www.americanprogress.org
from the article:
My introduction to Sidbela Zimic, a nine-year-old Sarajevan, came unexpectedly one Sunday in June 1995. Several hours after hearing the familiar whistle and crash of a nearby shell, I traveled a few blocks to one of the neighborhood’s once-formidable apartment houses. Its battered façade bore the signature pockmarks left from three years of shrapnel spray and gunfire. The building lacked windows, electricity, gas, and water. It was uninhabitable to all but Sarajevo’s proud residents, who had no place else to go.
Sidbela’s teenage sister was standing not far from the entrance to the apartment, dazed. A shallow pool of crimson lay beside her on the playground, where one blue slipper, two red slippers, and a jump rope with ice-cream-cone handles had been cast down. Bosnian police had covered the reddened spot of pavement with plastic wrapping that bore the cheery baby blue and white emblem of the United Nations.
On that still morning, Sidbela had begged her mother for five minutes of fresh air.
Mrs. Zimic was torn. A year and a half before, in February 1994, just two blocks from the family’s home, a shell had landed in the main downtown market, tearing sixty-eight shoppers and vendors to bits. The graphic images from this massacre generated widespread American sympathy and galvanized President Bill Clinton and his NATO allies. They issued an unprecedented ultimatum, in which they threatened massive air strikes against the Bosnian Serbs if they resumed their bombardment of Sarajevo or continued what Clinton described as the "murder of innocents."
"No one should doubt NATO’s resolve," Clinton warned. "Anyone," he said, repeating the word for effect, "
anyone shelling Sarajevo must be prepared to deal with the consequences." In response to America’s perceived commitment, Sarajevo’s 280,000 residents gradually adjusted to life under NATO’s imperfect but protective umbrella. After a few cautious months, they began trickling outside, strolling along the Miljacka River and rebuilding cafes with outdoor terraces. Young boys and girls bounded out of dank cellars and out of their parents’ lines of vision to rediscover outdoor sports. Tasting childhood, they became greedy for sunlight and play. Their parents thanked the United States and heaped praise upon Americans who visited the Bosnian capital.
Within months of the market massacre, Clinton had adopted this mindset, treating Bosnia as
his problem from hell-a problem he hoped would burn itself out, disappear from the front pages, and leave his presidency alone.
Serb nationalists took their cue. They understood that they were free to resume shelling Sarajevo and other Bosnian towns crammed with civilians. Parents were left battling their children and groping for inducements that might keep them indoors. Sidbela’s father remembered, "I converted the washroom into a playroom. I bought the children Barbie dolls, Barbie cars, everything, just to keep them inside." But his precocious daughter had her way, pressing, "Daddy, please let me live my life. I can’t stay at home all the time."
On June 25, 1995, minutes after Sidbela kissed her mother on the cheek and flashed a triumphant smile, a Serb shell crashed into the playground where she, eleven-year-old Amina Pajevic, twelve-year-old Liljana Janjic, and five-year-old Maja Skoric were jumping rope. All were killed, raising the total number of children slaughtered in Bosnian territory during the war from 16,767 to 16,771
www.newyorker.com
