(15 Aug 1996) English/Nat
Eight cyclists from Slovenia completed a marathon journey on Wednesday, crossing into the Bosnia capital Sarajevo after a five-day trek through former front lines in the Bosnian war.
The trip was undertaken to demonstrate that the former besieged capital is now an open international city once more.
Cycling into Sarajevo, the presence of a group of Slovenian students mingling with the traffic held a special significance.
Less than a year ago such an event would have been unthinkable, with the city surrounded by snipers and the civil war still raging.
But despite the fragility of the Dayton accords, which brought an end to the three-and-a-half year conflict, the peace has continued to hold in Sarajevo and life to return to normal.
And it is this very peace which the students decided to highlight by cycling some six hundred kilometres from the Slovenian capital Ljubliana across former front-lines to show that Sarajevo is once again an open city.
The northernmost Balkan state, Slovenia was the first republic to break away from former Yugoslavia in the summer of 1991.
Its successful bid for independence encouraged similar moves by Croatia and Bosnia, but unlike these, Slovenia’s brief war of independence was almost bloodless, and the tiny country is now enviably stable and prosperous.
The group of cyclists were greeted at the Slovenian embassy, marking the end of an exhausting journey over rugged mountainous terrain.
SOUNDBITE:
“We started our trip five days ago on Saturday in Ljubiljana and we made by bicycle round 600 kilometres in five days.”
SUPER CAPTION: Sasha Kargo, Cyclist
SOUNDBITE:
“We had a different perception of what was going on here than what we have really found out here. We though that everything was torn down but we found out that there is still life going on here and that there is still a lot of young people who believe in the future and a better life.”
SUPERCAPTION: David Benedict, Cyclist
There was also a humanitarian motive to the trip – the cyclists brought 40 bikes to donate to Bosnian children.
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