On Nov. 18th, Maggie and I got on a bus along with my two cousins and their daughters at 4:30 am to join some 50,000 others on a procession through this sad place on the border with Serbia to commemorate the date 21 years ago that the city fell to invading Serbian forces. The Serbs shelled the city from across the river that now divides the two countries for 75 days, dropping hundreds of thousands of shells and effectively razing the city. Today, a few buildings still show theirs scars, but none so vividly as the city's water tower, which highlights the intensity and malice of the shelling.
The annual observance of the Fall of Vukovar is really a memorial to 260 hospital patients and workers that were marched out of the hospital to a pig farm where they were beaten, executed and buried in a mass grave. The procession starts at the hospital and ends at the cemetery: a hike about 6 km. long. It also marks the beginning of the fight for independence of Croatia from the former Yugoslavia as Zagreb armed its forces during the siege of Vukovar.
The interwoven threads of history, religion, politics, empires and nationalism in the Balkans make this a very complex issue that stretches back hundreds, if not thousands, of years. As Croatia moves to join the EU next year and as the remaining Balkan countries do so in the future, it is my sincere hope that bitter enemies will once again set aside their hatred and form strong allegiances, like France, Germany and England have done already.
Branko
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