Yugoslav Battle Lines Blur Online

04/05/1999
By Judy Kuhlman
Staff Writer

Zoran Mijalkovic is not much different from Jim Cooprider. They're just two guys, separated by thousands of miles, who love their families, their God and their countries.

But Mijalkovic and Cooprider, who bridged the distance between them through Internet e-mail, are not average pen pals.

They know that any day their communication could end abruptly and finally.

Mijalkovic of Belgrade, Yugoslavia, spends his days and nights watching CNN and other television stations. He wonders whether he and his family will become victims of a violent conflict that neither he nor Cooprider understands.

Cooprider of Oklahoma City watches a lot of television, too. He also worries about Mijalkovic and his family.

Both men want their people to not lose sight of just how much they are alike and not judge each other by the atrocities and propaganda they see through mass media.

So both men have agreed to share their correspondence and pictures with friends, relatives and newspapers.

"I want them to see opinions and feelings of real American, not only those from TV screen," Mijalkovic, 59, wrote to Cooprider in an e-mail.

In an interview with The Oklahoman on Friday, Cooprider, 64, said he wants Americans to remember the ordinary Yugoslavs who are losing their homes and their lives.

"I think we tend to lose this perspective," Cooprider said.

Mijalkovic and Cooprider began exchanging e-mail about two months ago when Cooprider found Mijalkovic's homepage while Web surfing.

When he found Mijalkovic's page, Cooprider sent Mijalkovic an e-mail message because he couldn't tell from the Web page address where Mijalkovic lived.

Mijalkovic answered and said he lived in Yugoslavia.

Like a lot of people he met on the Internet, Cooprider forgot about Mijalkovic until the United States started bombing Kosovo.

Cooprider remembered the images of Mijalkovic's adorable 21/2-year-old daughter, Jovana, during her baptismal and in other family pictures.

"When I learned of the trouble in Yugoslavia and how it was beginning to look like all-out war, I e-mailed him, not knowing if I could get through to him or not," Cooprider said.

On March 25, Mijalkovic answered Cooprider's correspondence.

"At morning I received Your E mail. My wife and me are very touched. It is so nice from You to send us this message. I don't know I have not afraid for my life as I am already 59. But I care about our little girl. Thank You very much for Your prayers. We need it," Mijalkovic wrote in that first e-mail.

Cooprider immediately wrote Mijalkovic again asking him whether he had food, water and a another place to go.

"We don't want to go anywhere because this is our country. Everything important for us is here. Everything we love is here, and everything we became from is here. Living country is living identity ... ," Mijalkovic answered.

Mijalkovic said he and his family have given up going to the bomb shelter every day. Instead, they huddle together in a small room in the middle of their apartment and pray whenever a bomb alert siren sounds.

"Dear Jim, Your E mails became the most important and nicest event in our days and nights. My wife is reading Your messages as myself and both we are so happy to not be alone and to have new friends in this hard times," Mijalkovic wrote Wednesday.

In their e-mail, the two men have made an important discovery.

"Dear Jim, it is really strange how people from two sides of the globe can have the same thoughts. Believe me many times thinking about situation and listening what this two (nations) are doing I also saw them exactly as You: as 2 boys fighting, both 'hard heads' and no one wants to step back," Mijalkovic wrote Friday.

Cooprider said he told Mijalkovic he was concerned about the captured U.S. soldiers.

Mijalkovic said he didn't want Cooprider to believe Serbian soldiers are "professional soldiers" who would torture and maim the young American soldiers.

"Everybody is going to Army in age between 19 and 25, they are normal boys not some special criminals or mad war dogs," Mijalkovic said.

Cooprider said he just doesn't know what to believe. But he does know one thing:

"Even if you win, you lose," Cooprider said.