Peter Lippman's Bosnia Travel Journal: Entry #9

Hello folks,


Here's another report on things I saw and heard in Bosnia-Herzegovina. This one starts with a discussion of activism in Bosnia, especially in Sarajevo. The second part relates some little-known information about the process of refugee return to Zvornik and Srebrenica, comparing the two. The report winds up with news about recent activity in the Prijedor municipality.

ACTIVISM IN SARAJEVO

What needs to be the target of activism in Bosnia? In my series of reports so far I have particularly focused on the campaign for memorialization of the war crimes that were committed. It is my opinion that for justice to be achieved, the atrocities that people endured have to be recognized; the criminals have to be legally processed; and the victims have to have the possibility of commemorating the history of their suffering publicly.

There will be more discussion of these things. But there are also other targets of activism. The protest against the destruction of Picin Park, as described in my fifth report, in fact opened the door to protest against corruption, profiteering, and cronyism. And these phenomena are what's really behind all the other problems in Bosnia - even behind the historical revisionism and denial as well.

Grassroots activism occupies a small place in the modern history of the country; the dominant model for political change is top-down. Non-governmental organizations, often called the "third sector," tend to replicate this hierarchical model, sometimes in the extreme. While the personality cult of Tito is gone, the rule of one "big man" has often simply been replicated at lower levels - from the local party boss all the way down to the bus driver. NGOs exist along an entire spectrum from the altruistic to the profiteering. For the most part, their relationship to activism is tangential.

Activism in Bosnia-Herzegovina has its ups and downs, and developing a grassroots movement in Bosnia is a matter of reinventing the wheel in very adverse conditions. It is not unusual for an independent project to arise in one location, where it will last a while, and then either cooptation by authorities or lack of skilled leadership will lead to its demise.

I spoke with Darjan, a Sarajevo activist with the organization Akcija Građana (Citizen Action), and formerly with Pokret Dosta (the Enough! movement), which I have described before. Darjan mentioned the height of grassroots activism in Sarajevo, which took place in February of 2008. At that time, somewhere between six and ten thousand people came out to participate in a march in protest of an epidemic of street violence in the city. Not long before, 17-year-old Denis Mrnjavac had been stabbed to death by unknown attackers while he was traveling in a streetcar. There were many other such lethal or dangerous incidents that had taken place in that period. Pokret Dosta was the leader of this protest, along with several other protests in the year or so before and after that event (See http://balkanwitness.glypx.com/journal2008-2.htm).

As with the activism around Picin Park in Banja Luka, protests about the street violence were an entrance into protests about other grievances such as utilities price hikes and, generally, about corruption. Dosta built a network in several cities around the country. Unfortunately, the movement lost momentum and today, if it exists at all, its activity has been reduced to the painting of graffiti around Sarajevo.

Darjan said, "I split from Dosta because I saw that there was decreasing interest in actually changing things." He mentioned that at its height, Dosta had "about fifty good activists." But he faulted the leadership for lack of transparency.

Discussing the situation of activism on a larger scale, Darjan said, "The problem in Bosnia is that we're not one society. We have the societies centered around Banja Luka, Sarajevo, and Mostar. And the public opinion that could influence the government does not exist. There is not a network established for collaboration among people."

"There are problems in organizing and promoting change. The Serbs from Sarajevo went to Višegrad, Pale, and other places. Many villagers came to Sarajevo. They think that things are great for them here, because they have running water and other amenities. They don't know that they have the right to call for more."

"In 2008 there were the demonstrations, and afterwards there were four people who lost their jobs because of being involved in the protest. There were a couple of people who had been working in the tourist industry; they lost their jobs.

"We held preparatory demonstrations to the big one for three months, every weekend. There were marches. In that time, there were never more than three thousand participating. Meanwhile, there were always more than that number in the kafanas of the city.

"At one point in the demonstrations some people threw some rocks. [One of the leaders] called for people to go home. That was the end of it. He should have organized people to come back, to continue the protests.

"Safety on the street is a big problem. But if the Reis [the leader of the Islamic community] called for a protest because people are eating cvarci [fatback, a pork product], there would be more people on the street. As activists we are outsiders, marginalized. And meanwhile, in the schools they are not teaching critical thinking.

"In Western Europe after World War II, democracy developed. People had more rights, and women's rights improved too. Here after the recent war, they did not even prohibit those who started the war from participating in politics.

"The first post-war election took place in 1996 - that is unfathomable! They gave the election to the idiots. And since then, we've been running around in the same circle.

"As for those leaders who keep being elected, they are not actually in favor of Bosnia-Herzegovina becoming part of the EU, because then rule of law would be implemented. And they would be the first to go to jail."

I asked Darjan about the work of Akcija Građana.

"We started as an informal group, working on that basis for six months in 2008 without registering. Then, we had a referendum within the group about registering. I was not in favor of registering, but we did. By registering, we legitimized the system. And they are the ones who make the rules of the game. Then, we got support from the Open Society Fund - but they don't try to influence us.

"We were arrested at Butmir base [headquarters of the EU military operation in Bosnia, on the outskirts of Sarajevo] when there were the negotiations there in 2009. They held nine of us for two hours. We displayed a banner that read, 'For us, it's fine this way' [satirizing the position of the leading politicians]. That is, it's fine for them if we remain in this black hole, where money laundering is common, as are trafficking of drugs and women, and the leaders can take pleasant vacations.

"We had gone to Butmir a couple of days in advance to let the authorities there know that we were going to come and make a protest. They showed us an area where they were going to let us stand. But when it came to the demonstration, it didn't work out that way. We were arrested. But the media never covered this, not even for one minute of air play. They just weren't interested.

"Now our work is going slower, and there is a lack of results. We have decided to orient ourselves towards high school students, doing workshops with them. Then, once these people come to the University, there will be activists. As it is now, activism is weak and there is no action. In Sarajevo there are about 3,000 students in the University. If there were that many activists, it could be enough for a revolution, a strike at the system.

"We had a chance in 2008, but we didn't know what to do. They called us mercenaries."

Q: Are there any effective NGOs working in Sarajevo?

A: Activism can exist in an NGO. But for now, the NGOs are only involved in humanitarian work. The majority of the NGOs are family arrangements.

[I am conveying Darjan's opinion here; I don't mean to dismiss some Sarajevo NGOs that are actually quite effective in their areas of focus.]

Q: What are the themes of your discontent now?

A: We are calling for responsiveness. For example, in Sarajevo the water supply lines, the transportation, and the security situation - these are all in disastrous shape. There are guns and knives on the streets, stabbings in the streetcars. The cultural institutions are deteriorating too: The museums, the libraries, the galleries are all closing. Even in the war it wasn't this bad.

"All the aid gets stolen. They steal from the state companies, and from the state budgets; then they build villas for themselves. Seventy percent of the funds from the IMF go to pay pensions and salaries rather than towards investment. We are headed in the direction of the situation in Greece.

"We have wasted a good opportunity to make progress, to make a European city of Sarajevo, instead of the biggest village in the country. People here do not accept others, different people. We have lost our educational system, our health system, and our morals. Then, we have taken the worst from the West and from capitalism: corruption, the bad health coverage. .When I come from Vareš to Sarajevo, it is like coming to a different world.

"There can be no revolution here. All the state companies are here, so there are well-paid people here. Those who work for the companies vote, and the large number of marginalized people do not vote. Nor do many of the women vote either.

"Educated people have left here. Out of 35 people from my elementary school, there are six who have stayed. Of 32 from my high school, 15 have stayed. I am 34, so half of my life has been spent in waiting, watching from one election to another.

"There is much poverty, but people are religious. They say, "Ako Bog da [If God grants]." And I ask a villager, "Did God ever give you a cow?" You won't get anything, if you don't do anything.

"Discontented people in the city are inclined to torch and wreck things, not to build things. We simply haven't come back to our senses here. Gras [the city's public transportation company] raised its prices. There was talk of a boycott, but it didn't lead to anything. In Sarajevo there is more involvement in drinking coffee and in betting than in activism.

"If someone comes to Sarajevo they notice these things: beggars, the ruined buildings, and the shiny new glass buildings."

For more on Akcija Građana, see http://www.akcijagradjana.org/

RETURN TO SREBRENICA

During my time living in Bosnia-Herzegovina between 1997 and 1999, and for several years afterwards, I paid close attention to the return of refugees and internally-displaced persons to their pre-war homes. For approximately seven years after the war, return was the most important and compelling movement, from the grassroots on up. International and domestic leaders were themselves pushed and prompted by movement from the grassroots. Intelligent (and sometimes charismatic) people who had been high school teachers, social workers, or office workers before the war were galvanized to lead their communities back home. People like Zulfo Salihović, Hakija Meholjić, Vahid Kanlić, and above all Fadil Banjanović "Bracika" stood out as the individuals who expressed the determination of their constituency to achieve their right to return.

Return essentially wound down ten years ago, with few exceptions. Some return took place in nearly every one of the 140-odd municipalities throughout the country, but in many cases it was mere symbolic return. There were places where there was almost no return; other places where, say, twenty percent of the displaced returned, and a few places, such as Prijedor and Zvornik municipalities, where there was a truly significant amount of return, approaching fifty percent of the pre-war population.

In Srebrenica return took place late, and it was weak. On the other hand, in nearby Zvornik, significant return took place in nearly every village in the municipality.

It is interesting to compare the two returns. I won't go into great length on this here, but I will share a couple of points of comparison, and then some of the observations of journalist Hasan Hadžić, who was closely involved with Bracika in the return movement in northeast Bosnia from the beginning.

I have written at length about return to Srebrenica here:

http://advocacynet.org/resource/1060 and I have written before about Bracika here: http://balkanwitness.glypx.com/journal2008-7.htm.

First of all, return to Srebrenica was fiercely obstructed by the Serbs who controlled that municipality. In response to this obstruction, the international community placed sanctions on Srebrenica, and basically turned its back on the town for several years. Meanwhile, it was difficult in any case to mount a movement, because the male population was decimated. There were survivors, but among them there were also some 6,500 single mothers. The overwhelming number of families without male heads made it difficult for potential returnees to prepare to clear the rubble from devastated property and to plan to rebuild, let alone to do any extensive farming.

These things are obvious. But behind the scenes, I had periodically been hearing about obstruction against return from the other side - from the leaders of the Muslims within the Croat- and Muslim-controlled Federation, where hundreds of thousands of displaced people from the Republika Srpska had taken up temporary residence during the war. I heard, even from former members of the Muslims' ruling SDA party, that members of the SDA were acting to discourage people from returning to Srebrenica.

The apparent reason for this was that it was useful to the SDA to have what was called a stable, ethnically-homogenized "voting machine" present in the Federation, in order to keep that party in power.

Meanwhile, Bracika and his fellow activists, early on, were putting themselves in harm's way to establish a foothold for return in the outlying villages of Zvornik municipality. This movement began almost immediately after the war's end.

It helped that those villages were right across the inter-entity borderline from the Federation, thus relatively easily accessible to would-be returnees. On the other hand, displaced Srebrenicans had to travel across many kilometers of hostile territory, at quite some danger, in order just to visit their pre-war homes.

Hasan Hadžić spoke to me about his work with Bracika, about the various manifestations of obstruction to return, and about differences between return to Zvornik and Srebrenica.

"Bracika was my brother. The strongest movement for return was here in Tuzla.

In 1996, in Tuzla, we formed the office for return, while in Sarajevo they were doing the opposite. We exerted pressure in 1996 to create that office.

"We were in Sapna [in the Federation] and we could see them blowing up houses right next to Sapna, in Jušići [a village in Zvornik municipality, in the Republika Srpska, where some of the first return efforts took place].

"On the Serb side, authorities were spending money for the displaced Serbs to stay in the Republika Srpska. They built hundreds of settlements, for example, they built one at Branjevo [site of one of the Srebrenica massacres]. They spent millions on this.

"In Jušići we went step by step. There were special [Serb] police forces who were drawing guns on us. They beat older people and women who were staying in one return house. Then some of our people started throwing rocks at the police and defending themselves with toljage [clubs]. When this happened, the IFOR [UN troops] troops came in a transport vehicle. It was exciting.

"During our early return attempts, they killed a man in Gajevi near Koraj, near Lopare. They shot at our column of people. This was in the fall of 1996.

"At the higher levels, there was a General in IFOR who criticized us, saying that we were a 'military operation.' But it wasn't true, of course. At the middle level of IFOR there were Majors who understood us better and knew this was not a military operation, and they supported our drive for return. They patrolled and helped. When we returned to Mahala, our men were coming with clubs and rocks. We knew we could fight because the IFOR soldiers were behind us.

"That General was telling us to go slowly. But you can't, it would not have worked. Bracika had a tactic: first we went to clean the cemeteries. If we had waited for permission, it would never have happened.

"People were already leaving the country, and we couldn't afford to wait. So we took those risks. Then other people around the country saw what we were doing and that it had worked, and took similar moves, such as in Goražde.

"One of the differences between Zvornik and Srebrenica was Bracika. But the government really never supported return.

"Bracika was a man of the people. He returned with his daughter and put her in the school with the Serb children. Sadik Ahmetović [former vice-mayor of Srebrenica] never did that. Neither did Šefket Hafizović or Hasan Bećirović [other highly-placed SDA officials from Srebrenica]. They would come to Srebrenica like tourists for two or three days and then return to Sarajevo for džuma [Friday prayers].

"But Bracika's returning, with his daughter, sent a strong signal to the displaced people that he was sincere. There were 700 people who were killed in that area, but return still happened!



"More people returned to two or three villages near Zvornik than to the whole Srebrenica municipality. But Srebrenica is the cash cow."

By this, Mr. Hadžić meant that a disproportionately huge amount of international resources for return and reconstruction went to the Srebrenica municipality. In my own opinion, this took place because the international community, in its various forms, somehow decided to expiate its guilt for the destruction of Bosnia-Herzegovina particularly in Srebrenica, while ignoring the possibility for recovery in some other parts of the country. So large amounts of international aid were channeled to that area (and even larger amounts promised). An arguably huge amount of that aid never reached the people it was intended to help.

Speaking of the return effort to Srebrenica, which started in earnest in 1999, Mr. Hadžić said, "Hakija [Meholjić, wartime police chief in Srebrenica and a postwar leader of return] was returning people, and Adib Djozić was coming out in a jeep and scaring people, saying 'They will kill you.' Then people would go back where they were. Djozić worked for the Ministry of Refugees in the Tuzla Canton.

I asked Mr. Hadžić about statements I had heard to the effect that the SDA, in the early period of return, was trying to dissuade displaced Srebrenicans from leaving the Federation and returning home. He answered, "We went to Vozuća with Hakija and Bracika to encourage people to return to Srebrenica. Then Djozić and Bečirović came in immediately after that and broke things up. Having people return didn't suit them."

When people talk about encouraging return today, they mean making the return that has already taken place sustainable. Because of discrimination and difficult economic conditions it is not uncommon that people who have returned will pick up and leave again, as I have previously described - preferably for another country.

On this issue, Mr. Hadžić said, "Return has ended. There is much money for sustainable return that has come to the Ministries, but none of it is getting to the actual places of return. It is being spent on things unrelated to return. For example, the authorities in Sokolac used money for return to fix the water supply system. And in Prusac they fixed a road. Neither of these things was related to return communities."

For English translations of a couple of Mr. Hadžić's articles, see

http://www.ex-yupress.com/dani/dani6.html

and

http://www.ex-yupress.com/dani/dani112.html.


ACTIVISM IN PRIJEDOR, REVISITED

In my sixth report, I wrote about events in Prijedor municipality, in northwestern Bosnia (see http://balkanwitness.glypx.com/journal2012-6.htm). Prijedor municipality is a special and important place in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The crimes that were committed there during the war reached extreme heights in the terror that they spread. Thousands of people were tortured or murdered, and many more expelled.

These things happened in many parts of Bosnia. But Prijedor is special for another reason as well. Expelled citizens of the municipality were in the forefront in return to their homes soon after the war. And because there is that returnee population - and because some of them are brave enough to represent their community in the face of repression, and to fight for the rights that they know they have - Prijedor municipality happens presently to be one of the most active locations of human rights struggle in the country.

Because of this, and because of the wrongs that were committed in the municipality during the war, it is important that people who believe in solidarity around the world support Prijedor. Those who care about Bosnia-Herzegovina should notice Prijedor, should pay attention to what is going on there, and should find out how to support that struggle.

People occasionally say, "Too much support and resources went to Srebrenica, to the detriment of Prijedor and other places in Bosnia." I would not say that there has been too much attention upon Srebrenica, but there has simply not been enough support or attention to Prijedor and other places. It is as if the world, especially international officials who make decisions about allocation of resources, expiated their guilt on Srebrenica, and then turned their backs on the rest of the country. Well, we don't have to do the same thing.

There is news on the human rights front in Prijedor.

At the beginning of December, a "Committee for Commemoration of the Twentieth Anniversary of the Mistreatment of Innocent People of Prijedor Municipality," composed of eight local non-governmental organizations, announced a plan to hold a demonstration and march in protest of ongoing discrimination against Croat and Bosniak survivors of the war. The event was announced for International Human Rights Day, December 10th (the anniversary of the UN's 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights - see http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml).

Here's part of what the Commemoration Committee wrote in its announcement: "Employment that was forcefully taken away [from expelled citizens of Prijedor] has not been restored; the municipal government invests the least amount in (returnee) settlements where the infrastructure and all buildings were completely destroyed. The discrimination against civilian victims is particularly obvious. The possibility for them to achieve any of their rights is obstructed in every manner. The municipal budget apportions funds exclusively for the Serb soldiers and their associations. Monuments are pointedly erected to fallen Serbs in public places, in front of schools and institutions, in a way that intimidates members of the other ethnicities and minorities. The government has erected a terrifying monument to Serb soldiers at the place where thousands of women and children from Prijedor suffered, at Trnopolje camp. At the same time it forbids the construction of any commemoration at the largest places of suffering and torture in Prijedor municipality, notably the death camp at Omarska. In the city itself there is not even the smallest marking that would commemorate the suffering of non-Serb civilians. (.) A particularly grave rights violation has been noted against more than a thousand disappeared Prijedorans. Besides all other human rights, they have been denied the right to identity and to a dignified burial."

This announcement was posted on December 5th. On the 8th, it was announced that the Prijedor police department had prohibited the march component of the action.

The Commemoration Committee protested this prohibition, mentioning that, on May 23rd, the police had forbidden the organizations of returnees and war survivors from marching to commemorate the wartime murder of 266 women and girls in Prijedor municipality. In response to the banning, the Commemoration Committee accused the Prijedor government of repression and of promoting apartheid in the municipality. A statement also recalled the wartime murder of some 800 prisoners at Omarska and Keraterm, as well as of 200 more prisoners killed in a massacre at Korićanske Cliffs.

Following the prohibition of the demonstration, the police also called some of the event's organizers for "informativni razgovor," or interrogation. The Commemoration Committee vowed to resist the repression and these grave violations of rights. Edin Ramulić, activist with the Prijedor association "Izvor," refused to respond to the police's invitation to interrogation.

Ramulić stated that there was no point in cooperating with the police, when their dictates were inconsistent and made no sense. In May activists had been prohibited from gathering on the town square, with the excuse that the situation was "not favorable for security considerations." Now the police department was saying that they could gather, but would not be permitted to make a march of one hundred meters down the pedestrian zone and back.

Ramulić further commented, in connection with previous appeals of such rights violations, that "going into a legal process makes no sense, because there are no sanctions." The activists had appealed to the Ministry for Human Rights and Refugees, to the OHR, and to foreign Ambassadors, all without results. Foreign officials had even addressed the problem with Mayor Pavić, but the repression - and attacks by extremists - just worsened.

Ramulić also noted that even Bosniak members of the municipal council for whom returnees and survivors had voted turned against them. They did not work to defend the activists, and some of them tried to persuade the activists not to use the word "genocide" in their public statements. Earlier this year, Mayor Pavić had prevented a demonstration and threatened prosecution of activists because of their use of this word. Ramulić said, "Some of those politicians are close to those who rule the RS; probably the explanation of this [behavior] is that they are prepared to do anything in the interest of their own political privilege."

It is not unusual to hear phrases from activists in Prijedor characterizing their Bosniak representatives on the municipal counsel as "collaborators" and "sellouts." Some of those officials, upon the banning of the march, gave mild statements to the effect that, "We will get to the bottom of this."

Amnesty International condemned the banning of the march (see http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/banning-human-rights-march-republika-srpska-unacceptable-2012-12-10), as did several domestic human rights NGOs.

When International Human Rights Day arrived, some of Prijedor's activists decided to march in spite of the ban. Seven young people walked through the snow, with tape symbolically covering their mouths, carrying a banner that read, "Where human rights are violated, civil disobedience is a duty." Of the marchers, two were Bosniaks from Prijedor, and two were Prijedor Serbs. There were two Bosnians from Slovenia who marched in solidarity, and one from Sarajevo.

In nearby Banja Luka, members of the human rights organizations Oštra Nula and the Helsinki Citizens Assembly stood prominently in the main square in solidarity with the activists of Prijedor. The Prijedor Commemoration Committee held a news conference and stated, "On the international day for the protection of human rights, the police in Prijedor have placed themselves above the law on public gatherings in the Republika Srpska and have prohibited a peaceful march, without any legal basis. The police have shown that they work according to the dictates of the local government and that they are an important instrument in the establishment of apartheid."

Meanwhile, RS President Milorad Dodik marked Human Rights Day, saying that "in recent years the Republika Srpska has created an environment in which all of its citizens can realize their human and civil rights, as foreseen by the European Convention on Human Rights and other international documents. We have succeeded in achieving high standards and we will continue to do all that is necessary to, first of all, improve the economic and social position of citizens, which will be our priority in the coming years."

One of the Prijedor marchers, Emir Hodžić, wrote a statement shortly after the action, describing his position: "If the right to free and peaceful gatherings is guaranteed in the constitution of Bosnia-Herzegovina and the constitution of the Republika Srpska, who has the right to violate that right? Once again the Prijedor police have tried to show, on the day when the entire world celebrates human rights as the heritage of civilization, that Bosnia-Herzegovina is an absurd state."

Speaking of the action of the multi-ethnic group, and the response from local citizens, Hodžić wrote, "As a Prijedoran, I saw in front of me concerned citizens, not Serbs nor Bosniaks. I saw the faces of people who see and know that discrimination on an ethnic basis or the prohibition of association lead to nothing good, and at that moment, I felt hope. I felt that I was among my people, that we all speak the same language, and that we all understand the difficult path before us.

"Our symbolic civil disobedience echoed around the country. Our fellow citizens from Banja Luka.heard and conveyed the message by going out onto their streets. Various associations and workers for human rights around the country also sent support and solidarity. Again I felt hope, again I saw my people. We understood each other.

The full article by Hodžić is available, in Bosnian, at http://diskriminacija.ba/node/285. An article showing a photo of the march, with an accompanying video, is available at http://www.federalna.ba/bhs/vijest/51992/ima-nade-za-prijedor.

Shortly after the protest action in Prijedor, the Society for Threatened Peoples, based in Göttingen Germany, posted an "Appeal to Members of the EU Parliament, the Council of Europe and the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights in Vienna." The Appeal, signed by Tilman Zülch for the Society, and Milada Hodžić for the Prijedor organization Izvor, was sent to seven hundred officials of the European Union, to the OHR in Bosnia, and to the Bosnian Ministry for Human Rights and Refugees. It was also sent to the mayor of Prijedor and the president of the RS. It is available in English at http://www.gfbv.de/pressemit.php?id=3331.

*

While the action in Prijedor was taking place on Human Rights Day, a more general action was undertaken in Sarajevo, Banja Luka, and Mostar. In these cities activists from the regional NGO Youth Initiative for Human Rights staged mock burials, complete with coffins and a funeral march, to bury the human rights and freedoms that they say no longer exist in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

*

On December 19th, in Sarajevo, a dozen young people staged a mock protest against the end of the world, slated for December 21st. Five hundred people signed onto their Facebook page. In a statement, the group explained, "We have gathered here today in order to make fun of some people, especially the Americans," adding that there was no chance that the world was going to end. The protestors proved this assertion by displaying a can of liver paté whose expiration date was marked as the year 2013.