(english / italiano)
IL PONTE SULLA DRINA
Su "The Observer" del 12/12/2004 e' apparso un articolo da Visegrad
(Bosnia-Erzegovina), nel quale si accusano i serbi (e chi altrimenti?)
di incuria riguardo al famoso ponte sul fiume Drina, di epoca ottomana,
immortalato dal grande scrittore jugoslavo Ivo Andric.
Il ponte e' infatti in condizioni di degrado, e ne' la Repubblica
Srpska ne' la Federazione croato-musulmana ne' la Repubblica di
Bosnia-Erzegovina hanno i soldi per restaurarlo (per tacere degli
occidentali, troppo impegnati a pagare le missioni militari). La colpa,
percio', viene assegnata ai serbi.
Il Professor J. P. Maher, storico, ha pero' fatto notare la malafede
dell'articolista Peter Beaumont, il quale si e' "dimenticato" di
scrivere che nel 1992 a Visegrad il monumento a Ivo Andric fu fatto
saltare in aria dal musulmano Murat Sabanovic. Attivisti musulmani
minarono anche la diga idroelettrica sulla Drina, minacciando di
ammazzare decine di migliaia di persone, di tutte le etnie.
(a cura di I. Slavo)
----
Battleover the bridge of lost souls
Serbian authorities accused of neglect as monument to massacre of
Muslims during war in Bosnia crumbles
Peter Beaumont in Visegrad
Sunday December 12, 2004
The Observer
It is possibly Europe's most gruesome bridge. Its foundations, legend
has it, are built on the bodies of murdered twins. For more than four
centuries it has been the scene of beheadings, of slow impalements on
its low, stone balustrade, and massacres.
The most recent was in 1992, during the war in Bosnia when Serb
paramilitaries flooded the pretty little town of Visegrad to kill its
men and rape its women. They slaughtered some of their Muslim victims
on the bridge, pushing the bodies into the green waters below.
Its violent history was traced in a book for which the town's most
famous resident, Bosnian Serb writer Ivo Andric, won the Nobel prize
for literature.
Now the bridge over the river Drina, a 171m-wide span of limestone
which gave its title to Andric's book, is in danger of imminent
collapse. And like so many things in Bosnia since the end of the war in
1995, its survival has become politicised.
It has been in peril before. The span and several pillars were
dynamited and partially destroyed in the First and Second World Wars
(and then rebuilt). But nothing before has threatened the whole
structure with collapse.
Built between 1571 and 1577 by the Ottoman Empire's most famous
architect, Kodza Mimar Sinan, to link Bosnia with Istanbul, the bridge
is under attack by the river itself.
The pillars supporting the 11 arches have been eroded and cracked,
while badly undertaken repairs to the cobbled road that crosses the
bridge have allowed rain to seep in and freeze, pushing the vast stone
blocks apart.
'According to our preliminary investigations,' said Amra
Hadzimuhamedovic, chairwoman of the Bosnian government's Commission to
Preserve National Monuments, 'it can collapse at any time.'
In the former Yugoslavia, even almost 10 years after the end of the
fighting between Bosnians, Croats and Serbs, monuments to sectarian
cultural identity are the subject of fierce debate - the bridge's
Koranic inscriptions have been defaced with blue paint.
Hadzimuhamedovic says the Serb authorities in Republika Srpska, the
almost exclusively Bosnian Serb political entity comprising the east of
the country, don't see repairing the bridge as a priority.
She suggests that there are some in the government of Republika Srpska
- which, with the Bosnian-Croat federation, makes up the second layer
of administration - who do not want to repair historic monuments that
do not speak exclusively to Serbian and Orthodox culture.
The bridge is the ultimate expression of the mixing of cultures and
ethnicity that offends those who still believe in racial separation.
For although it is an Ottoman bridge, it was commissioned by Grand
Vizier Mehmet Pasha Sokolovic, a Serb, taken from his family as a
child, who rose to one of the most powerful positions in the Ottoman
Court.
What is certainly true is that there is no money in the coffers of
Republika Srpska to undertake repairs, and little more in the budget of
the Bosnian government.
But many Bosnian Serbs are campaigning most vigorously for the bridge
to be saved. Ljubomir Mutapcic, an elderly journalist is one. His flat
overlooks the bridge and he knows every moment of its history. 'You
know the legend of the bridge?' he asks. He tells the story told in
Andric's book. How when the bridge was being built the river would
sweep it away until the two human sacrifices were put in its
foundations. 'The bridge has had to have its victims, to stand up,' he
says.
---
John Peter Maher wrote:
Sirs/Madames
re December 12, 2004
The Observer. Battle over the bridge of lost souls
"Serbian authorities accused of neglect as monument to massacre of
Muslims during war in Bosnia crumbles "
Peter Beaumont trips over his lies or sheer incompetence.
In 1992 in Visegrad the monument to Ivo Andric was was dynamited by
self-styled Muslim kamikaze Murat Sabanovic.
His unit also mined and attempted to blow up the hydroelectric dam on
the Drina, which would have killed tens of thousands of people,
including Muslims.
Yours faithfully
Prof. J. P. Maher
IL PONTE SULLA DRINA
Su "The Observer" del 12/12/2004 e' apparso un articolo da Visegrad
(Bosnia-Erzegovina), nel quale si accusano i serbi (e chi altrimenti?)
di incuria riguardo al famoso ponte sul fiume Drina, di epoca ottomana,
immortalato dal grande scrittore jugoslavo Ivo Andric.
Il ponte e' infatti in condizioni di degrado, e ne' la Repubblica
Srpska ne' la Federazione croato-musulmana ne' la Repubblica di
Bosnia-Erzegovina hanno i soldi per restaurarlo (per tacere degli
occidentali, troppo impegnati a pagare le missioni militari). La colpa,
percio', viene assegnata ai serbi.
Il Professor J. P. Maher, storico, ha pero' fatto notare la malafede
dell'articolista Peter Beaumont, il quale si e' "dimenticato" di
scrivere che nel 1992 a Visegrad il monumento a Ivo Andric fu fatto
saltare in aria dal musulmano Murat Sabanovic. Attivisti musulmani
minarono anche la diga idroelettrica sulla Drina, minacciando di
ammazzare decine di migliaia di persone, di tutte le etnie.
(a cura di I. Slavo)
----
Battleover the bridge of lost souls
Serbian authorities accused of neglect as monument to massacre of
Muslims during war in Bosnia crumbles
Peter Beaumont in Visegrad
Sunday December 12, 2004
The Observer
It is possibly Europe's most gruesome bridge. Its foundations, legend
has it, are built on the bodies of murdered twins. For more than four
centuries it has been the scene of beheadings, of slow impalements on
its low, stone balustrade, and massacres.
The most recent was in 1992, during the war in Bosnia when Serb
paramilitaries flooded the pretty little town of Visegrad to kill its
men and rape its women. They slaughtered some of their Muslim victims
on the bridge, pushing the bodies into the green waters below.
Its violent history was traced in a book for which the town's most
famous resident, Bosnian Serb writer Ivo Andric, won the Nobel prize
for literature.
Now the bridge over the river Drina, a 171m-wide span of limestone
which gave its title to Andric's book, is in danger of imminent
collapse. And like so many things in Bosnia since the end of the war in
1995, its survival has become politicised.
It has been in peril before. The span and several pillars were
dynamited and partially destroyed in the First and Second World Wars
(and then rebuilt). But nothing before has threatened the whole
structure with collapse.
Built between 1571 and 1577 by the Ottoman Empire's most famous
architect, Kodza Mimar Sinan, to link Bosnia with Istanbul, the bridge
is under attack by the river itself.
The pillars supporting the 11 arches have been eroded and cracked,
while badly undertaken repairs to the cobbled road that crosses the
bridge have allowed rain to seep in and freeze, pushing the vast stone
blocks apart.
'According to our preliminary investigations,' said Amra
Hadzimuhamedovic, chairwoman of the Bosnian government's Commission to
Preserve National Monuments, 'it can collapse at any time.'
In the former Yugoslavia, even almost 10 years after the end of the
fighting between Bosnians, Croats and Serbs, monuments to sectarian
cultural identity are the subject of fierce debate - the bridge's
Koranic inscriptions have been defaced with blue paint.
Hadzimuhamedovic says the Serb authorities in Republika Srpska, the
almost exclusively Bosnian Serb political entity comprising the east of
the country, don't see repairing the bridge as a priority.
She suggests that there are some in the government of Republika Srpska
- which, with the Bosnian-Croat federation, makes up the second layer
of administration - who do not want to repair historic monuments that
do not speak exclusively to Serbian and Orthodox culture.
The bridge is the ultimate expression of the mixing of cultures and
ethnicity that offends those who still believe in racial separation.
For although it is an Ottoman bridge, it was commissioned by Grand
Vizier Mehmet Pasha Sokolovic, a Serb, taken from his family as a
child, who rose to one of the most powerful positions in the Ottoman
Court.
What is certainly true is that there is no money in the coffers of
Republika Srpska to undertake repairs, and little more in the budget of
the Bosnian government.
But many Bosnian Serbs are campaigning most vigorously for the bridge
to be saved. Ljubomir Mutapcic, an elderly journalist is one. His flat
overlooks the bridge and he knows every moment of its history. 'You
know the legend of the bridge?' he asks. He tells the story told in
Andric's book. How when the bridge was being built the river would
sweep it away until the two human sacrifices were put in its
foundations. 'The bridge has had to have its victims, to stand up,' he
says.
---
John Peter Maher wrote:
Sirs/Madames
re December 12, 2004
The Observer. Battle over the bridge of lost souls
"Serbian authorities accused of neglect as monument to massacre of
Muslims during war in Bosnia crumbles "
Peter Beaumont trips over his lies or sheer incompetence.
In 1992 in Visegrad the monument to Ivo Andric was was dynamited by
self-styled Muslim kamikaze Murat Sabanovic.
His unit also mined and attempted to blow up the hydroelectric dam on
the Drina, which would have killed tens of thousands of people,
including Muslims.
Yours faithfully
Prof. J. P. Maher