In Vukovar we went on a walk through town led by Marda a local resident. This is one of the buildings we saw filled with bullet holes.
Among other things, she talked about the war in Vukovar that started when Croatia tried to break away from Yugoslavia. Serbians who dominated Yugoslavia did not want it to leave. Perhaps like Ontario might feel if Quebec or Alberta would leave. Or how California might feel if Texas tried to secede from the United States. Such ideas are what sparked the American film Civil War a couple of years ago. As the Wendy Ide of the Guardian explained it, “In that film, near-future US has turned its anger against itself; a new civil war is raging.” [1] In that film a president of the United States, who sounded a lot like the current president, was practicing his speech in front of a mirror. This is what he said, “Some are already calling it the greatest victory in the history of mankind.” But those brave words were completely removed from reality. And brutal violence followed. But Vukovar was real. It already happened.
What was really appalling about the destruction in Vukovar was that it was necessitated by no military objective. It was entirely senseless. As Michael Ignatieff said,
“The pulverization of Vukovar made no military sense. When I asked a Serb tank commander why they had done it, he shrugged his shoulders. ‘War has many such tragedies… Leningrad… Stalingrad…” But these were battles with a military objective. In a nationalist war, on the other hand military objectives were driven by a desire to hurt, humiliate, and punish. The JNA (Yugoslav National Army) could have bypassed Vukovar and sent its tank columns down the Highway of Brotherhood and Unity all the way to Zagreb. Instead, it sat on the other side of the Danube and pounded Vukovar into rubble, as if to say, with each outgoing shell, ‘So you want to be independent, do you? This is what it will cost you, and what you will have at the end if nothing but ruins.’”
It is hard not to think, as you stand in the shattered graveyards, convents, churches, and homes, that someone derived deep pleasure from all this destruction. All these ancient walls, all these crucifixes, church towers, ancient slate roofs, were demolished by people whose ideologies ceaselessly repeated that they were fighting to defend the holy and sacred past from desecration. In a way, the artillery expressed the essential nihilism of what people called conviction more honestly than all the nationalist pieties about fighting for the sake of the sacred motherland.
Some uncontrolled adolescent lust was at work here. The tank and artillery commanders could not have seen what they were hitting. It was all as abstract and as satisfying as playing the machines in video arcade. It didn’t even seem to bother the largely Serb commanders that a significant percentage of the population being bombed, perhaps as many as 20 percent, were ethnic Serbs (maybe as high as 33%). Now many of them lie on the city’s outskirts beneath one of the bare, nameless crosses in a mass grave.”
Here is a building that speaks to the violence. It is filled with bullet holes from that conflict. For some reason, the owner chose not to fix it up.
They said they wanted to prevent desecration, but how could anyone say that the destruction they inflicted on their own city was anything but desecration? It reminded me of the American soldier, standing inside a city completely demolished, hardly a building left, thousands killed, many more injured, who said what the coalition forces did in Fallujah was “a great victory”. Calling that a great victory is a great desecration.
Vukovar was like that. Almost every building destroyed. The few that remained were pocked with bullet holes and artillery holes, like the one above. And the Flower House that now looks like this:
The city was defended by 1,800 lightly armed soldiers of the Croatian National Guard together with some civilian volunteers. They fought against as many as 36,000 JNA soldiers and Serb paramilitaries equipped with heavy armour and artillery. During the battle, shells and rockets were launched into the town at a rate of 12,000 a day. At the time it was the fiercest and most protracted battle seen in Europe since 1945. Sadly, that record was soon exceeded by the siege of Srebrenica during the Bosnia segment of the Yugoslavian Wars. As a result of the 87-day siege of Vukovar it became the first city in Europe to be completely destroyed since the Second World War.
When Vukovar fell on November 18, 1991, several hundred soldiers and civilians were immediately massacred by the victorious Serbians. There was no reason for the slaughter. They were fellow citizens. The Croatians also discovered a mass grave with more than 900 bodies. More than 3,000 people were killed, and 20,000 civilians had been expelled. This was deep ethnic cleansing of non-Serbians. Of course, many Serbs who lived there were also killed by their fellow Serbs from Serbia. Massacres are rarely neat and tidy.
Another interesting phenomenon, considering the extreme bloodiness of the war, was that even though the two sides were often referred to as “Croatian” and “Serbian” or “Yugoslav”, Serbians and Croatians as well as many other of Yugoslavia’s national groups fought on both sides. There was never a pure ethnic division. What were they fighting for?
After the war, several Serbian leaders were charged with war crimes, including their leader Slobodan Milošević who unfortunately died in prison before the trial concluded. Others survived long enough to be tried and convicted.
Even though Serbia “won” the battle the war exhausted them so completely, that after the war they were unable to continue the war with other belligerents. Not only that but Vukovar only remained in their hands until 1998 when it was peacefully reintegrated into Croatia. Clearly, all those deaths and injuries accomplished nothing!
Many mines were left behind after the fighting died down. A minefield left as a defence against Serbians. A million or more mines left in Balkans. A reminder of war. A deadly reminder that would haunt the area for decades.
Since the end of the war the town has been rebuilt with few scars of war, but the psychic scars remain. The communities to some extent remain deeply divided. The town has also never regained its former prosperity. Destroying a town to save it, is rarely a good policy.
As we walked through Vukovar I was surprised to see how much of the city had been completely restored. The buildings were freshly plastered and painted. Most of the bullet holes were covered up. Some buildings however, laid out their wounds for us to see. I wondered why.
Was it stubborn pride to show us how they had suffered? I don’t know but I think it is important for us to see it and recognize it. And try to avoid a repetition of it.