Braco
Authors: Lesleyanne Ryan
BRACO
BRACO
A NOVEL
LESLEYANNE RYAN
P.O. Box 2188, St. John's, NL, Canada, A1C 6E6
Copyright © 2012 Lesleyanne Ryan
This is a work of fiction. The characters are products of the author's imagination, and any similarity to persons living or dead is unintentional.
LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION
Ryan, Lesleyanne
Braco / Lesleyanne Ryan.
ISBN
978-1-55081-334-0
I. Title.
PS8635.Y357B73 2012-----C813'.6-----C2012-904975-1
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We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts which last year invested $24.3 million in writing and publishing throughout Canada. We acknowledge the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador through the Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation for our publishing activities.
PRINTED AND BOUND IN CANADA.
CONTENTS
FOR JACQUES AND ATIF
PREFACE
THE PEOPLE OF
the former country of Yugoslavia are the original inhabitants of that region of the Balkans and are racially identical. For more than two thousand years, the great empires of Europeâincluding the Holy Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, and the Ottoman Empireâshaped the identity of the area that would become central Yugoslavia, dividing the people along religious lines: Roman Catholic Croats, Eastern Orthodox Serbs, and Muslim Bosniaks.
The three groups were united under the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929, and it became the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia in 1946 when a communist government was established. Communism blurred the lines between the three groups for the next forty years. During this period, they intermarried and lived side by side in peace.
The Republics of Croatia and Serbia were dominated by Croat and Serb populations respectively, but Bosnia and Herzegovina mixed all three groups with approximately 44% of the population identifying themselves as Bosnian Muslim, 31% as Bosnian Serbs, and 17% as Bosnian Croat.
The death of Yugoslav President Josip Broz Tito, in 1980, led to a resurgence of Serbian nationalism under Slobodan Milosevic. As a result, the Serbs dominated the military and political structure of Yugoslavia into the 1990s. When Communism failed across Eastern Europe, Croatia and Slovenia declared their independence, leading to a short war between Croatia and the Serbian-dominated Yugoslav army in 1991. United Nations peacekeepers were deployed to Croatia to implement a tentative ceasefire, but not before the Serbians had claimed one third of the newly independent country.
In 1992, war erupted in Bosnia where an arms embargo hobbled the Bosnian Muslim army. They could do little against the Bosnian Serbs, who had easy access to the former Yugoslav army's equipment and ammunition. By 1995, the Bosnian Serbs had claimed more than half the country while an alliance between the Muslims and Croats struggled to hold on to what remained. Attempts at a peace deal collapsed largely over the issue of the Muslim safe areas of Srebrenica, Zepa, and Gorazde in Bosnian Serb territory.
While peace negotiations continued into the summer of 1995, the Bosnian Serbs secretly made their own plans to deal with these issues. The ethnic cleansing of Muslim areas started with Srebrenica in July, 1995.
This story takes place over the five days following the fall of Srebrenica.
CHARACTERS
Atif Stavic
Marija Stavic
Jac LarueTarak Smajlovic
Niko Basaric
Michael Sakic
PROLOGUE
YOU LIE STILL
and stare at the sky.
Curious.
The fog cleared hours ago, but the clouds remain low. The layers move, join, and tear apart. A speck of blue disappears. A wisp of black drifts into view. You draw in a long breath. Soot coats your throat.
Buzzing.
A bee? Mosquito?
You raise your arm and swat around your face. Your hand comes back red. You blink, trying to focus. You can't understand why it's red.
The buzzing grows louder.
A black cloud invades, moving from right to left. With effort, you move your head to follow the cloud from the heavens to the earth. White concrete homes line the street. One alley is familiar. An overturned car blocks the entrance and the black cloud billows up from behind.
The buzzing crackles. Voices join the chorus.
Someone touches your shoulder.
You ignore them and concentrate on the car, on the alley. The place seems important. Someone shakes you, but your eyes rest on the alley. You struggle to focus. Your vision clears.
A small arm hangs limp between the car and the wall.