AN ORDINARY STORY ABOUT AN ORDINARY BOSNIAN TOWN

ONCE BREZA (birch) SPREADS THE SMELL OF PEACE

AIM, Breza, November 7, 1995

Every step of this lands bears a mark of horror on it. The war just like a hurricane devastated everything on its way. Misery has no borders, it metastasizes and speads over everything - cities, towns, villages, people. Wherever they may be... Here is another war story. About a town, its people and their dreams:

Breza, that is what this is all about.

A small town in Central Bosnia with five or six thousand inhabitants. Before the war it was peaceful and quiet, far away from main highways and crossroads. Nestled by a small river called Stavlje which soon after leaving Breza flows into river Bosna. From a bird's eye view, the place looks like pearls scattered on the green carpet of a gentle countryside. Shimmering, it blazes at the time of hot summer days or scintillates in glistening golden moolight...

Up and around it are eternally white peaks of mountain Bjelasnica and Igman. When a sunbeam reflects against the crystal snow-covered slopes of the mountains and squints at the town, it becomes an incarnation of an unreal valley of peace. This town which bears a sweet smelling name of a birch, appears to owe its sleeping beauty to radiance of picture-books and mysterious adventures of fairy-tales carefully watched by children's imagination and curious spirit of the innocent.

That is what it used to be like. Then hell stepped down from the skies. Death became the master of the place. Detonations and crashes of shells emptied the town. The streets, squares, the market place were deserted. The glitter of stllness darkened and burnt up in the wind of the war. Ghostly pictures of forced walls, sand sacks instead of windows, streets rutted and the stench of fire. A Kafkian heavy feeling rules the town. They are punishing you, and you do not know why. Guilty with no guilt. Even children.

Then refugees started coming into the town. Five thousand of them, from some other places which had been burnt to the ground. Short greetings in the streets, moist palms of their hands, and fear. Everybody is in a hurry to get bread and water. Despite fear - one must go on living.

Truly, though, life is very difficult. Apart from the five thousand of banished people who sought refuge in Breza, there are about 13 thousand of local needy inhabitants. Therefore, there are 18 thousand people without a minimum of subsistence in a small town which used to have 16,318 inhabitants before the war. The retired people are threatened the most - the old, the ailing and the weak. There are about two and a half thousand of them, and almost half of them are over sixty five years old. Together with them, living on their pensions, there are another 1800 people of so-called "kept" members of their families. And the average pension amounts to 10 or 11 German marks a month. Even such as it is, it is usually about eight month late. On the other side of the scale is a ton of coal which costs 76 marks and winter has not even started yet.

According to the data of the Social Welfare Centre, there are 4,714 children up to the age of 15 in the municipality of Breza. This is, in the medical and pohysiological sense, a highly sensitive category at the age of intensive growth and development. Their adequate diet, clothing, accomodation, education, are prevented by the war. What future is in line for these anxious, frustrated, depressed and exhausted children? What consequences will they suffer from due to inadequate housing and education in dark and humid shelters? What can we teach them?

Just physical damage of elementary schools in Breza is evaluated at 380 thousand German marks, and of the secondary school centre 114 thousand marks. Will the "generous West" remember this small town in Bosnia and help it to provide necessary teaching aids, computers and other instruments for its classrooms, since a modern school is almost inconceivable without them? But, even if they do repair the damage done to the schools, how will they pay the teachers?

Namely, the economy of Breza has literally been knocked out. The greatest and most powerful firm in it, the brown coal mine called "Breza" has suffered enormous damage which is evaluated at 6 million 696 thousand German marks. And this is just the damage done to the external buildings, pit mining facilities, machinery and electric installations, instruments in the main transformer station. Losses due to devastated production have not been included in the mentioned figure.

The mine which is just 600 metres from the frontline, was frequently shelled and demolished. As opposed to the 500 thousand tons produced every year before the war, during three and a half war years 300 thousand tons were produced altogether, mostly for humanitarian purposes and needs of the therml power plant close by. Without labour manpower, spare parts and fuel, even such low production was enabled only thanks to the aid of a British Humanitarian Organization "ODA".

The local town hospital suffered 100 thousand marks worth of damage, mostly the building and the equipment. Ten physicians have left, as well as 11 nurses, and three were killed. Like many towns around Bosnia, Breza is in need of a pediatrician, anaesthesiologist, psychiatrist and a number of general practitioners. A similar problem of a shortage of experts is felt in other spheres such as civil engineering, textiles, metal and other processing industries.

Bosnia has stopped condemning those who have left it a long time ago. Everyone has gone following one's own destiny. Those who have remained fought to survive and shifted for themselves the best they could. The town olympic swimming pool in Breza was turned into a fish-pond where California trout is grown. With the help of an agricultural engineer, the mine "Breza" specialized in - food production. Wheat, potatoes and corn are the new products of the miners. On the balconies, around buildings and on private plots, various edible plants are grown that the Bosnian climate permits. Two combine harvesters were procured, and a special wheat threshing-machine production was invented...

But, there is something in this story about Breza which is the most important od all - this small town was not devoured by hatred from within. And it was shelled every day. Ahmici, Stupni Dol and Ljesevo - places which have become notorious for massacres and committed evil deeds - are in a circle of just about twenty kilometres from Breza. Yet, only on the waves of its small local radio station, one could never hear vengeful tones. Even that small independent radio station is one of the proofs that hatred and vengefulness have not yet been inaugurated in this twon, contrary to numerous big towns around B&H. Breza has preserved its multi-ethnic dimension. Breza has chosen future.

More than 22 thousand people have passed through this town since the beginning of the war. Some have stayed, many have gone for ever. Those who have gone, God be with them, those who have stayed will be offered the spirit of Bosnia in Breza, common sense and togetherness if they wish to live in it.

There are no Serbs, Croats and Muslims in this story on purpose. There is only the town and its people. That is what it should be like, anyway. Because, Breza will have its future only when it becomes that peaceful small place from the beginning of this story again. And the smell of peace seems to be spreading around Bosnia. One just needs to inhale deeply. Soon...

ESAD BAJTAL