The lonely crusade of Croatia's riverman

Sat, 25 Sep 1999 16:00:00 +0000

A light blanket of new snow covers the fields south of
Karlovac. This Croatian valley of travertine barrens, nestled between the
Mala Kapela and Licka Pljesivica mountains, was a front line during the
five-year civil war that rent this corner of the former Yugoslavia. Today,
more than three years after that war ended, every neat, two-story house we can see from
the road is pocked by hundreds of bullet holes. Most are abandoned forever;
the rest are slowly being repaired, missile holes and burned-out roofs
patched with new cement and shiny red bricks.

Zeljko Kelemen is at the wheel of the burgundy van. A big man with
the body of an aging athlete, his sad eyes slope across a square face. He
pulls over and we climb out to look down onto the Karona River, near the town of Slunj. Serb rebels had dynamited tremendous cliffside rocks into the
river in an effort to destroy a Croat's mill. Amid the detritus of the
dynamiting, Zeljko points out a wire hanging across the river, a reminder of
pre-war whitewater slalom kayak races.

Salon.com > Jon Bowermaster

The lonely crusade of Croatia's riverman