Under The Gun
For two years, the journalists who work for Oslobodenje have covered a single beat: the destruction of Sarajevo. Five staffers have been killed, 25 have been wounded, 10 are missing. But the newspaper has published every day.
By
Sherry Ricchiardi
Sherry Ricchiardi (sricchia@iupui.edu) is an AJR senior contributing writer.
The young reporter with the sunken cheeks and sad eyes began describing details of the most horrifying assignment of his career when suddenly his voice trailed off. He snuffed out one Marlboro and fumbled to light another. An eerie silence settled as the flashback from February 5 took hold: chunks of human bodies strewn on the ground and on market stalls; the pitiful cries of the maimed pleading for help as they lay bleeding in the snow; the headless body of a man being dragged out of sight. "It was like a meat market," Vlado Staka recalls of the incident that stunned the world four months ago when a single 120mm mortar shell exploded in an outdoor marketplace in Sarajevo, killing 68, wounding more than 200, all civilians. But on this day, a light spring rain was cooling the Bosnian capital, nourishing the newly planted gardens and lilac bushes, which were heavy with blossoms – a welcome sign of life amid the ruins. On the street below, shoppers haggled with black marketeers, the keepers of cherished commodities such as coffee, sugar and canned vegetables, smuggled past enemy lines or pilfered from U. N. supply depots. For the moment the battle-scarred city, surrounded by emerald forests, was quiet – no shells were raining from the hills, no snipers' bullets were ricocheting into neighborhoods or schools. But the agony of Sarajevo hung heavily in the makeshift newsroom of Oslobodenje, the city's largest and most influential daily newspaper, which has miraculously survived sustained Serb attacks on its main buildings and its employees. Maybe it was cathartic for the war-weary journalist to share the horrors he had wit- nessed that day in the Markale Market; or per-haps he wanted to prod others into pondering: How exactly does one go about reporting the unthinkable? "It was impossible to pass through the marketplace without walking in blood that day," Vlado Staka says. "When I arrived, I tried to interview some of the survivors, but people were too stunned; they couldn't talk. So I stood in a corner for five hours watching and recording the scene – the twisted faces, the screams, the words people were saying." Later that afternoon, Staka, 30, walked to the downtown bureau of his newspaper, just a few minutes away, and filed his report. The explosion occurred not far from the spot where Gavrilo Princip fired the shot that killed Archduke Francis Ferdinand in 1914, sparking the first world war. "I remember there were bloody footprints in our newsroom when we finished work that night. It's interesting how blood can look and feel greasy, like paint," says Staka, who has lost 45 pounds over the past two years. "I went home and flipped out. For 48 hours, I wasn't rational. Even now when I talk about it, there is a cramp in my guts. "I am eating myself from the inside over this. Sometimes I don't know how close to being a madman I am." No other incident in the Balkan war drew more media coverage and international outrage. As CNN and others beamed the bloody aftermath around the globe, the United Nations told Serb forces to pull back their heavy weapons from around Sarajevo or risk NATO-led air strikes. But that was little comfort to Staka and other Bosnian journalists who have inherited a grim watchdog role: chronicling the deadliest European war since the Nazi era. At least 250,000 people have been killed and close to 3 million left homeless by a wave of "ethnic cleansing." For two years, the journalists of Oslobodenje have covered that beat: the torturous, methodical destruction of their 600-year-old city with its mixed population of Muslims, Serbs and Croats. The newspaper, and the publishing house that adjoined it, were among the first institutions targeted by Serb forces who seemed determined to drive them out of business. The physical challenges of putting out the daily have been enormous. Beyond the danger of being hit by a bullet when walking out the door, Oslobedenje's staff has endured, among other things, working to meet deadlines in its subterranean quarters as the building shook from bombardments above and was engulfed in flames. Its newsprint, ushered across enemy lines, has been confiscated and delivery drivers have quit en masse in fear for their lives. Perhaps in part because of the staff's tenacity, the paper has become a symbol of hope for the city, and one source of constancy in an otherwise chaotic world. But scrutinizing the war so closely has taken a toll on the paper's reporters, editors and employees that is incalculable. Gordana Knezevic, the deputy editor who coordinated coverage during February's market massacre, admits she was close to calling it quits that day. "When I heard the blast, I sent the first journalist out. He came back vomiting, so sick he couldn't report. So, I sent another, and he came back absolutely shocked. We had a big problem pulling ourselves together that day," she recalls. "I was slow in thinking what to do, even in identifying the names of the victims. Our office in Ljubljana [the capital of Slovenia] wanted a quick report. But I wondered, who cares? We were living in the city of disaster. I felt we were absolutely abandoned by the world... Why should I keep sending our journalists out? "That day, I felt at the bottom of it. Even our job as journalists seemed pointless." Just before leaving the office at midnight on February 5, Knezevic took care of a final detail: "I changed the red color that usually appears on page one to black as a symbol of sorrow." ýituated on the western edge of Sarajevo in one of the city's hottest combat zones, Oslobodenje is no more than 100 yards away from Serb gunners. The street in front is known as "Sniper's Alley." Today, U. N. peacekeepers call the area no man's land because the Serbs remain dug in across a minefield and sporadic firing continues. After two years of covering war in their homeland, the toll has been heavy: Five of Oslobodenje's employees have been killed, 25 wounded, and 10 correspondents listed as missing in Serb-occupied territory. Among the dead, a reporter shot at close range while filing a story on the destruction of the Bosnian town of Zvornik; a photojournalist hit by shrapnel while taking pictures of Sarajevans standing in a water line; a secretary, felled by a sniper's bullet as she left the office. "None of our staff was left untouched," says Knezevic. Some have seen their apartments and houses blown up, their families forced to join the long columns of refugees. Some have loved ones behind enemy lines in the occupied territories. Some have lost parents, brothers, sisters. Goran Jovanovic, executive director of Oslobodenje, has a scar where jagged pieces of steel tore into his upper thigh. "Any deeper and I could have lost the leg. Often, we survived by inches," he says. "But at least 25 of our employees suffered serious wounds. What happened to me is not worth mentioning." Fahro Memic, an editor, was speeding away from the newspaper in his car with precious cargo – the day's press run of 5,000 – when a bullet creased his skull and caused him to crash. Staff members, watching from inside, rushed out of the building, grabbed the bundles and headed into town. After one day, Memic checked himself out of the hospital because, he says, "they needed the beds for the more seriously wounded." He spent 12 days recuperating at home. îhotographer Senad Gubelic's brother died when a sniper's bullet pierced his heart; reporter Djelana Pecanin was in her family's apartment when she heard the explosion that killed her father. Fahro Memic's wife was killed in their home. The staff remembers many close calls: the shells that exploded in front of their cars, the spray of bullets that hit a building a few feet away, a colleague wounded during a run along Sniper's Alley. Many, like Staka, carry the emotional scars of recording scenes of horror, such as hospital wards packed with wounded children and overflowing graveyards where marksmen make sport of stalking mourners. "For me, the worst was seeing children without limbs, without eyes; helpless little beings. That scene struck me the hardest," says Staka, who has an 18-month-old daughter. "When I covered the massacre in the market that day," he adds, "I saw a mother crying, begging the police to let her into the crime scene. Then, she saw her husband. They spoke no words at all; they just exchanged looks and she knew instantly that her son was dead." For Gubelic, 26, coping has meant trying to tune it all out. "I don't feel anything any more," he says. "Every day I ran from Oslobodenje [across a zone targeted by snipers]. Every day I heard shells exploding; I saw people dead on the streets. After a few months, I felt numb. We all developed a strange sense of humor to defend our minds, but humor can't save lives." To keep up morale, Jovanovic says that two or three editors or reporters are rotated in and out of Sarajevo every three months "to relax them and give them good food. Besides, we need the spirit of Sarajevo [in Ljubljana] and they bring that with them." What's most agonizing, these journalists say, is constantly reporting and photographing ghastly suffering and having the responsibility of defining what is and is not newsworthy. For example: Tank shells killed five and wounded 10 one day, but no children were among the victims and no hospitals were hit, so it wasn't as big a story. The pressure, Staka says, has taken a toll on personal lives, too. "We all try not to have conflicts with our families, but our nerves are so raw. The victims of my job are my wife and daughter," he says. "When I'm home, I flare up over nothing and I yell. My wife is the real hero of our family. She takes care of our child, runs our home, takes care of our survival. And she handles me when I flip out." Before the war, Staka's wife, Dubravka, was a marketing agent for a local TV station. In the worst days of the war, Staka was haunted by the possibility of arriving home at night to find Dubravka and their toddler, Maya, dead. "I was in constant fear. Sometimes my wife was forced to go out for water or for food. She had to take the risk. Sometimes during a shelling, I would try to call home. Either the phones weren't working or there would be no answer. I had no way of knowing whether the apartment had been hit. I didn't know if I would arrive home and see their blood all over." Staka worries about the return to normal life once the violence ends. "We often talk about how we will cool down after the war," he says. "Sometimes I fear what is inside of me – what is inside of all of us. I wonder what will happen when this situation calms down and we relax. I don't know what kind of emotion will come out of us..but somehow, we will have to find ways to re-socialize." Oslobodenje employees carry an inherent modesty and shun the hero label. "Sarajevo was a dangerous place for everybody," says Goran Jovanovic. "It was dangerous for kids, for old people, for those who had to stand in line for food and water. A number of firemen also died." (At least 13 firemen in Sarajevo have perished in the line of duty; dozens more have been wounded.) Kemal Kurspahic, the editor in chief of Oslobodenje when the siege began, remembers a New Year's Eve party in January 1992 when a police chief gave him a special present. "He warned I should take care of myself because they'd intercepted a hit list and I was high on it," says Kurspahic, who now is Oslobodenje's Washington, D.C., correspondent. "He suggested I get a bodyguard, but I told him I didn't feel comfortable having someone taking care of me when so many others were in danger. "He said, 'Okay, then I'm going to give you a New Year's gift.' It was a 9mm handgun." When Sarajevo was attacked three months later, the weapon took on new significance. On May 14, 1992, Kurspahic watched out a window as heavily armed Serb rebels darted between apartment buildings in his neighborhood, situated near a front line. "We knew what could happen if they captured us – we knew about the torture, the killing, the rape," Kurspahic recalls. "So my oldest son and I prepared to defend the family. If they entered our apartment, I knew I would shoot them." A reserve unit of local police came to the rescue that day. The gun went back into a drawer. "I never took it to the office," Kurspahic says. "I don't know of any of my reporters who took guns out into the streets." Today, Kurspahic walks with a pronounced limp, his right foot jutting outwards, the result of a car crash on July 5, 1992, along Sniper's Alley. 'uring his month in the hospital, Kurspahic's wife, Vesna, brought him a typewriter and his staff held editorial board meetings around his bed. A decade before, some of these same journalists were covering a brighter side of Sarajevo, the site of the 1984 Winter Olympics and a showcase for multiethnic, multicultural cooperation. Even now, the newsroom mirrors that mix – 30 percent are Serbs, 40 percent are Muslims, 20 percent are Croats, 10 percent are Jews and "others." Knezevic and Staka, for instance, are Serbs; Memic is a Muslim; Jovanovic, half Croat, half Serb. The city was famous for its rich blend of Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman architecture, its Serbian Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches, ancient mosques and synagogues. The Gazi-Husrevbeg Mosque was built during the Turkish occupation in 1531; the Kursumli Islamic School in 1537. A synagogue, dating back to 1902, is designed in the "pseudo Moorish" style; the turn-of-the-century Roman Catholic cathedral is neo-gothic. The old Serbian Orthodox church offers what one travel brochure describes as "an outstanding museum of icons." But today, residents bitterly call Sarajevo "the world's largest prison" and "the new Berlin," a city walled off from the world and blockaded by a stubborn enemy. But from the first shelling of the city in April 1992, the battle cry for Oslobodenje's staff members centered on a single notion: As long as the newspaper was alive, Sarajevo was alive. They slipped into the role of freedom fighters, using words instead of guns, to aid in the liberation of their homeland. "For us, it was the ultimate sign of resistance," says Gordana Knezevic. "When Sarajevans couldn't find bread, they could find our newspaper." It was a war, in fact, that sparked the birth of Oslobodenje 50 years ago. The newspaper appeared on August 30, 1943, in the village of Donja Trnova and became a tool in the underground struggle against the Nazis. The broadsheet eventually passed into communist control, but editors waged a battle for independence. In 1989, Oslobodenje was voted the paper of the year in Yugoslavia by a nationwide poll of journalists. The daily was one of the first in Bosnia to open its pages to diverse opinion and political commentary outside party lines. When the government balked at the idea of an independent newspaper n 1991, Oslobodenje staffers orchestrated public demonstrations to demand press freedom. They took their case to the nation's highest court and won. When the siege began, the Serbs made a point of targeting the paper, which has no pretense of being objective about the war, siding with the citizens of Sarajevo and the Bosnian government. But instead of silencing its bright blue presses and sending theÐemployees home, the newspaper – its very name means "Liberation" – has become a powerful weapon against what its staff calls "the new era of fascism" sweeping Bosnia and other regions of the former Yugoslavia. ëBy keeping the paper alive through two years of terror, we have proved that the tradition, culture and long-standing spirit of a multiethnic cooperation can't be killed by artillery," says Kurspahic. "That's what I am most proud of." When the division of Bosnia-Herzegovina along ethnic lines was introduced as a possible solution to the conflict, Oslobodenje's editors immediately called a staff meeting to discuss the repercussions for the newspaper. "We decided that no matter what kind of constitutional agreement or division was imposed upon us," says Kurspahic, "there were certain professional standards – such as objectivity, openness to differences, tolerance, equal individual rights, no matter which group you belong to – worth fighting for. "We formulated a document which we printed in the newspaper, a message to politicians, the public and ourselves, that we would keep those standards and values no matter what was left in the end." That attitude led Oslobodenje, which before the war circulated throughout Bosnia-Herzegovina, to quickly become a powerful symbol of freedom. To Sarajevans, long accustomed to a cosmopolitan lifestyle – modern department stores, supermarkets, theaters – it was one of the few signs of normalcy. The newspaper delivered battlefield reports, death notices and names of the wounded; personal messages from one end of town to the other, and stories of human endurance. It listed the locations of food and water distribution sites. Pedja Kojovic, a native Sarajevan now working for Reuters, calls Oslobodenje "a lifeline." "The people were falling into a dark hole; they were desperately trying to stick to any of their habits," Kojovic says. "They could go out in the morning and get their newspaper, and for a few moments, pretend they were leading a normal life. Normalcy was the only weapon we could use to survive." But for the editors of Oslobodenje, there also were other reasons for publishing. "People always asked why we kept on," says Kurspahic. "There were a few things that made us obliged to do it. We began as a liberation newspaper 50 years ago, so there was the tradition. We also had a responsibility to the profession, and we had to maintain our own self-respect. We saw hundreds of our foreign colleagues coming to write about a war that was affecting our families, our city, our country. How could we stop doing it? "And we had a special relationship with our readers. We felt a responsibility not to leave them during the worst experience of their lives." During the heaviest shellings, a routine day for Oslobodenje reporters often began with a dash through Sniper's Alley to cover assignments across town. Reporters usually traveled by foot since fuel was in short supply and cars were prime targets. There might be a mass funeral to cover or tense negotiations between the warring factions. If the Kosevo Hospital was hit, there might be a human interest story on children wounded for the second time. The Oslobodenje staff, a core of around 75 who remained on the job during the worst part of the 22-month siege, has lived through a purgatory that tested their courage and wits. (A cease-fire has been in effect since February in Sarajevo, although sniping and sporadic shelling continue.) On June 20, 1992, flames sparked by a Serb attack engulfed the upper level of the newspaper's 10-story building. It would be the first of four major fires to sweep the complex. The staff scrambled onto lower floors and continued working to meet deadlines. "Serb snipers were shooting at us while we were running around the building that night. A fireman was shot and killed," recalls Executive Director Goran Jovanovic. "The fire was out by 6 a.m.; the presses were rolling by 6:05." When the sun broke through the morning mist, Sarajevans found their newspaper being hawked on the streets as usual. Some, who still had access to electrical power in the city, watched footage of the fire on local television the night before. "No one could believe we could rise from the ashes," says Jovanovic, who now works out of Oslobodenje's bureau in Slovenia, another former Yugoslav republic. Once, as photographer Senad Gubelic led a visitor through the charred remains of the newspaper building, he noted, "I call this the disco corridor. Some nights the whole place is lit up by tracer fire. It looks like a nightclub, and the noise is deafening... Now you can see the aggressor's positions. They are 50, maybe 100 meters away. I can hear them singing their patriotic songs at night. Sometimes they drive a tank around that playground." As Gubelic pointed across the way, shots rang out. "We're among their favorites," he joked. "I think they like us a lot." Kemal Kurspahic remembers a day when a tank shell hit and "the building screamed like an animal being killed. It was a long-lasting scream from the aluminum, glass and concrete bending under the blast. Some of the staff came and said, 'Why are you sitting there? Go to the shelter.' But I said no, I had to finish my story. I simply didn't want them [the Serbs] to force me out." Anna Husarska, a freelance journalist who often has covered Sarajevo during the attacks, wrote in the New Republic: "The Serbs who are besieging Sarajevo hate everything about this newspaper. Oslobodenje is the only staple produced here daily (even bread sometimes is missing). It maintains high spirits among the population and, more importantly, it gives the lie to Greater Serbian propaganda about the impossibility of the three ethnic groups – Serbs, Croats, and Muslims – living together in peace." When Oslobodenje's stately twin towers began crumbling under the shelling in 1992, employees moved underground into a nuclear bomb shelter where they lived dormitory-style, sleeping on army cots and working in seven-day shifts to cut down on running the gauntlet outside. "Serbian snipers were so close, they could have hit us with stones," says Gubelic. "Some nights we could hear them talking and singing their Serbian songs." On a chilly afternoon this past May, Vlado Staka acted as a guide to the bomb shelter, what he refers to as "the nerve center" of Oslobodenje's operation, or the Ruins, as employees affectionately call it. As the car approached the last military outpost, the driver waved to the guards then sped into no man's land. Staka advised moving into the building quickly because "they fired on this area yesterday." The Ruins is a cathedral of ingenuity. Engines were taken from Russian-made Lada automobiles and converted into generators to power computers and other newsroom equipment; oil drums were turned into stoves to warm the pressroom. When a mortar round opened a hole in the ceiling of the photo lab, a tarp was taped over it to catch rainwater that drains via a pipe into garbage cans. In one room, there are rows of army cots and stacks of precious documents saved during the bombings. On this day, phones and faxes are working; editors and reporters are watching a TV hooked up to a satellite dish. A Madonna tape is playing in a back room. Sometimes during the shellings the journalists work by candlelight, with the earth trembling from explosions above. They went for weeks without phone and fax lines, without access to wire services, depending instead on shortwave radios and the BBC or Voice of America to provide international news for their readers. At one point, stories from their correspondents in places like Paris, Moscow and London were transmitted to a branch office in the Croatian capital of Zagreb, then sent to Sarajevo via ham radio operators. When Oslobodenje's network of 700 kiosks throughout Bosnia was burned and looted, they turned to fax machines – when they were running – to keep the information flowing. Editors cut the pages into fours and sent them, one at a time, via fax to cities like Tuzla, Travnik and Mostar. The pages then were pasted together, reproduced locally and distributed to central locations where citizens, starved for news, lined up to read them. When truckers announced that it was too dangerous to continue delivering the newspaper around town, reporters and editors grabbed the bundles and headed into the streets. During the first days of the attacks, Editor Kemal Kurspahic gathered his staff and told them: "Any of you are free to go, but this newspaper will continue to be published as long as the last one of us is alive." "No one wanted to leave. I always had a long list of those who wanted to work," he now recalls. Logistically, it took miracles, and sidling up to blackmarketeers, often the only ones in Sarajevo with access to supplies of fuel, food, batteries and other necessities, to keep the newspaper afloat. To extend the life of the newspaper, Oslobodenje cut circulation from a pre-war high of 60,000 to 12,000 and finally to a war-time low of 3,500. The newspaper changed format 13 times and printed on whatever paper stock was available, including poster paper in shades of pink, yellow or green. Editors calculate that it costs at least $2,000 a day to keep the operation afloat, and despite decreased press runs, 70 tons of newsprint barely lasts 90 days. Even when they manage to get donations from foreign media organizations, such as Reporters Sans Frontiers or the International Federation of Journalists, there are massive problems delivering supplies across Serbian lines. ýn May, Goran Jovanovic, stationed in the newspaper's Slovenia bureau, took a call on his direct line to Sarajevo. Within moments, the usually mild-mannered business director exploded with anger. "Fuck them," he shouted as he slammed the receiver down. Jovanovic had just learned that the Serbs had intercepted a shipment of newsprint headed for Oslobodenje and confiscated 50 percent of it. "It seems the Serbs are starting their own daily newspaper in their headquarters at Pale. Can you guess what they aPe calling it? Oslobodenje!" Jovanovic said as he lit another filterless Camel. ýe explained that for the United Nations and other humanitarian agencies, delivering newsprint to Sarajevo is a low priority. "We are dependent on outside organizations," Jovanovic said. "Now we are trying to get shipments through the Croatian city of Split." Most foreign journalists arrive on the outskirts of town aboard U.N. relief planes, jammed in among the cargo. A sign at the battered airport refers to the service as "Maybe Airlines – destination Phnom Penh" and warns passengers, "If you're not satisfied with our service, you are free to go to another airport and fly with another airline company." A white armored personnel carrier offers taxi service past Serbian checkpoints into the city. In May only one road, winding up from the coast past the battered city of Mostar, allowed access to Sarajevo without scrutiny by Serbian militia. That enrages journalists like Staka who are not free to cover territory outside the city limits. And there is another Catch-22. While journalists who hitch rides on U.N. flights are required to wear flak jackets in order to board, the United Nations has refused to deliver protective body gear donated by foreign press organizations to Oslobodenje's s.aff because it is not a "humanitarian" item. In 1993, the Freedom Forum attempted to have 20 flak jackets delivered to the journalists of Oslobodenje, but, according to Tim Kenny, the Freedom Forum's international coordinator for Europe, "they were considered to be war materials, so we had difficulty getting them in." When attempts to have the United Nations and other agencies deliver them failed, Kenny took the jackets to Oslobodenje's bureau in Ljubljana where they have been taken in one at a time. "When reporters or editors from Oslobodenje go back to Sarajevo, they wear one in," Kenny explains. Oslobodenje's journalists cringe a bit when they discuss the quality of their newspaper. No, it hasn't always met their standards; they wish they could do more investigative reporting, but being too critical of their government during wartime may not be best for their country. It's a thin line, says editor Knezevic. "We stand firmly behind Bosnian politicians and Bosnia as a unified nation," she says. Kurspahic adds another message, directed to the Serbs who remain entrenched across a minefield not far from the ruins of his newspapers. "They have destoyed our building, but the voice of Oslobodenje is louder than ever before in history. If they wanted to silence us, the result is the opposite. "Here in Washington, D.C., on Connecticut Avenue, I can walk into the Newsroom [a shop that sells international newspapers] and buy a copy of Oslobodenje, which was never the case before. By trying to destroy freedom of expression, they made us more important, more popular, more powerful. We are the proof. You cannot silence freedom of the press with guns." l ###
|