For most Sunshine Coasters, the news of the capture of Ratko Mladic, the man behind a massacre outstripped only by the Holocaust in its depth of horror, was just another news item. However, for Gibsons' resident Brian Sadler, the news was anything but ho-hum.
A career military man, Sadler retired in 1995 with the rank of major after 35 years. In his last year of service from the base of Zagreb, Croatia, Sadler roamed all the regions of Yugoslavia, working as a military assistant under the orders of Sergio Vieira de Mello. Sadler's job was "fine tuning the 220 political officers of Civil Affairs that [Vieira de Mello] controlled."
Vieira de Mello, a Brazilian United Nation diplomat who worked for the UN for almost 35 years, was killed in the Canal Hotel bombing in Iraq on Aug. 19, 2003. Widely touted as the next secretary-general of the UN, his death was a deep blow to the organization and a shock to Sadler.
Because of his skilled work under Vieira de Mello in Yugoslavia, the UN hired Sadler to work as a political officer for two years. His first task was to go to Gorazde, one of three so-called safe areas for Muslims in the war-torn country.
"I was a recently retired officer, single and now a political officer, and that was my introduction to Gorazde. 'Everything should be OK because I have written assurance from Mladic for you to get there,' my boss said," Sadler recollected.
Altogether in the three pockets there were more than 60,000 displaced Muslim refugees inside Serbian strongholds. The cruel Serbs cut off water and electricity.
"You're talking about 60,000 people with no water, no electricity, constantly being shelled," Sadler recalled, shaking his head at the memory.
In Gorazde there were 10,000 to 15,000 people in an area that had initially been home to less than half that number.
Sadler likened it to Gibsons suddenly ballooning to 20,000 people with Keats Island (being a river not an ocean away), Elphinstone and Gospel Rock all enemy-held territories. With no water, electricity or natural gas and the constant shelling of those in Gibsons, you could imagine the terror people would feel, Sadler said.
What the Serbs were trying to do was isolate and cut off the Muslims, he added.
To understand the crisis in Yugoslavia, it's necessary to know some of its history, Sadler explained.
Four ethnicities made up the bulk of the population. Jews comprised the smallest number of citizens. The other three were the Serbs, who were Russian and Greek Orthodox Christians; the Bosnians Croats, who were Catholic; and the Bosniacs, who were Muslims.
As is the case in many religious wars, the Yugoslavian troubles had roots in antiquity, in this case, stretching back to the Ottoman Wars in the 14th century. At that time, the conquering Turks converted some of the people to the Muslim faith, and the Serbs who chose not to relinquish their religion were persecuted. The hatred escalated in the 1990s, cumulating in the alleged massacre of 8,000 of Srebrenica's men and boys in July 1995 under Mladic's orders.
For Sadler, the worst part of the atrocities is the role that religion played in them.
"We're so used to separating church and state. There are so many places in the world where that's not the case. There are so many fights over religion. It's just dumb," he stated.
Once in Gorazde, Sadler had to live with Muslims to gain their trust. His job was to organize continuing relief for the occasional convoy that got to all three Muslim enclaves.
In total Sadler spent eight months doing that highly stressful work in all three enclaves. He ended up living with Muslims, Croats and Serbs. His years in Yugoslavia left him with a "severe distaste for the UN."
"I was tired of being the designated worker. As soon as I got something sorted out, they would move me to another hotspot, and a guy in a three-piece suit would take my place," Sadler exposed.
The Serbs reaction to the arrest of Mladic fills him with sadness. To him it's indicative of the ongoing unrest beneath the surface calm in the country.
"I hope they find [Mladic] guilty. I saw enough that it will take a miracle worker to refute the charges against him. I'm pleased with the president of Serbia for doing the right thing. I just hope the people can get over it."