THE TREATMENT of Gravica; the suburb of Sarajevo occupied by Serb Chetnik forces, is as uncertain as the future of the city a whole. The suburb remains an inglorious symbol of the collective traumas suffered by the city during two years of siege and bombardment. Despite the partial pull-back of Serbian forces, Sarajevo is still besieged and just as divided as the Cypriot town of Nicosia or Berlin was in the past. Here we publish an account of the suffering of Grbavica by three Sarajevan citizens, M. Kristic, A. Hafner and A. Pandzo. 'WELCOME to the Serbian Republic' are the first words which greet you as you enter Sarajevo's occupied suburb, Grbavica.
You are greeted with the flag of that 'republic', which hangs on a half-burned-out skyscraper, and by hidden Serb police who follow your steps with binoculars.
As you enter, you are allocated one of those policemen as your private guard, whose task is to control harmless meetings of families separated by the division of the city.
Young women are immediately propositioned: "Baby are you Serbian"? Negative responses elicit rude disapproval from the gathered soldiers.
Getting out of Gravica is very difficult for the local population. People in the main part of the city never know when they will get to visit a friend or relative who is captured on the other side of the river Miljacka.
Bureaucratic procedures are so insistent that people are kept waiting for hours on the bridge connecting the two parts of the city. While you are waiting for the announced visit, it takes so long you can get sunburned.
A young boy was once asked: "Where did you get so tanned?" He answered, "On the bridge of Brotherhood and Unity, while I was waiting for my mother to come from Gravica".
The atmosphere is Gravica is permanently threatening: you have to have official papers to justify every step that you take, and non-Serbs feel something terrible could happen at any moment.
Gambling
One of the first to visit Gravica as the seige slacked asked his cousin, "Do you still gamble?" The cousin's reply was. "Yes I do, but a gamble with my own life".
At the beginning of June 1992, the Serb Chetniks just walked into Gravica, without a single shot being fired. The Serbs emptied the shopping centre and robbed it.
At first the Serb occupiers were ordinary reservists, and the treatment of civilians was not too bad. But then the forces of Arkan and Seselj (Serb fascists and war criminals) started to arrive and even ethnic Serbs became afraid.
When the reservists left, a gang of drunkards began to plunder everyone, including Serbs.
As soon as the reserve army left Grbavica, killings of Muslims and Croats became commonplace. The first massacres were conducted in the houses around the Flamingo coffee bar, near the front line with the Bosnian army.
Firing line.
Ethnic Serbs were moved out of this area, but non-Serbs had heavy machine guns put in their apartments and were immediately put in the firing line. there was nothing left for the second one to rob. So she did to me what was worse than any robbery. She cut my hair with a shaving machine. Thus, instead of hair, I had only a few scars and wounds on my head".
In addition to searches were stronger forms of intimidationproclamations on the walls saying it was necessary for nonSerbs to leave Gravica. The • proclamations told of detention centres where non-Serbs should assemble if they did not want to leave. But in reality few people are allowed to leave.
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Croats of the ninth. They always fear the late night knock on the door, and people over 18 years old are forced into work units.
The situation for women is especially terrifying. Many young women have testified to the activities of 'Batko', one of Arkan's men, a notorious rapist and torturer.
One young woman says, "It was most difficult when Batko was coming and threatening he would kill me. He was coming every day. Sometime he was in a good temper and he was offering me cigarettes. Sometimes he would simply come and cut me with a knife.
Because of the continued division of the city, all the facts are not known. But whether Bosnia is in the news or not "Welcome to the Serbian republic" remains the terrifying sign on the bridge of brotherhood and unity - and the suffering of Gravica continues.