Abstract

Letter From Bosnia

This article reports that a makeshift eyesore of structure stands in the place of the fabled sixteenth-century stone bridge across the Neretva River in the Bosnian town of Mostar, Bosnia & Hercegovina. The beautiful old bridge, which had been an unofficial emblem of Bosnia, was destroyed in the bitter fighting between Muslims and Croats. The Muslims are caught in the middle. The future of Bosnia seems to them more precarious now that Croatia's Franjo Tudjman is dead and Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic, former Yugoslav President is no longer in power. Some voices in the West, formerly solidly behind the Muslims, are now suggesting that the "nation-building" project in Bosnia is doomed and that the only alternative is to allow the complete ethnic division of Bosnia. INSET: DU in the Balkans.