Dubrovnik the old town II
As we walked into a restaurant at noon on New Year's Eve, we came across a group of Americans who had just sat down. The father/husband acted like George Bailey as he tried to solve any problem. He could have been an understudy for George Emerson from "Room with a View" – as he said, "Well, we can move over here, and you can move that table next to this one, move that chair, and then grab another chair. Then you'll have a spot."
As we settled into the new arrangement of furniture, Maura said, "You all seem somehow familiar."
"I'm Matt Huddelston and this is my wife Jane, my daughter Lucy, and son Tom."
"Maybe we meet in Kazakhstan," answered Maura.
"We were in Kazakhstan."
Turns out that I had been the kids' computer teacher, and Maura had been Tom's homeroom teacher when he was in third grade 6 years ago. Tom, of course, had undergone the greatest change by doubling his height. Matt also changed a lot in the fact that his hair was now completely silver.
Aa a well-informed embassy dude, Matt told me about Croatia and Dubrovnik, Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina. After Yugoslavia broke up, the mixture of Croats, Serbs, Muslims, Orthodox Christians, Roman Catholics, Bosnians, Albanians, and the rest made the entire make-up of the Balkan Peninsula complicated- to say the least. So the Yugoslavs made an attempt to force Croatia to stay.
Belgrade army was bombing area around Dubrovnik and then bombed the Mid-Evil city itself.
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As we settled into the new arrangement of furniture, Maura said, "You all seem somehow familiar."
"I'm Matt Huddelston and this is my wife Jane, my daughter Lucy, and son Tom."
"Maybe we meet in Kazakhstan," answered Maura.
"We were in Kazakhstan."
Turns out that I had been the kids' computer teacher, and Maura had been Tom's homeroom teacher when he was in third grade 6 years ago. Tom, of course, had undergone the greatest change by doubling his height. Matt also changed a lot in the fact that his hair was now completely silver.
Aa a well-informed embassy dude, Matt told me about Croatia and Dubrovnik, Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina. After Yugoslavia broke up, the mixture of Croats, Serbs, Muslims, Orthodox Christians, Roman Catholics, Bosnians, Albanians, and the rest made the entire make-up of the Balkan Peninsula complicated- to say the least. So the Yugoslavs made an attempt to force Croatia to stay.
Belgrade army was bombing area around Dubrovnik and then bombed the Mid-Evil city itself.
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http://www.pescanik.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4754&Itemid=158
The escalation of violence against civilians and the ethnic-cleansing operations conducted by the Serbian forces were the immediate cause of the NATO bombing of FRY in March 1999, which is why it was termed a ‘humanitarian intervention’. But after NATO’s initial raids Miloševic did not stop - on the contrary, he intensified the crimes in Kosovo. Many state and public bodies participated in ‘cleansing’ the southern Serbian province of its population. Yugoslav army trucks and Serbian Railways trains were used to deport the population to the Macedonian and Albanian borders, the municipal services were used to remove corpses from the streets, and the Serbian police executed civilians and secretly transported their bodies to central Serbia using refrigerator trucks. The organisation and extent of the persecution following the start of the NATO bombing shocked the world.
It was soon understood that what was happening was an ethnic-cleansing operation on an unimaginable scale, which subsequently became known as Operation Horseshoe. It seemed that Miloševic was implementing a ‘final solution’ to the Albanian question. Only three weeks into the NATO bombing, the United Nation’s High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) registered over half a million displaced Kosovars, and several hundred thousand more who were internally displaced. The deported population had their personal documents and other proofs of Serbian citizenship confiscated, and were thus deprived of their individual identity. Up to June 1999, over 80% of the total population of Kosovo and over 90% of Kosovo Albanians had been driven from their homes. Around 10,000 Albanians were killed during the operation, which lasted less than three months. Thousands of houses were demolished by means of artillery, bulldozers, fire and explosives. Religious objects were not spared either - around 150 mosques were destroyed.
We in Serbia had no idea what was happening, of course. The state television broadcast images of destroyed bridges and TV towers, alongside occasional downed NATO aircraft. Some of us were in air-raid shelters, others fought bravely against the mighty NATO air-force, while Slobodan Miloševic and his assistants continued their joint criminal enterprise in Kosovo.
Following Miloševic’s capitulation and the withdrawal of the Serbian army and police from Kosovo, we became inundated with images of Serb refuges and torched Orthodox churches. The deported Albanians who returned to Kosovo together with the international forces revenged themselves against the Serb minority for the crimes committed by the Serbian state. Since that time, the commemoration of each anniversary of the ‘NATO aggression’ involves references to Serb victims, to Serb refugees, to depleted uranium, and to the illegitimacy of the bombing; but the true cause of NATO intervention or the terrible war crimes which the Serbian state committed against Kosovo Albanians is passed over in silence.
http://www.pescanik.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4754&Itemid=158
---------------
At the beginning of my attempts to make heads or tails of the information, one problem was journalists' habit of interchangeably using Yugoslavia and Serbia, Yugoslav and Serb. I think I've been able to figure out that since Serbia has Zagreb, where Matt and family now live, Serbia felt itself to be the biggest part of Yugoslavia, and sometimes the moniker of Yugoslavia still gets applied to the place.
From Wikipedia, I've learned that after Yugoslavia broke up, Serbia and Montenegro formed a union for some years, often using the name of Yugoslavia, or Former Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY). Serbia and Montenegro was the name used by the US for a time. During that time, however, often the country was known by its synecdoche (sĭ-něk'də-kē) (a figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole) "Serbia" because Serbia and Zagreb has a dominant influence on the country.
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1 Oct 1991 – Yugoslav Army attacks Dubrovnik
May 1992 bombardment ends
The escalation of violence against civilians and the ethnic-cleansing operations conducted by the Serbian forces were the immediate cause of the NATO bombing of FRY in March 1999, which is why it was termed a ‘humanitarian intervention’. But after NATO’s initial raids Miloševic did not stop - on the contrary, he intensified the crimes in Kosovo. Many state and public bodies participated in ‘cleansing’ the southern Serbian province of its population. Yugoslav army trucks and Serbian Railways trains were used to deport the population to the Macedonian and Albanian borders, the municipal services were used to remove corpses from the streets, and the Serbian police executed civilians and secretly transported their bodies to central Serbia using refrigerator trucks. The organisation and extent of the persecution following the start of the NATO bombing shocked the world.
It was soon understood that what was happening was an ethnic-cleansing operation on an unimaginable scale, which subsequently became known as Operation Horseshoe. It seemed that Miloševic was implementing a ‘final solution’ to the Albanian question. Only three weeks into the NATO bombing, the United Nation’s High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) registered over half a million displaced Kosovars, and several hundred thousand more who were internally displaced. The deported population had their personal documents and other proofs of Serbian citizenship confiscated, and were thus deprived of their individual identity. Up to June 1999, over 80% of the total population of Kosovo and over 90% of Kosovo Albanians had been driven from their homes. Around 10,000 Albanians were killed during the operation, which lasted less than three months. Thousands of houses were demolished by means of artillery, bulldozers, fire and explosives. Religious objects were not spared either - around 150 mosques were destroyed.
We in Serbia had no idea what was happening, of course. The state television broadcast images of destroyed bridges and TV towers, alongside occasional downed NATO aircraft. Some of us were in air-raid shelters, others fought bravely against the mighty NATO air-force, while Slobodan Miloševic and his assistants continued their joint criminal enterprise in Kosovo.
Following Miloševic’s capitulation and the withdrawal of the Serbian army and police from Kosovo, we became inundated with images of Serb refuges and torched Orthodox churches. The deported Albanians who returned to Kosovo together with the international forces revenged themselves against the Serb minority for the crimes committed by the Serbian state. Since that time, the commemoration of each anniversary of the ‘NATO aggression’ involves references to Serb victims, to Serb refugees, to depleted uranium, and to the illegitimacy of the bombing; but the true cause of NATO intervention or the terrible war crimes which the Serbian state committed against Kosovo Albanians is passed over in silence.
http://www.pescanik.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4754&Itemid=158
---------------
At the beginning of my attempts to make heads or tails of the information, one problem was journalists' habit of interchangeably using Yugoslavia and Serbia, Yugoslav and Serb. I think I've been able to figure out that since Serbia has Zagreb, where Matt and family now live, Serbia felt itself to be the biggest part of Yugoslavia, and sometimes the moniker of Yugoslavia still gets applied to the place.
From Wikipedia, I've learned that after Yugoslavia broke up, Serbia and Montenegro formed a union for some years, often using the name of Yugoslavia, or Former Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY). Serbia and Montenegro was the name used by the US for a time. During that time, however, often the country was known by its synecdoche (sĭ-něk'də-kē) (a figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole) "Serbia" because Serbia and Zagreb has a dominant influence on the country.
--------
1 Oct 1991 – Yugoslav Army attacks Dubrovnik
May 1992 bombardment ends
posted by James Martin at
1:28 PM
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