Up any road in Bosnia is a blind date with death or dismemberment. Double-clutch, and pray it won’t show. What else can you do–especially if you’re a diplomat, mediator, aid worker or journalist plying your trade and protected by little more than layered shields of steel and professionalism?
There are days on those roads, however, when even body armor of Kevlar and common sense are not enough. Such was the grim fate of three senior American officials who surrendered their lives as they sought peace, and pursued it, outside Sarajevo on a mountain stretch of road that looks like Switzerland but smells of diesel and cordite.
The worst stretch of any road in Bosnia is this gateway to the Bosnian capital. The track snakes over Mt. Igman, across the airport runway at Butmir–now shut down by Serb shelling–and then into Sarajevo along Marshall Tito Boulevard. It’s a white-knuckle, atheists-need-not-apply trip through charred remnants of formerly multicultural former Yugoslavia.
In central Sarajevo, the route is called Sniper’s Alley, and is a Mad Max rally run through an obstacle course of burned-out autos and buses. The alpine access over Mt. Igman is dubbed Thunder Road and is a rugged, unforgiving, muffler-puncturing route where there are potholes large enough to garage a Volkswagen and where, for long stretches, sheep make better time than four-wheelers.
Oh, yes. There’s also that overdrive dash in direct line-of-fire from Bosnian Serb artillery.
An armored personnel carrier on Saturday tumbled off Thunder Road into a mountain ravine, killing Robert Frasure, deputy assistant secretary of state; Joseph Kruzel, deputy assistant secretary of defense; and Air Force Col. S. Nelson Drew, a National Security Council aide.
They were the core of a renewed diplomatic offensive to settle the five-year-old conflict in former Yugoslavia. That they were representing a nation whose policies and proposals thus far have been found wanting is irrelevant; they were respected and dedicated public servants who were undertaking a difficult and dangerous job for their country.
Richard Holbrooke, the assistant secretary of state who was heading the delegation, has vowed that his team will reassemble after a proper respite for mourning. New realities on the ground, in particular recent battlefield advances by Croatia, demand fresh thinking and refreshed diplomacy.
Good luck, Mr. Holbrooke. There already has been far too much death and dismemberment along those blind roads of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
