Adriatic Pearl

摘要

The first view most of the world had of Dubrovnik was of its red-tiled roofs disappearing behind clouds of black smoke during shelling by Serb and Montenegrin artillery in the fall of 1991. The threat to this walled medieval city on the Dalmatian coast, with its Renaissance palaces, Titian masterpieces and lemon-scented cloisters, brought home the pointlessness and savagery of the Balkan wars. Carla del Ponte, chief prosecutor at the International War Crimes Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, recalls being horrified by the attack. "I could not believe," she says, "that some- one—anyone—could have fired a single shot or shell or mortar anywhere in its vicinity."