Devastation and Despair along the Drina

Fisk, Robert, The Independent (London, England)

Visegrad, Serb-controlled eastern Bosnia - On the entrance to the tunnel, the writing was on the wall. "The only good balija is a dead one," the graffiti said. "Balija" is an old word for a Turk and now - as vicious a racist word as "nigger" - has come to mean "Muslim". And here we were, scarcely five miles from the great bridge over the Drina, the stone masterpiece of 10 arches with which the Turks blessed eastern Bosnia at the height of their 16th-century power. Yet on the next tunnel through the rock wall of the valley, the message was even bleaker. "Arkan," it said, referring to the nastiest of Serbian Bosnia's ethnic cleansers, "thank you."

We only had to look …

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Publication information: Article title: Devastation and Despair along the Drina. Contributors: Fisk, Robert - Author. Newspaper title: The Independent (London, England). Publication date: October 11, 1996. Page number: 14. © 2009 The Independent - London. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All Rights Reserved.

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