"No writer has literary treated the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina as eloquently as writer Miljenko Jergović, born and raised in Sarajevo, winner of this year's Leipzig Literary Prize and dozens of other literary awards."
His brilliant debut, "Sarajevo Marlboro," tells the story of the siege of Sarajevo from 1992 to 1995, when Bosnian Serb forces under the leadership of General Ratko Mladić terrorized the city daily with sniper fire and artillery shelling. "These were the years when Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić carried out his policy of ethnic cleansing," are the words with which German journalist Michael Martens introduces readers to his new article on the topic of "Sarajevo Safari" for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ).
"Maybe that's why this exceptionally gifted storyteller gets so angry when asked about the story that has recently brought his hometown back to the headlines. "Sarajevo Safari" is the name of a five-part story that reminds you of a Quentin Tarantino film, but has nothing to do with reality.
According to the story, during the 1990s, hundreds of wealthy foreigners, primarily Italians, came to Sarajevo as "human-hunting tourists" and paid large sums to shoot civilians in the besieged city from Serbian positions," Martens says.
The German journalist writes that this story "does not correspond to the facts" and adds:
"After FAZ from Sarajevo first reported on the illogicalities and dubious quality of the sources, other media outlets followed suit. The regional portal Balkan Insight (BIRN), which specializes in investigative journalism, published an extensive investigation. Conclusion: there is nothing but rumors. The German media portal Übermedien also came to similar conclusions."
Then the author of the text discusses with Miljenko Jergović, who "didn't believe in that story from the very beginning," an article in the Sarajevo-based "Oslobođenje," which reported on the front page in 1995 about alleged human safaris.
"I don't think that even in 1995, the naked truth was not always published in newspapers," says Jergović. He does not think that the myths and legends of the time were necessarily the result of propaganda or evil intentions, but that they were most often the result of despair... He is also not sure whether the story of the "safari" originated in Sarajevo and spread around the world from there, or, conversely, came from the world to Sarajevo "as a perverse embellishment of Bosnian war suffering," the FAZ article says, noting: The consequence, however, is clear: "This story insults the memory of the victims of the siege of Sarajevo."
"But how could such an unfounded story possibly attract so much attention? Why did many media outlets – initially even FAZ – report it affirmatively?" asks Martens.
Hatred of elites
There, Bosnian writer and columnist Haris Imamović, born in 1990, suggests the thesis that "a story in which rich men satisfy their desire to kill for money perfectly suits the needs of a Western audience."
Over coffee and lemonade on the terrace of the "Evropa" hotel, Imamović explains that the false story of Pizzagate (according to which a chain of child pornography is being operated from a pizzeria in Washington) and the real scandal related to American sex offender Jeffrey Epstein are based on a similar motif as the legend of the "Sarajevo Safari", writes a FAZ journalist, quoting Imamović, who, among other things, says:
"Many people are unhappy with their economic situation, they hate the elites. But people need something more to hold against these elites than the fact that they are rich. And they get that through a story in which the elites are not only rich, but also evil in the worst sense."
Imamović, the article goes on to say, does not rule out the possibility that there were indeed individual "crazy foreigners" in Sarajevo who paid to shoot at civilians.
"But hundreds? I don't believe that," says Imamović.
He explains his suspicion, among other things, with a detail he noticed in the reporting on this topic:
"Most of the journalists who are now writing about the 'Sarajevo Safari' have not previously written a single article about the region or Bosnia. Journalists living in Sarajevo were skeptical from the very beginning. And experienced journalists, who really followed the war, did not write about it," says Imamović.
"Furthermore, the story of the siege of the Bosnian capital, as presented in 'Sarajevo Safari', is at its core revisionist: The real story is that the Serbian army besieged Sarajevo. It is the story of Ratko Mladić – not some rich Western hunters who may or may not have existed."
"Anyone who follows the narrative of the 'Sarajevo Safari' without knowing the actual historical background might get the impression that the siege was primarily organized by wealthy foreigners who came to kill on weekends," Imamović adds, noting:
"It would be about the same as if someone formed their opinion about World War II based on Quentin Tarantino's film 'Inglourious Basterds.'"
Imamović assumes that the success of this story also has to do with the fact that there is a market for "stories about the evil West - as if the West is to blame for everything". "Such narratives are encouraged by people like Emir Kusturica or Austrian Nobel laureate Peter Handke, as well as by the authorities in Moscow, Beijing or Tehran," FAZ quotes Imamović as concluding: "Western viewers need this story - not Bosnians."
What does Lovrenovic say?
The author of the FAZ article then moves on to writer Ivan Lovrenović, who today lives in the Sarajevo neighborhood of Grbavica, which served as a stronghold for Serbian snipers during the siege.
He also mentions that the settlement is the setting of the film "Grbavica" by Bosnian director Jasmila Žbanić, which won the Golden Bear in 2006 and is about a single mother whose daughter does not know that she was conceived through rape by a Serbian soldier.
Martens further writes that Lovrenović and his family had to flee Grbavica in June 1992, and when he returned to his devastated apartment in 1996, he took a German TV crew through his neighborhood. He also showed them abandoned hideouts on the upper floors of tall buildings, where snipers were hiding.
"He himself saw at least seven or eight such positions," says Lovrenović, adding what everyone in Grbavica knew: "There were professionals from the Serbian army there."
He wonders where the story about foreign "safari" tourists came from. "Never, really never, was anything like that mentioned in conversations back then. Maybe there were one or two such cases. But massively, systematically? No," he says.
He, too, the FAZ text states, is interested in the question of how this "established myth" came about. Lovrenović also sees in this a phenomenon he calls "self-destructive victimization."
Such tendencies exist in every society, he says, but they are particularly pronounced in Bosnian society. Thus, the undeniable and real suffering that Sarajevo endured during the war is further magnified by legendary elements – which harms Bosnian society in the long run, Martens quotes Lovrenović.
Diversion from the real story of the siege of Sarajevo
The author of the article also talks to Dnevni Avaz journalist Danijal Hadžović, who says in the interview that he does not consider the story of the "Sarajevo Safari" to be a fairy tale, but is skeptical of the way numerous media outlets have reported on the topic:
"During the years of siege, the Serbs killed the citizens of Sarajevo for years, day after day. But it seems that the Western media is no longer interested in the story of a few primitive Balkans killing each other."
Like Imamović, he warns that this story distorts the picture of what really happened in Sarajevo.
"Was there maybe five or six psychopaths from Western countries who were paid to kill? Maybe. But they are not the main villains of this story. It is Radovan Karadzic, Ratko Mladic and all the Serbian criminals who killed civilians."
Martens quotes Hadžović, who says that Serbian forces could not take all of Sarajevo, even if they wanted to: “But their hatred was so great that they killed civilians – because they could. They could not take the city, but they could kill its inhabitants for years. That is the true story.”
In contrast, the story of rich foreigners who killed people in Sarajevo for fun is a “Hollywood story.” “However, anyone who focuses on it distracts from the real story of the siege of Sarajevo and the war in Bosnia,” are the words of Danijal Hadžović, with which Mihael Martens concludes his article.
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