Playing Host to Some Dubious Guests

By ZLATKO DIZDAREVIC/SARAJEVO Zlatko Dizdarevic, an occasional contributor to , is the author of Sarajevo: A War Journal. This article was translated from the Serbo-Croatian by Ammiel Alcalay.

Last Monday morning, when the promised NATO air strikes against Serbian guns turned into the big nothing, just as we figured, a white armored personnel carrier with U.N. markings came through the center of town. It went down Marshal Tito Street, turning toward the presidency building before coming to a stop. Then the back doors opened and from the black innards, potatoes began falling out on the sidewalk, at the feet of astonished pedestrians. As the carrier turned on its way, more and more potatoes came tumbling down, rolling every which way. At first the pedestrians turned cautiously, looking this way and that to see whether anyone was watching. Then, almost in a panic, people began running and bending, grabbing at potatoes in the snow. A cyclist fell off his bike as he tried to stop abruptly at the spot where the most potatoes were. A woman began stuffing potatoes in her bosom; a couple of guys grabbed at a torn nylon sack that had drifted in with the wind; a 10-year-old kid took off his jacket to make a bag that he kept filling and filling.

About 10 people stood around mutely staring at this spectacle. Only one very distinguished-looking old woman, her white, wrinkled face emanating its own brand of aristocracy, quietly uttered, "There, freedom has come." A tear rolled down her cheek. Right around then, the local TV station replayed the reports that had been broadcast over "Serbian" television the night before. Up there, in Pale, from where the bloody siege of Sarajevo has been engineered for nearly 700 days, everything seemed an outburst of joy and happiness: "The Russians have come!" It was hard to tell who did more kissing, whose hands were stiffer from repeatedly raising three fingers in the sign of victory and greeting: the crazed Serb hosts whose "historical Orthodox allies" had finally come to their aid, or the exalted Russians who did nothing to hide their sense of triumph.

It was also just around then that we found out about the announcement made by Manfred Worner, the general-secretary of NATO: "The victors here, above ^ all, are the citizens of Sarajevo." I ran into Afan Ramic, the artist, on the street that morning, and he said, looking at me quite seriously after seeing the headline in Oslobodenje quoting Worner's statement, "If it doesn't beat all hell, they always hide things from me whenever I come out the winner." The Indi Cafe, better known as Asha's place, was closed, but a sign was still on the door: WE WILL BE HOLDING A CELEBRATION TO FOLLOW THE NATO ATTACK ON MONDAY. That afternoon there was no celebration, the sign disappeared and the cafe didn't open again until the following day. Nearby at Bisera's bar, things looked like a get-together after a funeral. "My God, how we've been humiliated by the Russians. What a disgrace," Bisera mused, almost as if she were saying it to herself. Haris, an engineer and a computer hacker, kept a straight face as he tried to explain NATO's continued reluctance to conduct air strikes. "You didn't get it at all," he said. "Those folks in NATO are such fine, upstanding people, like nice girls who won't give in right away, on the first night. Because of their upbringing. What would people think? So that's why they make it look like they're holding out now." Only a few people laughed along with Haris. It seemed nobody got the joke. Manojlo, a journalist, didn't seem to want to get it. Over his beer, more to himself than to us, he finally managed to wrench out his own version: "Nice girls? What the hell are you talking about. They're whores, real whores. They should have been paid up front. Then you'd see how fast they'd give in, and not just last night but two years ago. Our problem is, we don't have anything worth paying off whores like that with."

"Liberated" Sarajevo seemed almost as if it didn't want to admit to itself that its ears were perked for those planes on Monday, planes whose one and only mission -- at least as far as we were concerned -- was to show those holding us hostage from the hills that someone stronger existed, someone who could match tanks with missiles and force with force. To show them for just an instant that force can counteract force, that there is no heroism in killing women and children, that there is no heroism in depriving the hungry and thirsty, the freezing and the sick, of electricity and water.

Many who listened for sounds in the sky that morning when the potatoes went rolling along Marshal Tito Street simply declared that "NATO is afraid of Russia." Those inclined to mix in politics went a step further: it wasn't NATO getting scared but the West wishing to save Boris Yeltsin, for the umpteenth time. This time Yeltsin was being saved from Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the KGB and some shadowy Russian generals who don't exactly have a subtle grasp of all "the new historical realities." But most people no longer felt the need to analyze the motives of their supposed saviors, and they simply sneered as they went by the regiments of foreign journalists assaulting pedestrians as they shoved microphones in their noses and cameras in their faces, asking them astonishing questions: "What do you think now? What are your hopes? Are you happy? Who is the winner here?" One Sarajevan answered sharply and laconically, "The Russians won."

And they did. Under the wings of the doctrines expounded by Slobodan Milosevic and Radovan Karadzic about the need "to defend the Western borders of Orthodox Christianity" right here, in Bosnia, the Russians managed to assume a position they had only been dreaming about for a long time. And what's more, they have also finally gained access to the "warm sea," the Adriatic. Most ironically, they gained the moral upper hand, to the detriment of NATO, which forfeited any of the moral stature it might have once held.

At Asha's place, a guy just started in, pointlessly, over his beer, "And what would you think if instead of the Russians, the Turks had come in to take over the Serb positions around Sarajevo. They're part of NATO too."

"What the hell are you asking us for? Go ask Manfred Worner, or Yeltsin. They're the bigwigs," snapped Asha, cleaning his pipe. Pause. "As far as we're concerned, from now on, the only person worth turning to is Yeltsin. Maybe later on it'll be Zhirinovsky," concluded Asha, frantically trying to light his pipe with a lighter that had the U.N. insignia on it. No go. I guess there wasn't any flint left.