The Serbian noose was tightening around Sarajevo, forcing one of Europe’s most cosmopolitan cities back to the Middle Ages. Fred Cuny, the legendary humanitarian disaster specialist, offered a strategic use of the rest of the Soros funds that would help the struggling city, and Refugees International suggested the fund be used for his projects. In January 1993, I returned to Sarajevo with Fred, whose massive frame made him seem to take up half the space in the UN armored personnel carrier bringing us in.
Fred did some amazing things to support the citizens of Sarajevo and rebuild some of the city’s shattered infrastructure. He publicized and helped to implement the “one room strategy” that encouraged residents to live in only one room in their homes. With the combination of UNHCR-issued heavy plastic sheeting and many warm bodies, families were able to fend off the cold just enough. He also brought in pipes to extend the reach of the gas system for those few times the gas taps were on, and local residents dug the trenches to install the pipes themselves.
Fred Cuny's finest accomplishment was nothing short of incredible. Large numbers of Sarajevans were being killed or wounded by Serb shells as they waited in the water queues. So Fred devised a plan. From old maps, he discovered a reservoir above the city constructed in Ottoman times. If water could be pumped into the reservoir it could reach many apartments and homes in the city by running downhill in the old pipe system. The key was to get a massive pump to take water from the river and push it up into the reservoir.
After flying back from Sarajevo to his native Texas, Fred designed a pump. The challenge was twofold. First, he had to make the pump just small enough to fit into the belly of a US Air Force C-130 cargo plane operating as part of the airlift. Second, due to the risk of shelling, the pump would have to be unloaded within the ten minutes of time that the UN planes were permitted to remain on the Sarajevo airport tarmac. So he began practice drills, and eventually the crew got the unloading time down from one hour to ten minutes.
During the actual unloading on the Sarajevo tarmac, the plane began its taxi out within seconds of the last crate hitting the ground. Then in a feat that I have never understood, Fred got the pump in crates marked as innocuous spare parts across the Serb lines surrounding the airport and safely into a highway tunnel overlooking the river, which was impenetrable even to the Serb shells. Getting the pump down to the river was hazardous, but once that job was done, the Cuny pumping system delivered thousands of gallons of water to the city.
As the war ground on, Refugees International’s attention turned to the so-called UN safe havens which became some of the most dangerous spots in Bosnia. Fewer UN supply convoys were making it to the safe havens due to dangers encountered on the road. Civilian resources were dwindling and even the UN forces in the safe havens were running low on food, medicine and ammunition. RI called for increased security for the supply convoys and for US and NATO air support to protect the vulnerable and easily targeted safe havens.
Along with RI staffers Anthony Holbrooke and Paula Ghadini, I was in nearby Tuzla during the 1995 evacuation of Srebrenica, and we met the women and children who streamed out of the town once it was taken over by infamous Serb General Ratko Mladic. They were housed in tents at the Tuzla airfield under a burning sun. As word spread that thousands of their husbands, fathers and sons had been massacred by the Serbs, a wailing swept through the tents which haunts me to this day.
Overshadowed by the Srebrenica tragedy was the nearby safe haven of Žepa which was also wiped out after a tour of the area by General Mladic, who invited the leaders of Žepa for drinks the night before he slaughtered them and the residents of yet another UN safe-haven. (Mladic has come to be known as the butcher of the safe havens and has been indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. He is still at large today.) Trying to drive toward Žepa, we were effectively deterred when a Serb soldier stopped us, opened the car's gas tank cap and lit a match, which seemed to signal that we should turn around. We knew that not far down the road a massacre was taking place.
In part through RI’s advocacy, Gorazde became the only surviving safe haven in Bosnia. We demanded that the line be drawn at Gorazde or else Bosnian Serbs would strengthen and advance on Sarajevo and Tuzla. Through a blitz of media in print, on radio and on TV, RI pressured the Clinton administration to provide air protection to Gorazde.
Some months later, with the safe havens in the region so tragically overrun, Tuzla was in a period of calm. Residents had begun to go outside and some gathered at a disco that was targeted by a Serb shell, killing 60 and wounding many more. Not long afterwards, I came by and a song was still playing: "Born to Lose." As Ray Charles intoned those lines, I felt that rarely had a song and event so tragically coincided.
But another song rang out more brightly and ultimately prevailed.
Bosnian friends had noted dryly that while they liked frequent visitors like me, they wondered if anybody else out there cared about the siege, especially any well-known people. I asked who would be popular in Sarajevo. Magic Johnson was first choice, but right behind him was Joan Baez whom I knew from her support for Indochinese refugees.
I called Joan and to her great credit she quickly broke off a concert tour to fly to Sarajevo. There she performed with the local cast of Hair which played EVERY day of the siege, despite the fact that many cast members were killed or wounded going to and from the theater. This performance is relatively unknown outside Bosnia. It could only be broadcast on Bosnian TV as the Serbs had the cut the lines that would enable an international broadcast.
Joan's appearance with the cast was one of the most moving scenes in my life. After a number of songs with the cast, Joan sang a Sarajevan folk song which brought the house down (not literally, happily). The conclusion was Joan singing "Imagine" joined by the cast encircling her. As the concert ended, Bosnia was definitely not one but the citizens of Sarajevo had begun to feel like they could outlast their besiegers. And they did.
Lionel Rosenblatt served as president of Refugees International from 1990 to 2001. Read part 1 of his guest blogger series here [1]. Pamela Snyder, an intern from the College of William and Mary, assisted in editing this post.