Hearing it from the locals

I took the 0900 bus back to Sarajevo which got me in at 1130. I had a brief rest before starting my tour from the Tourist Information Centre to the Tunnel of Life.

As Sarajevo was largely surrounded by the Serb forces, then tunnel under the airport runway allowed food and supplies to be brought into the city. It also allowed wounded and sick to be transported out. The tunnel is about 800m long and took about 4 months to build.

While it was used by some to escape from the city, that wasn’t the primary purpose as there were dangers outside the city as well.

After the tunnel tour, I also went on the Panorama tour which took us to various points of interest around the city. The foothill areas are mostly in Republika Srpska and it is sometimes evident with street signs being in Cyrillic rather than Latin script.

Sarajevo had the second largest Jewish cemetery in Europe (after Prague). Most of the graves were pre-WWII. This cemetery was used by Serbs as a vantage point for shooting at Sarajevans (with the hope of hitting Bosnians and Croats rather than fellow Serbs).

There were Muslim cemeteries everywhere. Many parks around had been converted into cemeteries. Burials were only held at night to avoid being shot by Serb snipers.

I tried to understand why the Serbs let Slovenia and Croatia off so easily and so lightly.

• I was told that the Serb military leadership consider Bosnians to be “Turkish” even though Bosnians look the same as Serbs and Croats and speak the same language.  They’re distinguished only by their religions. The irony is that during the war (just after Socialism), people were hardly practicing their religions.
• They felt that the Serbs were taking out their revenge on the Bosnians because they lost a battle with the Turks some 700 years ago.
• The whole situation was complicated by Bosnia & Herzegovina’s population being made up of Bosnians, Croats and Serbs.  The other breakaways were more homogenous.

Three people on the tour were Bosnians who left for Australia and Germany as refugees. It was priceless to hear their stories as well.  There was also a Croatian man with us; he and some others had expressed that the old Yugoslavia was good as it is essentially a community like what the EU is.

I asked if Serbs ate burek and kababs. They do, and their currency is the Dinar (rather Islamic). I joked, that would make them rather Turkish as well!