Rambo from Visegrad

The cost of Murat Sabanovic's operation was somewhere on the mark of US$ 700.000 - due to water leakage from the lake, flooding, etc. Compared to the total cost of war, this is nothing if one bears in mind the price of a single mortar shell, especially if its fired at one's own people. Sabanovic has already become an anecdotal hero, along with a considerable number of heroes of our days, who are prepared to even undertake suicidal missions in order to accomplish their goals or protect themselves or their people. Thus Murat Sabanovic became a star, of course a negative media personality. If he had been a positive figure, nobody would have noticed him. Consequently, he would have remained the "Visegrad Rambo", as he was baptized by the first man of SDS (Serbian Democratic Party) of B&H, Radovan Karadzic. A hero and a defender of the independent B&H for some, a terrorist and a religious freak for others. Even many of his fellow townsmen, whose lives and property he had endangered, regard him in that light. The same view is even shared by many people from towns which could have been wiped off from map by the water released from the lake.

Murat recounts that he spent some time in an asylum, that he retired at 30, and that it was how the communists put him away after he had discovered their many malversations. He had asked for political asylum in Germany, and it was then that they declared him definitively insane. He classifies Moslems simply as those who were and those who were not communists. He draws a line between them, as if between the fiercest of enemies. He also says that he used to be a sailor, that he had worked for a state-owned firm, and that he will never allow anyone to raise his hand against Moslems: "Nobody will play around with Moslems anymore. Who doesn't understand this had better come to me. We will not attack first, but if we are attacked..." He used to claim that he had 2,000 men armed with infantry semi-automatic weapons and plenty of explosives. However, in a dramatic conversation which was broadcasted live by Sarajevo Radio and TV, he had suddenly shouted that he had no weapons and that the blowing-up of the dam was his only remaining means of fighting. He meant was that he did not have adequate weapons to fight against the Serbian territorial units or the Army.