Saratoga News

Bosnian peace won't last, this Serbian visitor says

By Clarence Cromwell

Milan Lekic, a surgeon in the Bosnian Serb army, will make his way back to the war-ravaged Bal-kans on Dec. 21, after a three-week shore leave in Saratoga, where Lekic was a guest of the Reverend Rade Stokich at the St. Archangel Michael Serbian Orthodox Church.

With NATO troops enforcing a peace agreement in the former Yugoslavia, Lekic may return to a country calmer than he has seen in the last four years. Serbs in Bosnia and Croatia have been fighting against the government armies, attempting to establish an independent Serb homeland.

Lekic, who has spent four years on the front lines, doubts the peace now being negotiated will last. "It will be peace probably 12 months, but only 12 months," he said. "When NATO leaves, we'll have a terrible war."

A post-graduate student at the University of Miami in 1991 when war broke out in the Balkans, Lekic decided to volunteer for the Serbian medical corps shortly after the first television news reports of the fighting. Both his father and brother called to urge him to return to Yugoslavia and help his people.

Lekic said the war was a chance for Serbs to show loyalty to their fellow Serbs, something he considers an honor.

"I was excited," the 39-year-old soldier said. "Happy and excited. Every 50 years, we have a war in the Bal-kans. We were not all of us surprised. We are ready to give our lives for our families. We are ready to sacrifice our lives for our land. We are ready to sacrifice for our orthodox religion. This is something in our nature."

He recalled with pride monumental movements of tanks and troops he viewed. "It's a special experience," he said.

Many of the soldiers marching and maneuvering tanks soon came back to Lekic in ambulances.

"We had unbearably difficult conditions," Lekic said.

Serb doctors started the war with modern equipment and vehicles. After four years of United Nations sanctions, they are accustomed to doing without.

Lekic said the medical corps lacks gasoline for ambulances, food and even medicine.

After running out of gas in 1992, Serb hospitals had no way to transport patients, so they moved their doctors to the front lines.

Lekic said doctors receive patients quickly after they are wounded, increasing the patients' chances of living in some cases. But the move also put doctors in peril.

Since 1992, six doctors have been killed and 11 injured, said Lekic, who controls the medical database containing records of the Serbs injured or killed, including civilians. More than 100 medical technicians have been killed, he said.

Lekic narrowly escaped death in October, when a Croat shell penetrated the operating room of a hospital in Mrkonjic Grad, killing two doctors as they operated on a soldier's leg wound. Lekic was in the next room, admitting patients.

When doctors receive patients at the front-line hospitals, they rarely have the medicine needed to treat them, Lekic said.

Doctors resort to treating gunshot wounds with herbal folk remedies. A Bosnian soldier shot or shelled by enemy troops is likely to have tea leaves applied to his wounds, Lekic said. While the remedies seem to help, more traditional medical supplies would increase a great deal his patients' chances of living, he said.

When doctors ran out of anesthetic, they started amputating limbs without it. "You give them liquor or something," Lekic said, "but it's still not enough."

Lekic's Serbian heritage and war experience perhaps have colored his political views. He made them known during a press conference on Dec. 1 at St. Michael's Church and an appearance on KSFO-AM in San Francisco two weeks ago.

Rev. Stokich said he first heard of Lekic during a humanitarian mission in Sarajevo last February. They didn't meet then, but Stokich managed to contact Lekic by phone later and invited him to visit the church in Saratoga.

Lekic took the opportunity to spread his message about the Serbian side of the conflict in a press conference at the church and with Michael Savage on his Savage Nation radio talk show.

He called the conflict a continuation of World War II, claiming that Croats and Muslims are backed by Germany.

If fighting breaks out again, Lekic said, he will serve again as a doctor.

"It is very difficult, but you always have to find enough energy to help your people," he said. "As a doctor you must have energy. We are all very exhausted because of that."

"The same people are fighting each other," he said. "In this war, we are considered enemies of the U.S. and the world, with no ground for that. The Serbs are not your enemies. You will realize that soon."