mess, marked the sky: red tracers fromrn20-m.m. guns streaked between our positionrnand the Croats’, sometimes crisscrossingrneach other like a giant game ofrntic-tac-toe.rnIn 1992, in Serb Cajnice, close to thernbesieged Muslim town of Gorazde, Irnlived on military Spam and rationedrnbread; that was the time when all thernworld was talking of Serb “concentrationrncamps” where Muslims, as thernclaim went, were “intentionally starved.”rnOn the Bosnian-Serb-Romanian Mountain,rnthat same summer, food was evenrnscarcer than in Cajnice: homemaderncheese and army bread were all we aternthere (not bad fare, but monotonous);rnthere was no U.N. “humanitarian aid”rnfor the women and children of the highrnplateau above the Zepa region, wherernconvoy after convoy of white U.N. trucksrntraveled. After the trucks, the Muslimsrnof Zepa usually attacked our positions,rnsneaking by our patrols and guards atrnnight and murdering the very samernyoung and old Serbs, too weak for the rifle,rnwho had smiled at us, confident thatrnwe would defend them.rnStill, Muslim prisoners of war in thernSerb camps were fed the same rationsrnas our troops—Spam they often wouldrnnot eat, nor anything derived of pork,rnbut we had nothing else to offer them,rnor ourselves. Not far from us, in Sarajevo,rnin over a dozen unregistered camps,rnour imprisoned noncombatants wentrnhungry, week after week, month afterrnmonth; in the Muslim Croat Bradinarncamp, near Konjic in Herzegovina, Serbrnwomen and children were kept in a railwayrntunnel and, from time to time, eitherrntortured, raped, or murdered, accordingrnto their captors’ whim. Mostar,rnthe capital of Herzegovina, which hadrna prewar population of over 30,000rnSerbs, today has only 400 left: taken outrnnight after night, one by one, they disappeared,rninto that same, Croat darkness.rnAt Elic Wiesel’s insistence, the Serbrncamp at Manjaca was emptied at thernend of 1992, but many of its Muslimsrncame back to Bosnia several weeksrnlater as armed soldiers of Islam, whilernthe Croats and the Muslims still maintainrntheir clandestine camps, wherernElie Wiesel’s envoy, journalist DanielrnSchieffcr, was never allowed to visit. Arnyear before the hysteria about “rapedrnMuslim women” hit the Western media,rnreports of hundreds of genuine, documentedrncases of punitive, cold-bloodedrnrapes of Serb women and girls in Croatiarnwere presented to the Yugoslav public,rnbut none of the Serbian-speakingrnforeign journalists in Belgrade consideredrnthem worthy of mention. As forrnthe Serbs’ own propaganda effort, theirrnattitude may best be summed up by thernrecent reluctance of Herzegovinian Serbrnpeasants to have the media present atrnthe exhumation of the thousands ofrnSerb noncombatants murdered by thernCroat Ustashi in Wodd War II. Askedrnwhat they had against the airing of thesernevents (the communist government hadrnpreviously filled in many of the executionrnpits with concrete, to cement itsrnconcept of “Brotherhood and Unity”),rnthe peasants replied that “Serbs do notrnexploit their dead.”rnMomcilo Selic is a writer and journalistrnliving in Belgrade. He was imprisonedrnby the communist government inrnYugoslavia for satirizing the cult of thernleader. He was managing editor ofrnChronicles from J987 to J 989.rnLetter From thernLower Rightrnby John Shelton ReedrnPassing the BottlernIn the aftermath of a conference notrnlong ago, a dozen of us spent a night inrndowntown Litde Rock. (No, this wasn’trnthe Economic Summit. It was a gatheringrnof poets, novelists, and essayists torndiscuss Southern autobiography, and therntalk was a whole lot better.) All in all,rnI’m a little more cheerful now aboutrnhaving an Arkansas politician runningrnthe Big Show. Despite some accretionsrnof yuppiedom (too many brasseries andrnbistros to suit me) Little Rock is still arnpleasantly funky Southern state capital.rnWe stayed at a hotel next door to thernOld State House, familiar to televisionrnviewers as the scene of Clinton’s victoryrncelebration, and I dropped in to browsernin the museum it now houses. In thernmuseum’s newsletter officials were busilyrnpooh-poohing reports in the nationalrnpress that the building is haunted by thernghost of a representative killed in anrn1837 knife-fight. The knifing death is arnmatter of record, but a spokesmanrnprotested that “there is no evidence thatrnwe are any more prone to soulless, lifelessrnzombies than any other state agency.”rnThe alleged sighting of the backrnof a man dressed in a frock coat, he said,rnwas probably just “a very homely womanrnin a pantsuit.”rnThat evening we went for supper tornBill Clinton’s favorite restaurant, Doe’srnEat Place, and pigged out on steak,rntamales, and fried shrimp, served familystylernat long tables. The beer and winernflowed freely (reminding me of the etymologyrnof the word “symposium”) andrnthe conversation flowed freely, too.rnWhen it was my turn, I told one of myrnfavorite stories, told to me by a Southernrnhistorian at a gathering very much likernthis one.rnIt seems there were these two Southernrnhistorians who had been to a convention,rnand after an evening of welllubricatedrnconversation they droppedrninto a truckstop for some coffee beforernretiring. One of them, a little guy whornspoke with a lisp (that I undertook tornimitate), was talking rather loudly, andrnafter a while his friend noticed that thernplace had fallen silent. Several large,rnunkempt loungers were listening to himrnand snickering to each other. Theyrnstarted to make rude remarks, less andrnless sotto voce, which the speaker didn’trnseem to notice, but his friend certainlyrndid. “Let’s pay up and get out of herernbefore there’s trouble,” he muttered.rnThe little guy finally seemed to noticernwhat was going on. To his friend’srndismay, he pushed back his chair, stoodrnup, and glared at the locals. “I knowrnwhat you’re thinking,” he told them.rn(“Oh, Lord,” his friend thought. “Herernwe go.”)rn”You think we’re pretty sissified,” hernlisped. “We//. If you’re so smart: Whenrndid Hank Williams die?” The silencernwas intense. “January first, nineteenrnfifty-three. Now shut your go—amnrnmouths.” They did.rnThat story always goes down well withrnan academic crowd—it shows what arnknowledge of history can do for you—rnand the Little Rock group was no exception.rnAs the laughter died down,rnhowever. Our Host—a historian latelyrndiverted into administration—said quietly:rn”Cityfied.”rnSay what?rn”Cityfied.” He said, “You think we’rernpretty cityfied, not sissyfied. I was there.rnThat was mc—the friend. The otherrnlUNE 1993/41rnrnrn