her parents, she got word their young friend had received a student visa. She called the travel agent and lined up a plane ticket for $800.

They picked him up Sunday in Salt Lake City.

“It’s fun,” Circe Dopp said. “I’m most excited we get to see Zeljko again.”

They took him to a Utah amusement park and to see the new “Star Wars” movie.

Now they’re working on raising more money.

To stay in the United States, he must be a student. If he can’t afford tuition, he must return home. They’re also working on getting the rest of the family to Moscow.

“It’s impossible for people to leave right now, but that might change,” she said.

For now, all they can do is wait, which isn’t easy.

Mijatovic’s not sure how the government will respond when they discover he is gone.

“I’ve seen many bad things,” Mijatovic said. “I hope the war will stop soon.”

TO HELP Vladimir Fund A fund for Zeljko Mijatovic called the Vladimir Fund has been opened at U.S. Bank in Moscow.