Mirsad Solakovic - The Boy Who Said Nothing: A Child’s Story of Fleeing Conflict

B efore this whole nightmare began, my childhood was like a fairy tale, with long peaceful summers in idyllic countryside full of greenery, open fields and beautiful fruit trees. Families worked together, harvesting everything that they grew on their land, and the whole village felt like one big, extended family. Farmers lived and worked in harmony with their neighbours, helping and supporting each other. The men protected the village, as well as trading their goods for anything they could, while the women carried out most of the hard jobs, including physical jobs on the farm, with the help of their kids.

Our town, Kozarac, was part of the former Yugoslavia, presided over by the great dictator Marshal Tito. It consisted of six socialist republics Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Macedonia and the two Autonomous Provinces of Vojvodina and Kosovo. Living under the socialist republic regime was like belonging to a religion you would do everything for the people, Prologue communities and the prosperity of Yugoslavia, sharing its values and all of your wealth.

History tells us that many wars have started from the middle of Europe. Every fifty years it seems we fight different wars and face different invaders. In 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo, one of the catalysts for the First World War. The Axis powers invaded during the Second World War, then this bitter inter-ethnic war began the break-up of Yugoslavia in the late 1980s. It feels like there are a lot of angry people living in this part of Europe, yet people are also warm and welcoming.

Nobody ever believed that the war would rage between people who lived together in small communities. The powerful Communist system under Marshal Tito had taught us to love, support and care for each other. It was that strong that I never knew what religion I was I thought we were all the same.

Yugoslavia was becoming a superpower, with its industry booming and tourism developing, and its natural resources were exported worldwide, creating wealth and prosperity. Tito often visited and encouraged small communities, companies and factories. They were making their own cars, motorbikes, planes and weapons. In no time at all, it became the third most powerful and resourceful army in post-war Europe, with powerful munitions and a large army. Military service was compulsory and it took one year to complete.

We lived in Bosnia, which we believed was the most beautiful Republic of Yugoslavia, where people were the warmest and most kind, with the best-looking women in Europe. We were surrounded by the beautiful green Kozara Mountains, where we used to ski in winter and long fields stretched out all the way to Ribnjak, huge fish reservoirs, where we would swim in the summer. The Adriatic Sea and coast was a world-famous holiday destination. Bosnia was ethnically mixed, and everybody lived together happily: Serbs, Croats, Bosnians, Jews, Roma, Rimo-Catholics, Grko-Catholics, and Ukrainians. The education system in Yugoslavia had a very good reputation, so students came from all over the world, predominantly from Syria and Africa, and after their studies they would get jobs and settle down here. Before the war, seventeen different nationalities lived in Kozarac in peace and harmony. There was huge respect and tolerance among all the different people, and they celebrated each others differences. It was a place of freedom, love and care.

As in any country, people had friends and enemies. The big football clubs, like Hajduk Split, FK eljezniar (eljo), Crvena Zvezda (Red Star Belgrade) and FK Partizan, had their fanatic supporters, who were quite often rivals. One of the most well-known gangsters in Eastern Europe called eljko Arkan Ranatovi was an influential recruiter of football hooligan clans. These guys were involved in all sorts of criminal activities, from drugs, prostitution and robbery to extortion and money laundering. Arkan was the most feared man in the region and the mere mention of his name would frighten off other gangsters. He was married to a superstar pop singer called Ceca (Svetlana Ranatovi). During the war, Arkan formed a paramilitary group from his football hooligan clan called the Red Tigers. They were barbaric, and they committed crimes against humanity on civilians, including women and children. His reputation for brutality was such that when people heard that Arkan and his men were coming, they would often kill themselves so as not to fall into the hands of those butchers. During the war, they robbed everyone and sent all the money back to Serbia.

When the break-up of Yugoslavia started, they had a problem with the Northerners how do we break them? They knew historically Northerners never feared anyone. In this war their strategy was to make Northerners fall out with each other and divide them. This was the biggest loss that the Bosnians suffered during the war and it had a huge impact on how the war was shaped in Bosnia. Fikret Abdi, known as Babo, meaning Daddy, who came from the heart of Northern Bosnia (Krajina), was one of the most influential politicians and businessmen in Bosnia. He formed his Agrokomerc group, then later joined a Bosnian National political party (Stranka Demokratske Akcije) and separated himself from the rest of the Northerners and joined the Serbs to fight the Muslims. The best candidate to go and break the Northerners was Arkan. He was one of the very few Serbs trusted by the Serbian party leader Slobodan Miloevi, who was later indicted for war crimes. Arkans paramilitaries landed in the North West of Bosnia, but they could never have predicted how tough these guys were, even though they were not properly armed due to the UN embargo on selling arms at that time. One of the biggest challenges was who would arm the angry Northerners.