Buying survival

Julius Strauss in Bihac

12 August 1995

It could perhaps only happen in the Balkans. The encircled Muslim enclave of Bihac, liberated earlier this month from the longest siege in living European memory, survived for almost four years by buying food from its Serb enemies.

As the 50,000 people of Bihac celebrated their delivery after 1,201 days, the secrets of the grim struggle for life have begun to emerge.

At night Muslim townsfolk would slip through the Serb lines to enemy territory in the hills above the town. There they would trade basic food, ammunition and weapons with local Serb smugglers.

And when Muslim helicopters managed to dodge Serb gun batteries to deliver essentials to the town, they brought not food - too bulky - but money to finance the trade with the Serbs.

Sakib Hadzic of the Bihac Bank said: "Many people in Bihac had relatives or pensions in the West. This money was transferred to Zagreb and then brought in cash by the helicopters. My guess is that DM 20 million [$14 million] went out of the enclave every month to the Serb smugglers. We were forced to finance the enemy in order to destroy him."

Abandoned by the west and within days of falling to a combined attack by Krajina and Bosnian Serbs and rebel Muslim leader Fikret Abdic, Bihac was liberated after Croatian forces cut deep into Serbian-held territory to link up with the encircled Bosnian Fifth corps.

"Welcome to Bihac. We have been waiting for you a long time," General Dudakovic, who led the town's defences throughout the siege told the Croat commander when they met on a bridge between their countries earlier in the week.

President Alija Izetbegovic, who has not been to the town since the siege began, came to congratulate its people.

Deliverance came not a moment too soon. The townspeople's funds had been drained by the enormous amounts they paid the smugglers. Earlier this year Bihac, starved of all humanitarian aid and no longer able to support itself, finally began to run out of food.

But now the mood is one of optimism and hope for the future. And the talk is of the heroism of the Bosnian Fifth corps, who kept the Serbs at bay for so long and its revered leader General Dudakovic.

"He is a lion for us," one Bosnian solider said. "He showed us the way."

Sitting behind a Bosnian Army emblem, the General, said: "We only had ourselves and our goals and we won. At the beginning of the war are total armaments were five mortars and two machine guns. We were handed over by the UN like an offering to the aggressor. But we fought."

"We were like the Great Wall of China to a Greater Serbia. There were very difficult moments but we have triumphed and fulfilled our historical task."

"The time of Mladic and Karadzic has passed. They can flee to Serbia, Russia or even Greece. But we will find them. The best thing Mladic can do if wants to save Serbian lives is commit suicide."

"Many of our soldiers come from Banja Luka. They want to go home. And we will fight until they can go home."