to stay, and I would have had to call himrnto sleep over with us, and then he wouldrnhave seen our daughter Merima, and shernwould have fallen in lo’e with him, andrnthey would have married, and who thernhell needs a son-in-law who doesn’t evenrnown a watch?”rnBranko Sofrenitch, with the rest of us,rnroars with laughter, but not so much atrnthe joke itself (he has heard it before), asrnat the way Milosh revels in it and at thernwav we, Belgrade Serbs, enjoy his homemadernbrandy, gulped out of a bottle withrnhand-picked herbs of his own choice.rn”I must tell you,” says Sofrenitch, “ofrnhow violins are made,” and he drags outrna half-dozen instruments in variousrnphases of construction. For BrankornSofrenitch is a violin-maker as well, besidesrnbeing an engineer, a corporaternman, and a warrior. He goes on to tell us,rnlaughingly, how he chooses a maple inrnthe woods, cuts it down, and cures it beforernpainstakingly carving it into thernshape of an instrument fit for masters.rn”Canada,” says Sofrenitch, “has allrnsorts of maple, but no ‘ribbed’ maplerngood for the fiddle,” and he smiles mischievously.rnSofrenitch is a small, wiryrnman, full of good humor and pep, a truernOzren Serb, because he regards a longrnface as a shortcoming. Blue-eyed, hernlooks at us, and asks his son to bring usrnsome more brandy, bacon, and cheese,rnfor the world’s a grim place as it is, andrnthe best we can do is enjoy it, or laugh inrnits face.rnSofrcnitch’s son is a strapping 16-rnyear-old, and his daughter is two yearsrnyounger: Branko has brought both ofrnthem into the war zone, for, to him,rnOzren’s freedom is nonnegotiable. Thernyoung man is silent and watchful—hernspeaks only when spoken to and looks usrnvisitors in the eye, knowing that thernOzren Order is older than the NewrnWorld Order, or anybody else’s idea ofrnwhat constitutes sound—anthropological,rnsociological, or political—wisdom.rnAnd so we tuck away our shargiya andrnleave, the stopover at Sofrcnitch’s over,rnwith many more miles of Ozren to coverrnbefore returning to Belgrade and tryingrnto do something about the insane “peacernplan” championed by the “internationalrncommunity” and by Serbs faint of heart,rnwho would leave Ozren and its 120,000rnSerb Orthodox Christians in an Islamicrnstate. (In Kuwait, for example, over halfrna million Christians are allowed only arnsingle church, which must not displayrnthe cross and must have no bell or belltower.)rnSince the Turkish occupation ofrnBosnia in the 16th century, there wasrnnever a mosque on Ozren Mountain, asrnno one there, ever, turned Muslim; evenrnduring World War II, when MiloshrnDragichevitch’s father and 400 otherrnSerbs were tricked into capture and executionrn(they were summoned by thernCroat and Muslim government to registerrnas taxpayers in Petrovo Selo before beingrnrounded up and shipped, like sornmuch cattle, to Jasenovac, which sornmany Croat spokesmen are trying tornwrite off as a place that did not exist orrnwhere only 30,000 Serbs, Cypsies, andrnJews were exterminated instead of overrnhalf a million, as hundreds of excavatedrnmass graves attest)—even then the enemyrndid not enter Ozren Mountain, exceptrnin April 1943, when over 40,000rnUstashi were defeated by some 3,000rnOzren Chetniks. Whoever has designedrnBosnian “peace” without considering thernwishes of the Ozren Serbs has—on purpose,rnor out of sheer ignorance, or, evenrnworse, out of malice or stupidity—laidrnout the groundwork for the next 100rnyears of war. Aiding the “underdog” (inrnthe case of Bosnia, the Muslims) is thernbest way to have Bosnia and Herzegovinarnon CNN well into the next century.rnMoreover, to speak of today’s BosnianrnMuslims as an “oppressed minority”rnwould be akin to claiming similar statusrnfor the Nazis in Europe, or for the descendantsrnof Genghis Khan in, say, Warsaw.rnToday, even in Spain—whose own Reconquistarnhas lasted over 700 years—rnthere is clamor against Serbs trying to reunifyrntheir ethnic territories, torn awayrnfrom them over centuries of criminal interventionrnby various “internationalrncommunities.” Ozren Serbs will notrnstand back and suffer any foreignrntroops—U.N., NATO, or other—to patrolrntheir territory and referee “justice” tornthem. xMuch less will they accept anyrn”law,” “international” or otherwise,rnwhich boils down to a dictate to die sornthat someone can play Santa Claus tornantiwhite, anti-European, anti-Westernrnpowers whose eminence is, in historicalrnterms, a mere spark in the millennia ofrntheir darkness.rnAs I shake hands with VaskersiyernPetkovitch, a blond, silent, respectful giantrnof a man, I know that he—soft-spokenrnand given to music as he is—willrnpersonally cut to pieces any man whornsigns away his birthright to Ozren Mountain,rnwhere Serbs have built Christianrnmonasteries since the 13th century.rnVaskersiye’s ancestors are buried in one ofrnthem, generation after battling generation,rnand Vaskersiye can no more leavernthem than he can leave his son andrndaughter, living in a hamlet close tornBranko Sofrcnitch’s village of Bolyanitch.rnVaskersiye, a civil engineer, gesturesrnwith his huge palm and says, “Though itrnis war, we are building a highway throughrnour Mountain! So far, the Turks and thernCommies have kept us in the boondocks,rnbut all we need is a year withoutrnshooting. Next time you come to Ozren,rnthe 50 miles of our length you will coverrnin half an hour, instead of trundlingrnaround in a jeep, four hours at a stretch!”rnI wave at them all and go, to writernthis account of ethnic cleansing, massacres,rnmass rapes, and concentrationrncamps, all committed against my peoplernfor centuries and transformed in thisrnmagnificent age into libel, defamation,rnand an arraignment of us, for having survived.rnMomcilo Selic is a writer and journalistrnHying in Belgrade. He was imprisonedrnby the communist government in Yugoslaviarnfor satirizing the cult of thernleader. He was managing editor ofrnChronicles/”rom J987-J 989.rnLetter fromrnNew Celtiarnby T. Padiaig HigginsrnDon’t Call Me AnglornAs America’s melting pot rapidly cools,rncitizens are rushing to align themselvesrnwith their proper tribe and then petitionrnthe government for special treatmentrnto redress historical grievances.rnWhile blacks, American Indians, andrnHispanics already bear the governmentalrnimprimatur of the oppressed, Asiansrnmade a key step toward achieving officialrnvictim status in 1992 by getting the UnitedrnStates Commission on Civil Rights tornissue a 233-page report that outlinesrnmyriad injustices. And at the City Universityrnof New York, one of the largestrn40/CHRONICLESrnrnrn