The Homeland War 1991-1995

First of all, I want to start by saying I have not researched this to be able to present an even story. I also understand that what I learned, as told to me by Croatians, is understandably colored by their experience, their losses, and their political viewpoint.

In any war each side feels they are right. In any war there is senseless decisions and cruelty. And in this case, there was an amazing amount of greed.

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It is the perception of the people who spoke to me that the decision to bombard Dubrovnik was solely to gain control of this "Jewel of the Adriatic" and the tourist revenue generated here.























Regardless of the reasons, the Old City of Debrovnik, which had a resident population in 1990 of about 20,000, experienced about 10 months of missile bombardment. One person told me it was from the other side of Mt Srd and that the missiles could fly 10 km. The taxi driver who took us to the airport told us the top of Mt Srd was occupied and the bombs rained down on the Old City. He pointed to a bus station about 100 yards from the entrance to the Dubrovnik airport and said there was artillery set up there as well.



I have to repeat that I have not researched this and do not know the full truth.

The photos of the fires in the Old City and the Ploce harbor and the destroyed cable car station on the summit of Mt Srd are stock photos I found on the internet. .

Most roofs and interiors of structures were destroyed, but the stone walls stood. As you can see in the adjacent post showing roofs, the bright orange tiles were used in the reconstruction and only the brown mottled tiles are the older tiles that could be reused during reconstruction.

The cable car to the top of Mt Srd has been rebuilt and was being tested while we were there. They expected to open it July 11....but it had been planned to open on March 1, then April 1, then July 1...hopefully it will open. The road up is narrow and serpentine and although there is a trail that snakes up the mountain, it is steep and there is the possibility that land mines are still in the area. We told Sam he could not run there, no matter how much he hoped to conquer the mountain.

There is a museum that has a memorial to the war dead and had photos of them...many were very young.

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The city made a tremendous effort to rebuild as fast as possible, keeping the exterior appearance of all structures historically accurate. There are few signs today of the damage....some bullet holes and missile holes left on purpose to remind the citizens and teach the tourists that the stupidity of war can happen any place, any time.

Carol's apartment came furnished, complete with an artillery shell. The writing on the shell is Cyrillac, indicating its construction was in Serbia.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ One last word......today there are less than 1000 residents in the Old City. Much of the densely developed area are apartments that are rented during the tourist season. We stayed in one for the days that Graham was there. Many people moved in areas of the New City as well as adjacent "suburbs."

We were sitting in the living room of the apartment we rented and I commented to Graham how, in comparison to "old" buildings in the US, the Old City of Dubrovnik looked great. He reminded me it was about 15 years old. The truce was signed in 1995.