PL Bosnia-Herzegovina journal #4: Bratunac
THE YOUTH ORGANIZATION "ODISEJ," IN BRATUNAC
After leaving Srebrenica, I visited nearby Bratunac, a Serb-dominated town. In the early part of the war Bosniaks were killed or expelled from this town. Around 2002, when SFOR (UN troops) established a base near Bratunac, many Bosniaks began to return. Currently, the population of this municipality is around 40% Bosniak.
I had recently heard about a group of young people who were going against the dominant current of Serb opinion. They were working to recognize and confront the history of what had happened in this part of the country, including the massacres that were perpetrated after the fall of the Srebrenica enclave. Because of this, I was eager to meet them. The group's name is Odisej, and it turned out to be easy to find them.
There is a special background to the story of Bratunac, having to do with the reunification of Sarajevo after the war. As arranged at Dayton, the Sarajevo suburbs that had been under the control of Serb forces throughout the war were to be transferred to the control of the Bosniak-Croat Federation. This transfer took place during the winter of 1995-96, after the signing of Dayton. At that time, some 60,000 Serbs from those suburbs left, intimidated and coerced by their own leaders into moving to the RS.
Nationalist Serb authorities then placed people from the suburbs Hadzici, Ilidza, and Ilijas and other areas, in parts of the RS where they wanted to establish a demographic majority. These places along the eastern border of Bosnia, where many Bosniaks had been expelled, included Srebrenica, Brcko, Bijeljina, Zvornik, and Bratunac. The residents of Hadzici, practically en masse, ended up in Bratunac. (For a personal description of this move, see the story of "Rada" at http://www.advocacynet.org/resource/501.)
ODISEJ
Odisej was founded in 2001 by some Bosnian Serbs who had been displaced, as teenagers, from Hadzici. A couple of the founders, Mirko and Stane, spoke with me at length about the history and activities of their group. At first, the atmosphere in Bratunac was too tense for the group to be able to reach across ethnic lines to Bosniak returnees. For that matter, Bosniaks had not started to return in greater numbers. But after a couple of years things began to change.
Mirko explained a turning point in the organization: "In 2004 we had a small, intimate meeting, where we said, 'What will we do? Will we work for integration? It will be very dangerous; they will put pressure on us, and we will be rejected socially.' There were no Bosniaks in the group, but we wanted to open to them. It was a unanimous decision, to be better, to be different, and not to be embarrassed to be able to say, 'I have Bosniak friends,' and for that to be an ordinary thing. Now, these things are happening.
"We are the organization that has made the first step here, in acceptance of returnees, to accept them as people, regardless of their faith. We are the only mixed organization, but sincerely mixed. We have gotten problems from other organizations, Serb NGOs that are only rhetorically 'multi-ethnic.' When we called for the arrest of war criminals, and sent this call to all the other organizations, they criticized us for this. When we approved the arrest of Karadzic, and called for the arrest of all the rest, they said that we were 'politicizing the situation.' Although we consider this one of our primary responsibilities, they all yelled about this. Meanwhile, there are young Bosniaks who come to work with us, and they are criticized by their own people."
ACTIVITIES
I asked Mirko to describe to me some of Odisej's activities in confronting the past and clearing obstacles between young people of different ethnicities. He said, "We have visited each other's war memorials and cemeteries together, in the framework of a seminar. Around 30 people went to Potocari [location of the cemetery where the Srebrenica victims are buried]. It turned out that we knew more than the guards there. We had read reports from the ICTY [International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia]. People came from Vlasenica, Milici, Sekovici, Bratunac, and Srebrenica. What's essential is that we young people sit together, and share what we have experienced. People had the same experiences, hunger...it helps create respect for each other."
Odisej has been working with Care International. Mirko listed attempts to receive support from various other international agencies, some of which turned out to be "too bureaucratic."
Recently, some members of Odisej traveled to the Swedish Social Forum. Mirko said, "We had a 36-hour bus trip with people from Albania, Macedonia, Bosnia, Serbia, members of the Green Party from Croatia. It was good because we got the chance to get to know each other. But we were constantly stopped and checked, especially in Germany. They were particularly interested in the Albanians They didn't understand, it's not like we were going looking for warm water to swim in. Ninety-nine per cent of our young activists have never traveled out of the country, not even to Serbia."
In late August of this year, in collaboration with Savjet Mladih of Srebrenica, Odisej prepared a first annual multi-ethnic gathering at a camp on the Drina River. Afterwards, I was hearing about this camp from young activists all the way across Bosnia to Prijedor.
Mirko said, "Now we are working on youth policy, trying to get such projects financed, to promote reconciliation. They gave money for war, now they should give money for peace."
I asked if the government of Bratunac municipality gave any support to Odisej. Stane said, "We have good cooperation with the executive authorities, but bad cooperation with the municipal council. We presented a program that we called a 'peace initiative' to the local municipal assembly. But the council always rejects what we propose.
"The local government gave us an office in an out of the way place, and blocked financial resources. Then they harassed us by subjecting us to various inspections, regarding cleanliness, bookkeeping, and similar things.
Outside Odisej's center is a large mural with an illustration of a policeman holding a flashlight and saying, in English, "You from Odisej, again!" The caption of the mural reads, "Let's help the police and beat ourselves."
"In 2006 we carried out a project to put up posters in five municipalities, with a caption that read, 'Do you know who your war heroes are?' In one column, there were photos of Karadzic, Naser Oric, and others. On the other side, there were positive figures, such as the Nobel Prize-winning writer Ivo Andric. At the end of the project, we held a party at our center. The police came, and drove us out of the building. They brought some of us to the police station, and beat us. There was no process. They beat eight of us, brutally, all night.
"After that, we made a big noise about what happened, and since then, no police have come around here. Not when we need them, either."
MIRKO
Mirko told me a little about himself. After arriving in Bratunac at the end of the war, he finished high school: "Then I went to Serbia to study medicine in college. I worked with a youth group there, and came back here in 2005. I had been involved in student government in Serbia. I wanted to share with young people the experience that I had acquired in working with organizations. I'm trying to help them broaden their vision, to understand that there's something else that exists, outside. This is a little place, and we are trying to make it more open.
"Odisej is our child. We want to turn it over to the younger people.
"I have not yet taken employment in health care, because I thought that this was more important. I wanted to have some influence, to help the kids. And to get a job, I would have had to engage in corruption. You either have to pay a bribe, or have personal connections. Under Tito, it was necessary to be a member of the Communist Party to advance. Now, you have to be a member of a ruling party. The political parties appoint the directors of firms."
CHANGES
I asked Stane and Mirko how they evaluate changes in the atmosphere in Bratunac in the past years since they opened up their organization. Mirko said, "My opinion is that it has changed. A lot has changed. After the war, people were very homophobic."
I was surprised that Mirko would mention homophobia right off. I mentioned the tension present those very days in Sarajevo around the time of the Queer Festival. Mirko said, "It's horrible, what is going on. There has been a great degree of homophobia among nationalists." Connecting nationalism and homophobia in the RS with similar attitudes in the Federation, Stane added, "If there hadn't been anything here, there wouldn't have been in Sarajevo either" (referring, I presumed, to the incitement of nationalism and associated xenophobia that was unbridled among Bosnian Serbs).
Mirko continued, "One step we've made here is regarding nationalism, there is not now open hatred or open conflicts. People [both Bosniaks and Serbs] come here to our center to be together, to be in touch, to love each other. They go out together for coffee or to take a walk, they don't have any kind of problems. Once, this was unimaginable.
VOLUNTEERISM, ELECTIONS, NATIONALISM
As we talked, teenagers wandered in and out of the semi-lit and informally-furnished center, sitting at computers, sending e-mail, and chatting. Mirko pointed at the computers and said, "Our computers should be in a museum. They are seven years old. We could use donations, but all of the humanitarian donations to anyone in Bosnia are taxed. Ninety per cent of the young people here don't even have experience with computers. There are no computers in the school. The high school is right here. We would like to help the school, by opening a lab here with 25 computers.
"We have our own web site, but the younger people don't know how to maintain it, and the older people are either leaving, or don't have time. Personally, I haven't had time to work on it."
I asked Mirko and Stane about the state of volunteerism in Bratunac. Stane replied, "You're looking at it. Volunteerism is a new name, but it's an old idea. There are around 30 people working with us. No one here is paid. People over 25 have to go find some work; some of them go dig ditches.
"Before the war, there were people planting trees, and there were people volunteering with the Red Cross. In socialism it was considered that volunteerism was not needed, even actually prohibited in some ways. Associations of over eight people were prohibited; in the army, over six. If there was a 'verbal crime,' then it was another crime not to report it."
Turning to the elections, Stane said, "There are still three ideologies, and people are still easily manipulated. The ideology of a "greater" nation based on ethnicity is a mistaken ideology. Someone said, 'Never have smarter people voted for stupider things.' In the beginning of the war, there were people who came into power overnight, who weren't qualified. There were people who became war commanders, who were illiterate."
I asked, "If everyone votes either as a Bosniak, a Serb, or a Croat, then where is there space for someone to be a citizen?"
Stane said, "We need a common option. If Serbs root for Serbia, and Croats for Croatia, then only Bosniaks are left rooting for Bosnia. Now, during the elections, everyone is throwing around stupidities. It brings everything back to square one, yelling about protecting their 'national interests'. But in fact, no one actually knows what their national interest is. Mine is to have a car, a family, and an apartment, not to get rid of other people."
While we were near the subject of nationalism, Stane provided me with an interesting definition: "There is a problem for people in differentiating nationalism and national chauvinism. Nationalism isn't something bad. There is such a thing as a 'healthy nationalism.' But the nationalism here is mixed with chauvinism, fanaticism, and fascism. When you understand this difference, some other things become clear. Nationalism can be healthy when it recognizes other people. Nationalism means to respect oneself, but it doesn't mean disrespect others."
I have heard this qualified definition of nationalism at times, and it is in strong disagreement with the way most survivors of the catastrophic breakup of Yugoslavia perceive the term. For most survivors, "nationalism" is purely a negative thing. However, I have been looking for the space where people are allowed to be proud of their particular cultural heritage, in a positive manner that doesn't involve looking down upon someone else's culture.
The youngsters of Odisej, in any case, have this attitude. It occurs to me that it may be an influential factor that the organization's founders were themselves displaced people, which perhaps made it possible for them to have empathy for others who had a common experience. It also occurred to me that it is natural -- all but imperative -- for the youth to rebel against their elders. So in a situation where the grown-ups are behaving atrociously, it could be a natural impulse for the youth to open up.
There is an expression in the Bosnian language, "pozitivci," meaning people with a positive attitude. This refers to people who don't merely complain, but work optimistically to change things for the better, regardless of how bad things are. There are plenty of people in Bosnia who have an idea how bad things are, but no idea how to change things. Then there are people who may be intelligent, but jealous, and when they see someone doing something constructive, they just criticize. Finally, there are people like the youth of Odisej, like Dijana in Srebrenica, like the leaders of the early return movement.
I left Bratunac enthusiastic about the pozitivci, wanting to seek out more youth activists around the country.
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For Odisej's site, see Odisej (mostly in Bosnian)
Next -- Bosnia-Herzegovina journal #5: End of the Queer Festival
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Monday, December 15, 2008
Journalist Peter Lippman--Travel Journal to Bosnia-Herzegovina Part III
[The third of Lippman's journal entries of his visit to Bosnia; again, my deepest gratitude to him for allowing me to pass these along. His committment to reporting on Bosnia continues to impress,
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PL Bosnia-Herzegovina journal #3: Srebrenica
In my last journal I mentioned what Hasan Nuhanovic said about the latest chapter in his lawsuit against the Dutch government. He voiced some opinions on the general state of Bosnia:
"Bosnia is no longer what it was, and it won't be. There are three ethnicities, and they are no longer mixed. My hope is that we will go into the EU. Maybe when do, there will be economic integration. But the politicians are working against this.
"Dodik is just the spokesman for the Serb elite, which finally accomplished its project. Serbia exists, de facto, on the other side of Kozija Cuprija [the eastern outskirts of Sarajevo]."
On the issue of refugee return to Srebrenica, Hasan said, "People from the cities think that they should stay where they are, while we (people displaced from villages) should all return. Why should I return, without support? They think we should be good "pacenici," victims, sufferers.
IMPRESSIONS OF SREBRENICA
In mid-September I went to Srebrenica. My first impression was one of surprise, primarily because a few buildings have been repaired, and the look of the town is the better for it. For years Srebrenica's appearance did not change whatsoever; the only repaired building was the municipal building, and the trashed, empty Robna Kuca (department store) stood like a great sore in the middle of town, on the square next to the town park. Posters from the most recent political campaign (often promoting the worst war criminals) always remained stuck on the boarded-up windows, shredding in the weather.
Now the department store is open, clean, shiny, and cheerful, employing a number of local residents, both Serbs and Bosniaks. Now you don't have to travel to Bratunac to buy a needle. It's remarkable how much difference this one building makes in the town's atmosphere.
There are a few more businesses and storefronts open as well, some housing non-governmental organizations. And in the Dom Kulture (cultural center, with a theater), the museum and library have been refurbished, as well as the offices of some of the NGOs. There's even a well-functioning Internet center. Meanwhile, the building itself is still a bit tacky, with a dreary entrance and shrapnel holes on the outside. And in the rest of the town, the undercurrent of poverty and sadness has not quite been overcome.
But it is apparent that the struggle to survive goes on. This is the revelation of my entire visit to Srebrenica. For thousands of Srebrenicans from Tuzla to St. Louis, what Hasan says is true. There's no argument against making a better life far away. However, somewhere between four and six thousand people have returned to Srebrenica town and many villages, and they are struggling to stay. Many of them probably had no other choice but to return. They accept that Srebrenica will not ever be like it was before the war, when people competed to have the most lovely balcony, and loved their home town more than anywhere else. But they, the returnees, are doing what I think is the most natural thing, to keep on living. The rest of their lives will be a struggle, at best. But the optimistic outlook is that in a generation or two (barring another disaster), life will be "normal" again in Srebrenica municipality.
Before the war, Srebrenica was an attractive place to visit; people came from all over Yugoslavia and Europe because of the mineral springs that are located above the town. Residents became wealthy by renting private rooms and hosting visitors. Now the springs are devastated, but they will be repaired, sooner or later. That will help Srebrenica to revive. In preparation for this, a returnee named Abdulah has created a motel, Misirlija, with 40 beds. And there are about a dozen kafanas and restaurants now, all in the center of town.
A huge new domed Islamic center is being built in the center as well, across from the Dom Kulture. My landlord Esad said that "they're only building mosques and churches, the idiots" -- but then went on to tell me that there's a noodle factory, financed by Italy, and Cimos, financed by Slovenia, is making car parts. Soon there will be a factory for wheelchairs. There will also be a winery based on local fruit, and another company, financed by Swedes, is buying local fruit and exporting it. This all sounds like production, but compared to what was here before the war, it is just a start.
Esad also told me that the Russians have bought the mines. I mentioned that I heard something about their corrupt management. He laughed and said, "What can the Russians do that's honest?!" There are around 500 workers in the mines now, mostly Serbs. They earn around 1,000 KM, which is a good income. Esad says that all company earnings go through Banja Luka (capital of the RS), and companies don't even pay taxes here.
I visited my old friends Munevera and Salih, who have a farm in Potocari. Munevera was working in the barn, and I found Salih up in the house, with a three-day beard, dirty work clothes, and calloused hands. He cleaned up, and we sat and had coffee and dinner.
I met Munevera and Salih around 2002, soon after they returned to Srebrenica. They had opened a kafana, and then Munevera started a non-governmental organization. Neither thrived. Then they received a donation of some cows, fixed up a house on their property, and built a barn. They have been busy with the cows ever since. They now have nine cows, four calves, and two cats, Cicko and Bela. Another improvement that makes life pleasant for them is that there are more new neighbors, returnees. Before, life in their valley was rather lonesome.
We talked about the US electoral campaign. Munevera and Salih were for Hillary, because they loved Bill Clinton. Salih said that "Clinton saved us during the war, with the air-drops. If it weren't for that, we would have starved in a week. Clinton saved Srebrenica." I found that last remark ironic, but didn't say anything about it. Other survivors have said to me that Clinton should have a weight on his conscience for having let Srebrenica fall.
Munevera and Salih have not been paid in the last four months for their milk, which they sell to a company in Tuzla. When I asked why, Salih said, "The state is falling apart. There is no money." I asked, "Will the company finally pay you?" Salih said, "Oh, they'll pay us, but not before our eyes fall out."
When various inter-governmental and non-governmental agencies began to help Srebrenica recover, most resources were directed towards the villages. This policy was based on the idea that people could live from agricultural work. This has had mixed results. Before the war there many people lived in the villages -- probably around 30,000 in over 200 villages. But they depended primarily on factory jobs for their incomes. Srebrenica had significant industry, which is no more. So it's a new thing -- or perhaps, a return to the pre-World War II times -- to be living from farming.
In any case, there has been more return to the villages than to the town. The return includes a respectable number of young people, unlike in some other return settings. There are around 600 students in the high school.
Salih told me that there are young people who have returned to Srebrenica. I asked him, "So that means that the city will revive?" He said, "It can, but it takes time."
Later, I asked a friend who is a retired employee for the municipality of Srebrenica to evaluate the situation there. He said that he was unhappy about the fact that the villages are moving ahead, and the town itself is being left behind, lagging in development. He was unhappy about the fact that the roofs of the apartment buildings have been leaking for years; that there was money donated for their repair, but that it "disappeared," and that water was leaking into the buildings, all the way to the ground floor.
I went to visit the memorial cemetery, where the identified remains of massacre victims exhumed from mass graves in a wide radius around Srebrenica -- all the way up to Zvornik -- have been reburied. As of the most recent (July 2008) reburial, on the 13th anniversary of the massacre, there are now over 3,500 remains interred in the cemetery.
There is a little tourist kiosk across the street where people buy flowers for the cemetery, cigarette lighters with "Srebrenica Memorial Center" printed on them, chewing gum, scarves, and books. Most of the books are religious in nature.
I walked around in the Memorial Center, as I have done many times before. There are a couple of patches of new graves since I was last there. Otherwise, the place is the same: big, beautiful, and tragic. There's one huge stone monument with the names of places of origin of some of the victims of the genocide. A number of victims is inscribed into the stone: "8372 - and that is not the final count," it reads. To date, over 5,000 remains have been identified by DNA testing. The reason not all these remains have been reburied is because in many cases, only a small part of a body has been identified, and the authorities choose to wait to notify the surviving family until there is more to rebury. It happens this way because most of the remains are from "secondary mass graves." This is the term for the locations where the Serb authorities moved the massacre victims' bodies, some time after the event, from "primary graves." In the process, many of the remains were mixed up or split up, making the identification task much more difficult.
ALBINA -- VASA PRAVA
I talked with Albina, who works with the local branch of the legal assistance organization, Vasa Prava ("Your Rights"). This nationwide organization, supported by the UNHCR and other agencies, helps returnees find their way home, and resolve resettlement problems once they get there. Albina said, "We help displaced persons and other people in difficult circumstances. Pensioners, veterans. There is hardly anyone who isn't at least a potential client. Everyone here is a returnee." This refers to the fact that first all the Serbs left Srebrenica, when it was an enclave during the war. Then at the end, all the Bosniaks were driven out.
Health coverage has been a problem for returnees from the start. Albina says, "When people return, they have to change their identity card. Then they can sign up for health insurance. But the Dom Zdravlje [Health Center] doesn't fulfill people's needs. Service in Tuzla is much better, so people don't change their ID. There is the same problem in the whole region. Zvornik is not much better.
"Secondly, there is mistrust. There has been no Bosniak caregiver in the Dom Zdravlje. Now maybe there is one. No one wanted to come to be served by a Serb."
"Also, if one is the owner of more than five dunums of land, he is considered able to support himself, and has to pay for health insurance. But that is not realistic. There is still only around 10% employment here."
Albina went on to list some of the new companies that had been founded in Srebrenica, mostly branches of firms doing business elsewhere. She mentioned a winery: "It is employing around 20 people, and it is a cooperative. They are buying fruit and berries, so that helps support some people." There was development of cattle raising, but then there was an epidemic of brucellosis, and that stopped a lot of people from doing that work.
I have been hearing for some years about people who returned to Srebrenica, and who then gave up and left. I asked Albina whether there was a situation of "reverse return." She said, "If it were possible, there would be. But most of the returnees are people who have nowhere else to go. There are many others who have a house in the Federation and one here, and they come here occasionally, in the summer, to raise a garden and visit friends and relatives, and then they go back.
"However," Albina said, "The story of return is over." To a large degree, this is true throughout Bosnia-Herzegovina. Whoever could return, or had no other option, has returned. Others chose to leave the country, or never returned from abroad, and have resolved their residency status elsewhere. And many displaced persons preferred to remain in parts of Bosnia where they were not a newly-created "minority." This applies to Croats and Serbs, as well as to Bosniaks. This is the basis of Hasan's indisputable statement, that "Bosnia is no longer what it was, and it won't be."
Those who have returned struggle on. Some leave; Serbs who were displaced to Srebrenica from other parts of Bosnia were the first to go. For a time, there were many repaired houses in Srebrenica town that stood empty, but Albina said that there are not as many as before. And returnees have re-established their roots in around sixty villages. Albina said, "Not only elderly people have returned to the villages or Srebrenica; there are also plenty of young people. At first there were older returnees; now there are younger people coming because they can work here. Life is returning to Srebrenica.
"But the real Srebrenicans won't return. They have made a new life elsewhere. People loved this city. It was pretty; now they don't love it anymore."
In spite of this conflicting and somewhat confusing information, Albina concluded hopefully, "Now it is the beginning of a turnaround."
ELECTIONS IN SREBRENICA
The SDP (Social-Democrat Party) club, a storefront where you can get something to drink and play cards with your party colleagues, is on the road to my room at Esad's. I stopped there to visit Hakija Meholjic, local leader of the party. He was Srebrenica's police chief during the war, and I know him from the early days of return to Srebrenica, when he was a leader of that movement as well.
When Hakija entered the club, he said to me, "How are things in America?" I answered, "We're sinking down." (This was right around the time that the big news about the financial crisis broke." Hakija replied, "Mashallah." (roughly: "Praise be!")
Hakija was running for mayor of Srebrenica, and his colleague Suljo was running for municipal council. The tone of the SDP discourse in Srebrenica is almost desperate, somewhat in contrast to what I have heard from some of the more hopeful people. Both Hakija and Suljo insisted that development was not proceeding at an acceptable pace. Suljo predicted that the upcoming elections were going to be very fateful for Srebrenica, and that it would be a "disaster" if the SDA candidate, Osman Suljic, won.
I had a long conversation with Suljo, who was trained as an electrical engineer. After the war, he and his family lived in Tuzla for seven years, in one room in a refugee center. He spoke of how many families are still split up, with many men killed (including his father), and many women left on their own.
Suljo asked, rhetorically: "What is an election? You can vote, or you can choose. Very few people choose, which requires thinking." We compared the elections there and in the US, and found many similarities.
I asked Suljo what he thought Bosnia's position was intended to be in relation to the EU. He answered, "One, a dump for radioactive waste. Two, a source of cheap labor. Three, a market for foreign goods." He explained, "No one is producing anything here. The natural resources and public companies are being sold off to foreign companies for the highest bid. People in the government are thinking only about their own profit, not about the good of the people. We have the most rigid kind of capitalism here. Here, people are only thinking now about 'what I can get,' as opposed to doing something for the benefit of everyone. This is a big contrast with the period after WWII, when people were united, and worked together to rebuild the country in a very short time.
"I'm 49," he continued, "I can't leave, can't go anywhere. So, what can I do to leave this country a better place for the young people? They didn't create this mess, and aren't responsible for it. We are leaving them a divided country, based on bribes and corruption, with a devastated economy that doesn't produce anything.
"I wish I could say something optimistic, but I can't. I was optimistic in 1995, 1996, after the war, when it was normal for everything to be so devastated. Then, I hoped that things would be able to be improved. But it hasn't, and now it's 2008, and I can't be optimistic.
"It is hard for anything to be run from this municipality. Everything goes through the ministries in Banja Luka. There is an over-centralized RS, and a very decentralized Federation. They sold the bauxite mines (around Srebrenica) to the Ukrainians, and the other mines to the Russians. But there is not any new exploration and development, so there is no economic improvement here."
Later, I talked with a driver I had engaged, a local man named Ismet, about the current electoral campaign. Ismet thought that Osman Suljic of the SDA was "the best for the position, that he is honest and capable." Of Hakija, he said, "He was a policeman, and people don't love the policemen so much. Hakija has some wartime commanders behind him, but that doesn't really make people enthusiastic. Hakija's police tenure and, for that matter, the legacy of his party, the SDP, remind us of the communist times, and that's not very popular with the Bosniaks."
Naser Oric is one of the people who supported Hakija's candidacy. Oric was the top commander defending Srebrenica during the war. I asked Ismet why Oric was removed from Srebrenica before the fall of the city. Ismet said that this was done because "they [an unspecified group] made an agreement on ethnic division of the country, and Srebrenica was to go to the Serbs."
DIJANA
I visited with my friend Dijana, who works for a local NGO. Her organization promotes civic consciousness, inter-ethnic reconciliation, and environmental awareness, among other things. Dijana is a Bosnian Serb and was displaced to the Srebrenica area from another town during the war.
We talked about the changes people have gone through in the way they consider their identity. Before the war, it was common, though not universal, to consider oneself a Yugoslav, or a Bosnian. Often the identification as a Serb, Croat, or Muslim came second. Then with the breakup of the country, people were forced to adopt an ethnic designation tied to the religion of their ancestors.
Now, referring to this adoption or reinforcement of ethnic identity, Dijana says, "I don't think at all that that [being a Serb] is now my primary identification. For me there are some more important things, such as, for example, that I am a mother; that is more essential, how my children will grow up in this country, and then everything else is after that. I have that identity, which is more important to me.
"There is no flag, state, or ideal worth it to me to send my children into war, a bloody war, where our children would be killed. It was really senseless, all of this that happened. If it were to happen again it would be that much more senseless in the end, when we realize that it was all useless."
I asked Dijana whether she thought that among the people in Bosnia, on different sides, there was any relief from the nationalism that had destroyed the country. She responded that there was still fear and manipulation, but that it was much less tense than immediately after the war.
She added, "People are behaving differently, in general, and they are working together, more than after the war. They are communicating, getting together. It is different in some communities that are ethnically cleansed, such as some municipalities in the Federation, and some in the Republika Srpska, but it's better in other municipalities that are multi-ethnic, such as Srebrenica.
"I think that Srebrenica has many positive examples of coexistence; there really are many positive things, which maybe aren't interesting to the media, because they are positive. Some truly good results are being achieved by the efforts of well-intentioned people, regardless of whether they are in the local government, or in NGOs, or international organizations.
Dijana pointed out that tensions always increased in the electoral campaign periods. I wondered whether this syndrome of manipulation and incitement was transparent to the ordinary voter. She answered that people are still tending to vote along ethnic lines, and that in any case, there was not much of a choice among the candidates. But she did point out improving cooperation on the local level among politicians of different ethnicities, which is in huge contrast to the situation eight or ten years ago.
Regarding improvements around the municipality, Dijana said, "It is obvious, no one can say that there haven't been some improvements. It's really the first time that you see some results...more people are employed."
SUCESKA, A RETURN VILLAGE
In the summer of 2000, I went to Suceska with Hakija Meholjic and Zulfo Salihovic, the leaders of the first coordinated return effort to any village in Srebrenica municipality. Suceska sits high up in the hills, more than 45 minutes away from the town along an ancient, decrepit road. At that time, families were still clearing rubble from their bombed-out homes, and some were starting to rebuild, with help from international agencies. A Serb-owned company was rebuilding the local administrative office, with help from some workers from Serbia. I made friends with Ahmet, whose house was being rebuilt. I remember sitting with him and some other men during a break. They had cooled some beer from Tuzla in a nearby spring and were discussing whether it was a sin to drink beer.
At that time, the returnees were all living in a little tent settlement in the center of town. As the first returnees, they were under threat from the hard-line Serb authorities still running the municipality, and they were generally living in poor and insecure circumstances. At lunch they discussed their troubles, and Hakija, dipping a chunk of raw onion into some salt, exhorted the men to carry on with their rebuilding. They were the first of a wave of returnees, and their efforts have paid off.
I hadn't been to the village in years, so I hired Ismet to take me up there. The road to the highlands, and the villages along the way, are much changed from the way they were after the war. A good stretch of the road was paved last year. There are around three kilometers that still have the old cobblestones from the Austro-Hungarian period, and this is supposed to be refurbished later this year.
The route is beautiful in any case; the road climbs quickly up into steep and tightly-spaced hills where there are magnificent distant views. All is green. A couple of hamlets dot the roadside, but mostly it is woods.
When we arrived at Suceska. Ismet told me that in the broader vicinity of the village, there are at least 250 families.
Electricity came to Suceska in 2002, thanks to a million-dollar donation from USAID. Now, most of the houses of the village have been rebuilt. Some have gardens and bright flower patches. As I strolled the main road, a woman worked in a corn field where the tent settlement used to be. Two women chatted over a fence. A man walked down the street following a flock of several dozen geese. Suceska is a high place, but no longer lonesome.
We visited the mosque, which also has been rebuilt. Across the road is a tidy clinic. Ahmet's house sits on that road, boarded up. He now lives in the United States.
I chatted with Mujo, the "mayor" of Suceska. He was working on his rebuilt house, which is now being stuccoed. He told me that he is studying law at the new university extension in Srebrenica. When I told him I was writing about Srebrenica, he told me that he had written some poems about the war and would share them with me if I am interested.
On the way back down to Srebrenica, Ismet and I chatted. He was an "ordinary soldier, an infantryman" in Srebrenica during the war. In July of 1995, he went out from the enclave with the column of men who were fleeing upon the fall of the city. He arrived in safe territory, near Tuzla, seven days, "one of the first fifty who arrived." He also took his fifteen-year-old brother with him. Ismet said that if it weren't for the US, the war would still be going on today.
Speaking of the refugee return movement, Ismet said, "I could have stayed in the Federation, and gotten work there. But I love the mountains and the rivers, and it is peaceful here." I asked him where the war criminals from this area were hiding. He told me that they had fled to Serbia, where they have "some kind of protection."
Ismet said that the atmosphere is good in this area, where there is "democracy." I asked him what that meant, and he said that he feels that people here have freedom of expression, the right to worship according to their choice, and they participate in multiple-party elections.
I asked if there were a danger of mines in the area. Ismet told me that there could be mines in some of the fields, because people were laying them after the war, between 1995 and 2002, to prevent people from returning.
Before the war, there were around 2,700 people in Suceska and vicinity. Ismet estimates that around a fourth of that number have returned to the area.
We talked about the ever-present issue of the mysteriously disappearing donations for the development of Srebrenica. Ismet mentioned around 350 million KM ($250 million) that has been donated, much of which has disappeared. Ismet says that much of these funds was allocated to Serb companies, and spent in places where more Serbs live. That Dodik channeled a lot of money to non-local companies, including companies he owns or controls in his home town of Laktasi.
CVIJETIN
Back in town, I spoke with Cvijetin Maksimovic, who works for the municipality as head of the Department of Social Services. He spoke optimistically about the development of the municipality, saying that electrical power, water, and roads will have been connected to all return settlements by the end of this year. "There is no more obstruction or fear, except of some land mines." Schools are up and running, or on the verge of being repaired. There is also an extension of the Sarajevo University law school in Srebrenica, where around 50 or 60 students have now enrolled.
Cvijetin asserted that the problems with water are being addressed. There is much leakage, and the sources of water sometimes freeze. The water is "ok to drink." My landlords were still somewhat distrustful of the water quality, however.
Cvijetin said, "No one knows where the donations for the water repair went to." Albina, of Vasa Prava, had told me, "No one will say what happened to the donations, because then someone will have to answer for the embezzlement."
Confirming what other people have told me, Cvijetin notes, "Compared to the city, much more money was invested in the villages. So the city looks bad." But he continues more optimistically, "A hotel is going to be built over beyond the municipal building. The Sarajevo tobacco factory is donating for this. And we are going to get ten million KM from the Bosnian Council of Ministers to fix more housing."
Someone from Banja Luka bought the spa. Problems of ownership and investment have to be straightened out, and then it can be developed. The government of the RS may donate some resources.
Cvijetin listed a half-dozen new industrial investments in the municipality. I asked him if he felt optimistic about Srebrenica's future. He said, "If I were running for mayor, I would tell people that we have forests, mines, lead, zinc, and bauxite, and an industrial zone in Potocari." But he recognized a problem with the mines, where "the owners are taking out the maximum, and not investing in any development. It is bad, but it is better to do something, than to leave the mines idle."
Cvijetin estimated that there are now around 11,000 people living in Srebrenica, half of them Serb, and half Bosniak. Asked about whether people are leaving the city, Cvijetin said," There is not a trend of leaving. Srebrenica is not an attractive place to live, but it is an attractive place to work. We need to fix the city, to pretty it up."
Cvijetin pretties up the truth a little bit, but this is part of his job, and there need to be people who think positively about Srebrenica's future. Along these lines, Cvijetin concluded, "People are complaining. They don't remember that six thousand housing units were destroyed here during the war. Before, Srebrenica was the eighth most-developed municipality in Bosnia. Citizens must change their way of thinking. In the old system, they received everything they needed. There must be cooperation between citizens and the municipality. Citizens are seeking the impossible. There is much that has to be planned; we are starting over."
In this vein, I am aware that there has always been some tension between those who want to help rebuild Srebrenica, and those who have other priorities. In the early period after the war, there were those who wanted to return and others who wanted only to create a monument to the victims of the monument. There were even Bosniaks who opposed return. Ultimately, the goals of truth and justice, on one hand, and return and recovery, on the other, are not conflicting, but mutually supporting. But it took many years for the survivors to understand this.
After some years, return was happening, and people who returned to the city opposed those who were returning to the villages, saying the latter was an "outing." Then there were those who helped develop events and community life in the city, and those who opposed it, saying that celebrations in Srebrenica were disrespectful to the memory of the victims. They have a point, but life has to go on. Fortunately, there are activists in the city who understand this.
Now it is clear that there are those who complain, and those who are struggling to make things work. The latter are people in the villages, some people in the government, and some people in the NGOs. Then there are the dissatisfied in the town, who are unhappy with the slow pace of improvement. This is justified, but they don't seem to have anything constructive to offer. There are people who are like this throughout Bosnia-Herzegovina. It often seems like they are in the majority, but they are not; they merely have the loudest voice.
SREBRENICA YOUTH GROUP
On my way out of town I stopped and met a young man, Sasha, who is an activist in a youth group called Savjet Mladih ("Counsel of Youth"). This ethnically-mixed organization of young people has several active members, and many more who participate in events. The group has organized four annual festivals, and is putting on a drama festival this month. Savjet Mladih now operates in the shell of the old movie theater building next to the city park. It is encouraging, after seeing this building stand empty and windowless for many years, to see new life there.
I wanted Sasha to help me interpret the many positive and negative things I'd heard in Srebrenica. I asked him for his evaluation of the situation; was he optimistic? He said, "Really, we who are here are all optimistic in some way, because we have to be, in order to be here. But when you look at what has been done, maybe about five percent of what is needed has been done."
I commented that the appearance of the new department store seemed to be an encouraging sign, symbolically. Sasha said, "It's a question, whether the store is a good thing. It could put the smaller places out of business. And why has the spa not been reopened, after 13 years? And the riches of the mines are going to the Russians and the Ukrainians, for ridiculously small amounts of money."
For the Savjet Mladih's web site, see www.ocsrebrenica.com.
*
Something became clarified for me as a result of what I saw in Srebrenica. I left town appreciating the people who were doing something concrete to make life return. Those people have found a way to accept that Srebrenica is what it is, what happened happened, and that they have to struggle and move forward. As Hasan and many other people say, Srebrenica will never be the same. But there are people who know that they have to do something positive, and some kind of recovery will take place. I put my faith in those who are taking responsibility for making Srebrenica (and the rest of Bosnia) a normal place against all the odds. They are taking the first steps.
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Next -- Bosnia-Herzegovina journal #4: A visit to Bratunac
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PL Bosnia-Herzegovina journal #3: Srebrenica
In my last journal I mentioned what Hasan Nuhanovic said about the latest chapter in his lawsuit against the Dutch government. He voiced some opinions on the general state of Bosnia:
"Bosnia is no longer what it was, and it won't be. There are three ethnicities, and they are no longer mixed. My hope is that we will go into the EU. Maybe when do, there will be economic integration. But the politicians are working against this.
"Dodik is just the spokesman for the Serb elite, which finally accomplished its project. Serbia exists, de facto, on the other side of Kozija Cuprija [the eastern outskirts of Sarajevo]."
On the issue of refugee return to Srebrenica, Hasan said, "People from the cities think that they should stay where they are, while we (people displaced from villages) should all return. Why should I return, without support? They think we should be good "pacenici," victims, sufferers.
IMPRESSIONS OF SREBRENICA
In mid-September I went to Srebrenica. My first impression was one of surprise, primarily because a few buildings have been repaired, and the look of the town is the better for it. For years Srebrenica's appearance did not change whatsoever; the only repaired building was the municipal building, and the trashed, empty Robna Kuca (department store) stood like a great sore in the middle of town, on the square next to the town park. Posters from the most recent political campaign (often promoting the worst war criminals) always remained stuck on the boarded-up windows, shredding in the weather.
Now the department store is open, clean, shiny, and cheerful, employing a number of local residents, both Serbs and Bosniaks. Now you don't have to travel to Bratunac to buy a needle. It's remarkable how much difference this one building makes in the town's atmosphere.
There are a few more businesses and storefronts open as well, some housing non-governmental organizations. And in the Dom Kulture (cultural center, with a theater), the museum and library have been refurbished, as well as the offices of some of the NGOs. There's even a well-functioning Internet center. Meanwhile, the building itself is still a bit tacky, with a dreary entrance and shrapnel holes on the outside. And in the rest of the town, the undercurrent of poverty and sadness has not quite been overcome.
But it is apparent that the struggle to survive goes on. This is the revelation of my entire visit to Srebrenica. For thousands of Srebrenicans from Tuzla to St. Louis, what Hasan says is true. There's no argument against making a better life far away. However, somewhere between four and six thousand people have returned to Srebrenica town and many villages, and they are struggling to stay. Many of them probably had no other choice but to return. They accept that Srebrenica will not ever be like it was before the war, when people competed to have the most lovely balcony, and loved their home town more than anywhere else. But they, the returnees, are doing what I think is the most natural thing, to keep on living. The rest of their lives will be a struggle, at best. But the optimistic outlook is that in a generation or two (barring another disaster), life will be "normal" again in Srebrenica municipality.
Before the war, Srebrenica was an attractive place to visit; people came from all over Yugoslavia and Europe because of the mineral springs that are located above the town. Residents became wealthy by renting private rooms and hosting visitors. Now the springs are devastated, but they will be repaired, sooner or later. That will help Srebrenica to revive. In preparation for this, a returnee named Abdulah has created a motel, Misirlija, with 40 beds. And there are about a dozen kafanas and restaurants now, all in the center of town.
A huge new domed Islamic center is being built in the center as well, across from the Dom Kulture. My landlord Esad said that "they're only building mosques and churches, the idiots" -- but then went on to tell me that there's a noodle factory, financed by Italy, and Cimos, financed by Slovenia, is making car parts. Soon there will be a factory for wheelchairs. There will also be a winery based on local fruit, and another company, financed by Swedes, is buying local fruit and exporting it. This all sounds like production, but compared to what was here before the war, it is just a start.
Esad also told me that the Russians have bought the mines. I mentioned that I heard something about their corrupt management. He laughed and said, "What can the Russians do that's honest?!" There are around 500 workers in the mines now, mostly Serbs. They earn around 1,000 KM, which is a good income. Esad says that all company earnings go through Banja Luka (capital of the RS), and companies don't even pay taxes here.
I visited my old friends Munevera and Salih, who have a farm in Potocari. Munevera was working in the barn, and I found Salih up in the house, with a three-day beard, dirty work clothes, and calloused hands. He cleaned up, and we sat and had coffee and dinner.
I met Munevera and Salih around 2002, soon after they returned to Srebrenica. They had opened a kafana, and then Munevera started a non-governmental organization. Neither thrived. Then they received a donation of some cows, fixed up a house on their property, and built a barn. They have been busy with the cows ever since. They now have nine cows, four calves, and two cats, Cicko and Bela. Another improvement that makes life pleasant for them is that there are more new neighbors, returnees. Before, life in their valley was rather lonesome.
We talked about the US electoral campaign. Munevera and Salih were for Hillary, because they loved Bill Clinton. Salih said that "Clinton saved us during the war, with the air-drops. If it weren't for that, we would have starved in a week. Clinton saved Srebrenica." I found that last remark ironic, but didn't say anything about it. Other survivors have said to me that Clinton should have a weight on his conscience for having let Srebrenica fall.
Munevera and Salih have not been paid in the last four months for their milk, which they sell to a company in Tuzla. When I asked why, Salih said, "The state is falling apart. There is no money." I asked, "Will the company finally pay you?" Salih said, "Oh, they'll pay us, but not before our eyes fall out."
When various inter-governmental and non-governmental agencies began to help Srebrenica recover, most resources were directed towards the villages. This policy was based on the idea that people could live from agricultural work. This has had mixed results. Before the war there many people lived in the villages -- probably around 30,000 in over 200 villages. But they depended primarily on factory jobs for their incomes. Srebrenica had significant industry, which is no more. So it's a new thing -- or perhaps, a return to the pre-World War II times -- to be living from farming.
In any case, there has been more return to the villages than to the town. The return includes a respectable number of young people, unlike in some other return settings. There are around 600 students in the high school.
Salih told me that there are young people who have returned to Srebrenica. I asked him, "So that means that the city will revive?" He said, "It can, but it takes time."
Later, I asked a friend who is a retired employee for the municipality of Srebrenica to evaluate the situation there. He said that he was unhappy about the fact that the villages are moving ahead, and the town itself is being left behind, lagging in development. He was unhappy about the fact that the roofs of the apartment buildings have been leaking for years; that there was money donated for their repair, but that it "disappeared," and that water was leaking into the buildings, all the way to the ground floor.
I went to visit the memorial cemetery, where the identified remains of massacre victims exhumed from mass graves in a wide radius around Srebrenica -- all the way up to Zvornik -- have been reburied. As of the most recent (July 2008) reburial, on the 13th anniversary of the massacre, there are now over 3,500 remains interred in the cemetery.
There is a little tourist kiosk across the street where people buy flowers for the cemetery, cigarette lighters with "Srebrenica Memorial Center" printed on them, chewing gum, scarves, and books. Most of the books are religious in nature.
I walked around in the Memorial Center, as I have done many times before. There are a couple of patches of new graves since I was last there. Otherwise, the place is the same: big, beautiful, and tragic. There's one huge stone monument with the names of places of origin of some of the victims of the genocide. A number of victims is inscribed into the stone: "8372 - and that is not the final count," it reads. To date, over 5,000 remains have been identified by DNA testing. The reason not all these remains have been reburied is because in many cases, only a small part of a body has been identified, and the authorities choose to wait to notify the surviving family until there is more to rebury. It happens this way because most of the remains are from "secondary mass graves." This is the term for the locations where the Serb authorities moved the massacre victims' bodies, some time after the event, from "primary graves." In the process, many of the remains were mixed up or split up, making the identification task much more difficult.
ALBINA -- VASA PRAVA
I talked with Albina, who works with the local branch of the legal assistance organization, Vasa Prava ("Your Rights"). This nationwide organization, supported by the UNHCR and other agencies, helps returnees find their way home, and resolve resettlement problems once they get there. Albina said, "We help displaced persons and other people in difficult circumstances. Pensioners, veterans. There is hardly anyone who isn't at least a potential client. Everyone here is a returnee." This refers to the fact that first all the Serbs left Srebrenica, when it was an enclave during the war. Then at the end, all the Bosniaks were driven out.
Health coverage has been a problem for returnees from the start. Albina says, "When people return, they have to change their identity card. Then they can sign up for health insurance. But the Dom Zdravlje [Health Center] doesn't fulfill people's needs. Service in Tuzla is much better, so people don't change their ID. There is the same problem in the whole region. Zvornik is not much better.
"Secondly, there is mistrust. There has been no Bosniak caregiver in the Dom Zdravlje. Now maybe there is one. No one wanted to come to be served by a Serb."
"Also, if one is the owner of more than five dunums of land, he is considered able to support himself, and has to pay for health insurance. But that is not realistic. There is still only around 10% employment here."
Albina went on to list some of the new companies that had been founded in Srebrenica, mostly branches of firms doing business elsewhere. She mentioned a winery: "It is employing around 20 people, and it is a cooperative. They are buying fruit and berries, so that helps support some people." There was development of cattle raising, but then there was an epidemic of brucellosis, and that stopped a lot of people from doing that work.
I have been hearing for some years about people who returned to Srebrenica, and who then gave up and left. I asked Albina whether there was a situation of "reverse return." She said, "If it were possible, there would be. But most of the returnees are people who have nowhere else to go. There are many others who have a house in the Federation and one here, and they come here occasionally, in the summer, to raise a garden and visit friends and relatives, and then they go back.
"However," Albina said, "The story of return is over." To a large degree, this is true throughout Bosnia-Herzegovina. Whoever could return, or had no other option, has returned. Others chose to leave the country, or never returned from abroad, and have resolved their residency status elsewhere. And many displaced persons preferred to remain in parts of Bosnia where they were not a newly-created "minority." This applies to Croats and Serbs, as well as to Bosniaks. This is the basis of Hasan's indisputable statement, that "Bosnia is no longer what it was, and it won't be."
Those who have returned struggle on. Some leave; Serbs who were displaced to Srebrenica from other parts of Bosnia were the first to go. For a time, there were many repaired houses in Srebrenica town that stood empty, but Albina said that there are not as many as before. And returnees have re-established their roots in around sixty villages. Albina said, "Not only elderly people have returned to the villages or Srebrenica; there are also plenty of young people. At first there were older returnees; now there are younger people coming because they can work here. Life is returning to Srebrenica.
"But the real Srebrenicans won't return. They have made a new life elsewhere. People loved this city. It was pretty; now they don't love it anymore."
In spite of this conflicting and somewhat confusing information, Albina concluded hopefully, "Now it is the beginning of a turnaround."
ELECTIONS IN SREBRENICA
The SDP (Social-Democrat Party) club, a storefront where you can get something to drink and play cards with your party colleagues, is on the road to my room at Esad's. I stopped there to visit Hakija Meholjic, local leader of the party. He was Srebrenica's police chief during the war, and I know him from the early days of return to Srebrenica, when he was a leader of that movement as well.
When Hakija entered the club, he said to me, "How are things in America?" I answered, "We're sinking down." (This was right around the time that the big news about the financial crisis broke." Hakija replied, "Mashallah." (roughly: "Praise be!")
Hakija was running for mayor of Srebrenica, and his colleague Suljo was running for municipal council. The tone of the SDP discourse in Srebrenica is almost desperate, somewhat in contrast to what I have heard from some of the more hopeful people. Both Hakija and Suljo insisted that development was not proceeding at an acceptable pace. Suljo predicted that the upcoming elections were going to be very fateful for Srebrenica, and that it would be a "disaster" if the SDA candidate, Osman Suljic, won.
I had a long conversation with Suljo, who was trained as an electrical engineer. After the war, he and his family lived in Tuzla for seven years, in one room in a refugee center. He spoke of how many families are still split up, with many men killed (including his father), and many women left on their own.
Suljo asked, rhetorically: "What is an election? You can vote, or you can choose. Very few people choose, which requires thinking." We compared the elections there and in the US, and found many similarities.
I asked Suljo what he thought Bosnia's position was intended to be in relation to the EU. He answered, "One, a dump for radioactive waste. Two, a source of cheap labor. Three, a market for foreign goods." He explained, "No one is producing anything here. The natural resources and public companies are being sold off to foreign companies for the highest bid. People in the government are thinking only about their own profit, not about the good of the people. We have the most rigid kind of capitalism here. Here, people are only thinking now about 'what I can get,' as opposed to doing something for the benefit of everyone. This is a big contrast with the period after WWII, when people were united, and worked together to rebuild the country in a very short time.
"I'm 49," he continued, "I can't leave, can't go anywhere. So, what can I do to leave this country a better place for the young people? They didn't create this mess, and aren't responsible for it. We are leaving them a divided country, based on bribes and corruption, with a devastated economy that doesn't produce anything.
"I wish I could say something optimistic, but I can't. I was optimistic in 1995, 1996, after the war, when it was normal for everything to be so devastated. Then, I hoped that things would be able to be improved. But it hasn't, and now it's 2008, and I can't be optimistic.
"It is hard for anything to be run from this municipality. Everything goes through the ministries in Banja Luka. There is an over-centralized RS, and a very decentralized Federation. They sold the bauxite mines (around Srebrenica) to the Ukrainians, and the other mines to the Russians. But there is not any new exploration and development, so there is no economic improvement here."
Later, I talked with a driver I had engaged, a local man named Ismet, about the current electoral campaign. Ismet thought that Osman Suljic of the SDA was "the best for the position, that he is honest and capable." Of Hakija, he said, "He was a policeman, and people don't love the policemen so much. Hakija has some wartime commanders behind him, but that doesn't really make people enthusiastic. Hakija's police tenure and, for that matter, the legacy of his party, the SDP, remind us of the communist times, and that's not very popular with the Bosniaks."
Naser Oric is one of the people who supported Hakija's candidacy. Oric was the top commander defending Srebrenica during the war. I asked Ismet why Oric was removed from Srebrenica before the fall of the city. Ismet said that this was done because "they [an unspecified group] made an agreement on ethnic division of the country, and Srebrenica was to go to the Serbs."
DIJANA
I visited with my friend Dijana, who works for a local NGO. Her organization promotes civic consciousness, inter-ethnic reconciliation, and environmental awareness, among other things. Dijana is a Bosnian Serb and was displaced to the Srebrenica area from another town during the war.
We talked about the changes people have gone through in the way they consider their identity. Before the war, it was common, though not universal, to consider oneself a Yugoslav, or a Bosnian. Often the identification as a Serb, Croat, or Muslim came second. Then with the breakup of the country, people were forced to adopt an ethnic designation tied to the religion of their ancestors.
Now, referring to this adoption or reinforcement of ethnic identity, Dijana says, "I don't think at all that that [being a Serb] is now my primary identification. For me there are some more important things, such as, for example, that I am a mother; that is more essential, how my children will grow up in this country, and then everything else is after that. I have that identity, which is more important to me.
"There is no flag, state, or ideal worth it to me to send my children into war, a bloody war, where our children would be killed. It was really senseless, all of this that happened. If it were to happen again it would be that much more senseless in the end, when we realize that it was all useless."
I asked Dijana whether she thought that among the people in Bosnia, on different sides, there was any relief from the nationalism that had destroyed the country. She responded that there was still fear and manipulation, but that it was much less tense than immediately after the war.
She added, "People are behaving differently, in general, and they are working together, more than after the war. They are communicating, getting together. It is different in some communities that are ethnically cleansed, such as some municipalities in the Federation, and some in the Republika Srpska, but it's better in other municipalities that are multi-ethnic, such as Srebrenica.
"I think that Srebrenica has many positive examples of coexistence; there really are many positive things, which maybe aren't interesting to the media, because they are positive. Some truly good results are being achieved by the efforts of well-intentioned people, regardless of whether they are in the local government, or in NGOs, or international organizations.
Dijana pointed out that tensions always increased in the electoral campaign periods. I wondered whether this syndrome of manipulation and incitement was transparent to the ordinary voter. She answered that people are still tending to vote along ethnic lines, and that in any case, there was not much of a choice among the candidates. But she did point out improving cooperation on the local level among politicians of different ethnicities, which is in huge contrast to the situation eight or ten years ago.
Regarding improvements around the municipality, Dijana said, "It is obvious, no one can say that there haven't been some improvements. It's really the first time that you see some results...more people are employed."
SUCESKA, A RETURN VILLAGE
In the summer of 2000, I went to Suceska with Hakija Meholjic and Zulfo Salihovic, the leaders of the first coordinated return effort to any village in Srebrenica municipality. Suceska sits high up in the hills, more than 45 minutes away from the town along an ancient, decrepit road. At that time, families were still clearing rubble from their bombed-out homes, and some were starting to rebuild, with help from international agencies. A Serb-owned company was rebuilding the local administrative office, with help from some workers from Serbia. I made friends with Ahmet, whose house was being rebuilt. I remember sitting with him and some other men during a break. They had cooled some beer from Tuzla in a nearby spring and were discussing whether it was a sin to drink beer.
At that time, the returnees were all living in a little tent settlement in the center of town. As the first returnees, they were under threat from the hard-line Serb authorities still running the municipality, and they were generally living in poor and insecure circumstances. At lunch they discussed their troubles, and Hakija, dipping a chunk of raw onion into some salt, exhorted the men to carry on with their rebuilding. They were the first of a wave of returnees, and their efforts have paid off.
I hadn't been to the village in years, so I hired Ismet to take me up there. The road to the highlands, and the villages along the way, are much changed from the way they were after the war. A good stretch of the road was paved last year. There are around three kilometers that still have the old cobblestones from the Austro-Hungarian period, and this is supposed to be refurbished later this year.
The route is beautiful in any case; the road climbs quickly up into steep and tightly-spaced hills where there are magnificent distant views. All is green. A couple of hamlets dot the roadside, but mostly it is woods.
When we arrived at Suceska. Ismet told me that in the broader vicinity of the village, there are at least 250 families.
Electricity came to Suceska in 2002, thanks to a million-dollar donation from USAID. Now, most of the houses of the village have been rebuilt. Some have gardens and bright flower patches. As I strolled the main road, a woman worked in a corn field where the tent settlement used to be. Two women chatted over a fence. A man walked down the street following a flock of several dozen geese. Suceska is a high place, but no longer lonesome.
We visited the mosque, which also has been rebuilt. Across the road is a tidy clinic. Ahmet's house sits on that road, boarded up. He now lives in the United States.
I chatted with Mujo, the "mayor" of Suceska. He was working on his rebuilt house, which is now being stuccoed. He told me that he is studying law at the new university extension in Srebrenica. When I told him I was writing about Srebrenica, he told me that he had written some poems about the war and would share them with me if I am interested.
On the way back down to Srebrenica, Ismet and I chatted. He was an "ordinary soldier, an infantryman" in Srebrenica during the war. In July of 1995, he went out from the enclave with the column of men who were fleeing upon the fall of the city. He arrived in safe territory, near Tuzla, seven days, "one of the first fifty who arrived." He also took his fifteen-year-old brother with him. Ismet said that if it weren't for the US, the war would still be going on today.
Speaking of the refugee return movement, Ismet said, "I could have stayed in the Federation, and gotten work there. But I love the mountains and the rivers, and it is peaceful here." I asked him where the war criminals from this area were hiding. He told me that they had fled to Serbia, where they have "some kind of protection."
Ismet said that the atmosphere is good in this area, where there is "democracy." I asked him what that meant, and he said that he feels that people here have freedom of expression, the right to worship according to their choice, and they participate in multiple-party elections.
I asked if there were a danger of mines in the area. Ismet told me that there could be mines in some of the fields, because people were laying them after the war, between 1995 and 2002, to prevent people from returning.
Before the war, there were around 2,700 people in Suceska and vicinity. Ismet estimates that around a fourth of that number have returned to the area.
We talked about the ever-present issue of the mysteriously disappearing donations for the development of Srebrenica. Ismet mentioned around 350 million KM ($250 million) that has been donated, much of which has disappeared. Ismet says that much of these funds was allocated to Serb companies, and spent in places where more Serbs live. That Dodik channeled a lot of money to non-local companies, including companies he owns or controls in his home town of Laktasi.
CVIJETIN
Back in town, I spoke with Cvijetin Maksimovic, who works for the municipality as head of the Department of Social Services. He spoke optimistically about the development of the municipality, saying that electrical power, water, and roads will have been connected to all return settlements by the end of this year. "There is no more obstruction or fear, except of some land mines." Schools are up and running, or on the verge of being repaired. There is also an extension of the Sarajevo University law school in Srebrenica, where around 50 or 60 students have now enrolled.
Cvijetin asserted that the problems with water are being addressed. There is much leakage, and the sources of water sometimes freeze. The water is "ok to drink." My landlords were still somewhat distrustful of the water quality, however.
Cvijetin said, "No one knows where the donations for the water repair went to." Albina, of Vasa Prava, had told me, "No one will say what happened to the donations, because then someone will have to answer for the embezzlement."
Confirming what other people have told me, Cvijetin notes, "Compared to the city, much more money was invested in the villages. So the city looks bad." But he continues more optimistically, "A hotel is going to be built over beyond the municipal building. The Sarajevo tobacco factory is donating for this. And we are going to get ten million KM from the Bosnian Council of Ministers to fix more housing."
Someone from Banja Luka bought the spa. Problems of ownership and investment have to be straightened out, and then it can be developed. The government of the RS may donate some resources.
Cvijetin listed a half-dozen new industrial investments in the municipality. I asked him if he felt optimistic about Srebrenica's future. He said, "If I were running for mayor, I would tell people that we have forests, mines, lead, zinc, and bauxite, and an industrial zone in Potocari." But he recognized a problem with the mines, where "the owners are taking out the maximum, and not investing in any development. It is bad, but it is better to do something, than to leave the mines idle."
Cvijetin estimated that there are now around 11,000 people living in Srebrenica, half of them Serb, and half Bosniak. Asked about whether people are leaving the city, Cvijetin said," There is not a trend of leaving. Srebrenica is not an attractive place to live, but it is an attractive place to work. We need to fix the city, to pretty it up."
Cvijetin pretties up the truth a little bit, but this is part of his job, and there need to be people who think positively about Srebrenica's future. Along these lines, Cvijetin concluded, "People are complaining. They don't remember that six thousand housing units were destroyed here during the war. Before, Srebrenica was the eighth most-developed municipality in Bosnia. Citizens must change their way of thinking. In the old system, they received everything they needed. There must be cooperation between citizens and the municipality. Citizens are seeking the impossible. There is much that has to be planned; we are starting over."
In this vein, I am aware that there has always been some tension between those who want to help rebuild Srebrenica, and those who have other priorities. In the early period after the war, there were those who wanted to return and others who wanted only to create a monument to the victims of the monument. There were even Bosniaks who opposed return. Ultimately, the goals of truth and justice, on one hand, and return and recovery, on the other, are not conflicting, but mutually supporting. But it took many years for the survivors to understand this.
After some years, return was happening, and people who returned to the city opposed those who were returning to the villages, saying the latter was an "outing." Then there were those who helped develop events and community life in the city, and those who opposed it, saying that celebrations in Srebrenica were disrespectful to the memory of the victims. They have a point, but life has to go on. Fortunately, there are activists in the city who understand this.
Now it is clear that there are those who complain, and those who are struggling to make things work. The latter are people in the villages, some people in the government, and some people in the NGOs. Then there are the dissatisfied in the town, who are unhappy with the slow pace of improvement. This is justified, but they don't seem to have anything constructive to offer. There are people who are like this throughout Bosnia-Herzegovina. It often seems like they are in the majority, but they are not; they merely have the loudest voice.
SREBRENICA YOUTH GROUP
On my way out of town I stopped and met a young man, Sasha, who is an activist in a youth group called Savjet Mladih ("Counsel of Youth"). This ethnically-mixed organization of young people has several active members, and many more who participate in events. The group has organized four annual festivals, and is putting on a drama festival this month. Savjet Mladih now operates in the shell of the old movie theater building next to the city park. It is encouraging, after seeing this building stand empty and windowless for many years, to see new life there.
I wanted Sasha to help me interpret the many positive and negative things I'd heard in Srebrenica. I asked him for his evaluation of the situation; was he optimistic? He said, "Really, we who are here are all optimistic in some way, because we have to be, in order to be here. But when you look at what has been done, maybe about five percent of what is needed has been done."
I commented that the appearance of the new department store seemed to be an encouraging sign, symbolically. Sasha said, "It's a question, whether the store is a good thing. It could put the smaller places out of business. And why has the spa not been reopened, after 13 years? And the riches of the mines are going to the Russians and the Ukrainians, for ridiculously small amounts of money."
For the Savjet Mladih's web site, see www.ocsrebrenica.com.
*
Something became clarified for me as a result of what I saw in Srebrenica. I left town appreciating the people who were doing something concrete to make life return. Those people have found a way to accept that Srebrenica is what it is, what happened happened, and that they have to struggle and move forward. As Hasan and many other people say, Srebrenica will never be the same. But there are people who know that they have to do something positive, and some kind of recovery will take place. I put my faith in those who are taking responsibility for making Srebrenica (and the rest of Bosnia) a normal place against all the odds. They are taking the first steps.
###
Next -- Bosnia-Herzegovina journal #4: A visit to Bratunac
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Journalist Peter Lippman--Travel Journal to Bosnia-Herzegovina Part II
Bosnia-Herzegovina journal #2: Sarajevo and Bosnia, continued
1. BOSNIA'S MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS
The nationwide pre-election campaign for municipal assemblies and mayors was in full swing when I arrived early in September. Over 3,000 assembly seats and some 140 mayoral positions were to be contested.
Elections in Bosnia take place every two years, with state and entity polls alternating with municipal races. Every election is a circus in which most candidates compete with each other to see who can raise tensions higher through the use of nationalist rhetoric. In the context of this time-proven campaign method, the rhetoric of fear and mistrust recalls the fraught discourse that dominated the pre-war period. As such, it is unavoidable that a very tense atmosphere will prevail.
A high point in the manipulation took place when Haris Silajdzic, Bosniak member of the three-person state-level Presidency, gave a speech before the UN General Assembly on September 23rd. There, Silajdzic called on the U.N. to "reverse the recognition of the Republika Srpska," which, as he terms it, is a "genocidal creation." He was not speaking for the Presidency, which has trouble crafting a unanimous position on just about any issue. As his counterparts -- mainly Serb politicians -- were quick to point out, Silajdzic was speaking for himself.
This speech, and a similar one that Silajdzic later gave before the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, caused an outcry from RS Prime Minister Dodik and his spokesmen. Always quick to respond to any perceived call to abolish the Republika Srpska, Dodik's followers voiced their oft-repeated threat to call a referendum, to be held in the RS only, on the question of secession from Bosnia-Herzegovina.
This back-and-forth verbal warfare was of great use to the nationalist parties during the election campaign. It worked to reinforce the voters' perception that they could only identify as members of one ethnicity or another, rather than as citizens with common interests. As such, they could only vote for the candidates who said that they held their constituents' "national interests" at heart -- even though what a "national interest" is, and why it always takes precedence over all citizens' needs for stability and economic recovery, have never been clarified.
For the rest of the campaign period, and beyond, the issue of abolition of the RS versus secession of that entity from Bosnia dominated the discussion. It didn't matter that this was unrelated to the local elections. It was a sideshow that upstaged the relevant issues -- but that was not an accident.
In fact, a media monitoring organization conducted a review of thousands of press releases and other pronouncements by the various political parties during the campaign, and found that a relatively small number of statements -- under a third -- pertained to local issues whatsoever. A much smaller number of statements, only around one hundred altogether, actually offered solutions to local problems.
While dust was being thrown in the eyes of the 3-million-odd voting population, other ways of swinging the vote were also underway. The clichéd practice of direct vote-buying was uncovered in some locations in both entities. This was implemented particularly in municipalities where the vote was expected to be close, such as Doboj, where Dodik's SNSD was trailing the SDS (the party founded by Radovan Karadzic). There, seventeen SDS activists were arrested a few days before the election, on suspicion of vote bribery.
Another somewhat transparent manipulation that promised an advantage to any local ruling party was the timely allocation of municipal funds for civic improvement in the months immediately before the elections. Such improvements included repair and upgrading of sports facilities, planting of new lawns, and installation of water fountains and public monuments. In some cases, spending on such projects in a two-month period equaled the expenditure for the entire previous year.
One enduring scandal involved the threatened rejection of the right of thousands of absentee voters to post their ballots by mail, due to "lack of proof of citizenship." This number included over 2,000 Bosnian Croats from northern Bosnia residing in Croatia, who wished to vote by mail. Their votes could significantly affect the outcome in some elections.
Just as scandalous was the involvement of high police officials in the RS in providing false identification -- and thus eligibility to vote -- to criminals and citizens from neighboring countries. In Brcko, some people who were illegally provided with new ID even registered the local government building as their home address.
The Bosnian state police agency, SIPA, arrested around twenty such officials in May, and another eight in September. These included top police commanders in Srebrenica and Bijeljina, and the head of the identification administration in Bijeljina. Upon the September arrests, top RS police officials complained that only the entity police had the right to arrest their own employees. These top police officials were the same ones who had cleared the appointment of the Bijeljina ID. official.
In response to these campaign manipulations, some concerned members of Parliament from an opposition party suggested that elections in some municipalities should be postponed, but this idea was rejected by the central elections commission.
The strongest non-nationalist opposition party in Bosnia is the Social Democrat Party, led by Zlatko Lagumdzija. Lagumdzija has for years written and said very reasonable things, but his party has lost popularity steadily over the years. It doesn't help that the SDP, reformed heir of the pre-war Communist Party, still works on the model of CP leadership, where the party's image is defined by one autocratic personality. (This is true of other parties as well.) Nor does it help that that personality, Lagumdzija, is one of the most wealthy politicians in Bosnia. He owns two fine apartments in central Sarajevo; an office building in Skenderija; a huge parcel of land with a summer house in the resort area of Poljine; an apartment in Dubrovnik; and a very comfortable savings account.
This year, a new non-nationalist party made a splash: Nasa Stranka ("Our Party"). NS was founded by an independent politician from the RS, with significant backing from Bosnia's best-known film-maker, Danis Tanovic, who won an Oscar for best foreign film for "No Man's Land" a few years ago. Tanovic is a non-nationalist who says many reasonable things, and seems to want to move the electoral and political process out of the hands of the finagling elite. He has been living in Paris since the war, but moved back to Bosnia recently, saying, "I want to live in this country, but I want it to be a country that my children can thrive in."
Nasa Stranka fielded candidates throughout Bosnia. Many of them were former SDP members, and others were prominent artists and intellectuals. You couldn't say that they represented as strong a movement as that of Barack Obama in the US, but among some people, they provided a measure of hope.
Another new multi-ethnic party made a small ripple, but it interested me because its principles were more in harmony with grassroots activism than with traditional electoral politics. That is the Pokret Mladih, which means "Movement of Youth." While in Bosnia there is generally a strong distinction between a movement and a political party, Pokret Mladih seemed to straddle the fence.
I talked with Jasmin Vedran Mehicevic, leader of Pokret Mladih. The party was campaigning in about twenty municipal races. Jasmin told me, "We have Serb candidates in our party in Trebinje and in Laktasi. It does no good to have a multi-ethnic political party in places where there is not a multi-ethnic voting body." I asked him if his candidates in those ethnically-cleansed towns were at all progressive. He said, "Anyone in a party in the RS with 'Bosnia-Herzegovina' in its name is forward-thinking."
Jasmin described the way that the odds were stacked against newer parties. During the 1990s, the OSCE helped to fund all parties' campaigns, but this is no longer the case. Now, parties receive governmental funding for campaigns only after they have been elected. What's more, the advertising companies are controlled by the larger political parties which, naturally, discriminate in distribution of advertising resources. Jasmin also told me, "One second on television costs ten KM (around $7.00). So a ten-second spot, every day for ten days, costs 1,000 KM." Pokret Mladih and Nasa Stranka simply did not have the resources for such advertising. Perhaps to its advantage, Pokret Mladih's youthful candidates -- and their graffiti-esque posters -- probably attracted some new young, otherwise jaded, voters.
Speaking of division among the multi-ethnic parties, Jasmin said that there are "at least seven good parties." His activists broke away from a party that had earlier split off from the SDP. He said, "The SDP is essentially a good party. The multi-ethnic parties should unite, but they can't, because all the leaders want to be the main leader. Each leader thinks they are the smartest, and they won't cooperate with each other. If we were to unite, there would be results.... Everyone would go into the SDP if it were without Lagumdzija. Zlatko Lagumdzija is someone who is wrecking his party."
I asked Jasmin about the relevance of "Dosta!" (Enough!) and other non-governmental organizations -- sometimes not even registered as NGOs -- that organize street protests. Could they help to make change happen in Bosnia? He answered, "The problems with the government can't be solved on the street, only in the government...The only change in government can happen in the elections.
I also had a chance to speak with Darko Brkan, a leader of Dosta. This group, which grew out of the successful conscientious objector movement, has been working on various civil rights issues for around four years. (see http://www.dosta.org/) It has activists in five or six cities, in both entities. Dosta's activities include protesting utility price hikes and corruption, fighting anti-Roma racism, generally promoting grassroots activism, and most recently, protesting street violence that seriously affects the population in the larger cities.
In February, some high school students randomly attacked and killed a seventeen-year-old, Denis Mrnjavac, on a streetcar. This shocked the citizens of Sarajevo, who had observed that the city government failed to respond in any effective way after several other similar murders. Fed up, people came out onto the streets and demonstrated for two months. In the largest protests since the war, between 5,000 and 6,000 people stood in front of the canton government building. They demanded the resignation of the city's mayor and the prime minister of the canton. Unfortunately, in one incident some of the angry protestors threw stones at the canton building, and this rather took the wind out of the sails of this movement, for the time being.
Darko says that although his movement lacked a strategy for building on the energy of these protests, they did attract some new activists. Dosta is currently working to expand and unite more groups of people, including student groups, in the grassroots movement. Darko agreed with Jasmin's assessment that change could only take place through the electoral process.
*
While I was following the Bosnian elections, people in Bosnia were watching those in the United States. Bosniaks were somewhat wistfully wishing for the election of Hillary, of Clinton fame. And as Obama was gaining steam, my friend Iva said to me, during a discussion of nationalism, that anything that made people feel that they were better than others was not acceptable. In that context, she wondered "why it was necessary for Obama to state that the United States was the greatest nation in the world."
2. "QUEER SARAJEVO FESTIVAL": Threats in advance
As I was arriving in Sarajevo in early September, a new scandal was brewing. Some young gay and lesbian people had been preparing to hold a "Queer Festival" in Sarajevo. This was not going to include a parade, but would present a photography exhibit, hold a public panel discussion, and show some films. Gay activists from around the region were going to attend. Association Q, the organization preparing the event, was observing its sixth year of activity. Its goals were to "offer a space in which we will evoke and reexamine heteronormativity and patriarchic values." (For the Queer Festival's web site, see http://www.queer.ba/qsf-en.htm)
In Zagreb there has been a gay parade for several years. There were violent incidents at first, but the local response has since calmed down. In Belgrade, there have been two parades. The first, in 2001, was met with such violence that there was not another attempt to hold a parade until mid-September of this year. There were attacks again, with one participant hospitalized and two attackers arrested.
In Sarajevo, opposition to the gay festival was going strong by August, and it was wide-ranging and vicious. At one end, posters appeared on the streets reading "Death to Gays." Someone founded a group on Facebook called, "Stop the gay parade in Sarajevo during Ramadan." On another web site, someone wrote in and said of the participants, “They should be bathed with gasoline and set ablaze.” Other people called for the festival's organizers to be attacked with baseball bats or molotov cocktails, subject to impaling, or run out of Bosnia.
At the high end, public officials condemned the event, and some media incited the public against it. The objections went like this: "That behavior is rejected by Islam, and it's a provocation that they are organizing the festival to happen during Ramadan."
A couple of prominent Imams, including Seid efendija Smajkic of Mostar, spoke out. Smajkic said, "We will not grab them by the neck on the street, but we have to say: This is immoral ... a promotion of ideas that are in violation with religion" (published in the Sarajevo daily, Dnevni Avaz). He added, “Freedom and democracy should not be used to promote deviant ideas and garbage imported from the West...We are certainly for a free society, but healthy ideas and healthy life must be nurtured.”
Representatives from Bosnia's other ethnicities got in on the act, providing a rare instance of agreement across ethnic lines: The general secretary of Milorad Dodik's party, the SNSD, said of homosexuality that "it is unnatural, sick and deviant behavior." Bosnian Croat politicians and clerics voiced similar opinions. The top Muslim cleric in the country, Reis Mustafa ef. Ceric, kept quiet.
Member of the Bosnian Parliament Amila Alikadic-Husovic declared that homosexuality was an "illness should be cured, and not supported." Later, she admitted that she had recently learned that homosexuality was no longer classified as an illness (for at least the last 30 years), but she was not apologetic. Mayor of Sarajevo Semiha Borovac condemned the death threat posters, but said that the festival should not be held during Ramadan.
When Start magazine writer Samir Sestan said, “With such democrats, who needs fascists?”, he nailed it. According to its constitution, Bosnia-Herzegovina is a secular society. It is a signatory to all the relevant international human rights conventions, including those that specifically protect gay rights. But these modern principles have not been well-assimilated into the patriarchal culture of Bosnia. Just as important, the violence and aggression of the past two decades has elevated mistrust of the "other" to the top rank of prevailing ethics. Sarajevo is touted as a city of tolerance, the multi-cultural city that, for example, welcomed the Jews exiled from Catholic Spain. This tolerance was showing wear and tear in August.
Some human rights activists and otherwise pro-democracy figures lapsed and joined in the criticism, suggesting that the event should have been scheduled outside of Ramadan. In response the coalition "Odgovornost" (Responsibility), composed of a dozen-odd NGOs and civil human rights organizations, reminded the public that in Bosnia, as a secular society, it is neither required nor possible for all events to be "synchronized with different religious calendars." The coalition described the festival as a "test to show whether Bosnia was truly democratic."
Among the political parties, only Nasa Stranka and the Liberal Party expressed support for the festival, which was to be partially funded with donations from the Dutch, Canadian and Swiss Embassies. The silence, on the part of people who should have reacted in defense of the event, was every bit as inappropriate as the attacks.
Besides the incitement by prominent individuals against the festival, parts of the media were involved. A late-August edition of Avaz published the blaring headline: "Provocative Gay Gathering during Ramadan! - BiH Public against Queer Festival in SA," and went on to print that "Bosnian politicians and most religious leaders think that this festival shouldn't be held during Ramadan, and some think that homosexuality is a disease."
A few magazines and radio stations defended the upcoming festival. These outlets received telephoned and written death threats. Dani magazine published a couple of relatively articulate, if angry, criticisms that it received. In one, an imam attacked Dani for expressing "anti-Muslim" opinions that were a "holdover from Communism." Another writer warned that the world-wide Mason conspiracy was promoting anti-Muslim, degenerate Western values in order to destroy Bosnian society, and asked, "Would you like to see your children marching in a gay parade, holding hands with others of the same sex?"
In a rare response from someone in the political establishment, a legal advisor to member of the Presidency Haris Silajdzic wrote that "anyone who is getting votes by justifying hatred on the basis of religious feelings misunderstands the meaning of religion. Homophobia, like Islamophobia, is a subgroup of xenophobia. The same rules apply to gender issues that apply to discrimination on the basis of race and religion."
Amnesty International and the OSCE issued statements of concern about the threats of violence against the festival. In a clarifying statement, organizers of the festival noted that it was to be a festival of arts and culture, and that it was not intentional that it coincided with Ramadan. As the festival approached, several venues cancelled their agreements to host events, citing the need to "repair the ventilation system" or other excuses.
A festival spokesperson voiced the hope that there would be no violence, saying that she was counting on the protection of the police department and a private security agency. But commentator Asim Beslija wrote, referring to Ramadan, "And while sins are being confessed, and people are behaving in a humble and pious manner, under the table the knives are being sharpened and the clubs are being grasped. It is good to kill at least one queer..."
*
DEFEAT IN HOLLAND: Dutch Court Rejects Srebrenica Lawsuit
Hasan Nuhanovic, a survivor from Srebrenica, filed a suit several years ago against the Dutch government, together with the family of another former employee of the Dutch battalion in Srebrenica. The lawsuit charged the Dutch with criminal involvement in the massacre of at least 8,000 Bosniak men and boys, which took place upon the fall of Srebrenica in July of 1995. On September 10th, Hasan's claim was rejected in the first-instance District Court at The Hague.
During the war Hasan, living in Srebrenica, was a young interpreter for the Dutch Battalion, which was tasked by the UN with defending that enclave. Upon Srebrenica's fall, thousands of residents fled to the Dutchbat base ahead of the advancing Serb forces. The Dutch allowed 5,000 refugees to enter their base, and then welded shut a hole in the fence. After negotiating with the arriving Serbs, the Dutch decided to hand the Bosniaks on their base over to General Mladic's troops.
Most of the men in that group were killed, and the women and children were expelled from Serb-controlled territory, driven to the front line and dumped there. Hasan still had protection from the Dutch because he was their employee. But Dutch officers ordered him to tell his mother, father, and brother that they were to leave the base. He never saw them again.
This story is written in greater detail in other places, such as Emir Suljanovic's Postcards from the Grave, and Hasan's own, recently-published book, Under the UN Flag. For anyone who wants to know the story of what happened in Srebrenica, and especially for anyone who is inclined to be forgiving towards the Dutch, this book is absolutely necessary. With painstaking detail, Hasan provides an airtight condemnation of the Dutch troops' active cooperation with Serb forces, especially, but not exclusively, at the time of the fall of the enclave.
After the Dutch District Court's rejection of Hasan's lawsuit, Hasan told a magazine interviewer that he had not expected much from the court, but he was glad that the court was finally forced to address the issue of Dutch responsibility in a serious way. Hasan said,
"The Dutch court used the phrase 'Under the UN Flag' several times, but there were two flags [the UN flag and that of the Netherlands] there at the time that the Dutch were expelling my family and 5,000 more people from the base. I saw this with my own eyes.
"In my opinion, the Dutch are responsible for participating in a war crime. They actively controlled the situation, deciding to drive people from the base and to hand them over to the Serb forces. Not one official organ of the Dutch government has answered the question of how to legally address the act of handing over the refugees.
"They have in fact admitted that they knew ahead of the handover that there were people who had already been killed; they saw the bodies....but they left open the question of who drove people from the base, as if it was the Serbs who did it."
Hasan explains that Dutchbat, instead of handing the refugees over to the Serbs, had the power to allow more of them, at least the males, to enter the base. But the Dutch were more concerned with smoothing the way towards their own safe departure than with the safety of the Srebrenicans.
The Dutch court denied that the Dutch government had any responsibility for what happened in Srebrenica, and said that the appropriate place to address this question was the UN. However, the same District Court had previously judged that the UN had "absolute immunity" with regard to the massacre.
A friend of mine who works at the Bosnian war crimes court said, "Where politics meets justice, politics wins. So the ICJ [World Court] didn't decide to convict Serbia of genocide, because of the possible repercussions in other countries where such things have happened, thus preventing the payment of restitution. The same thing happened with Nuhanovic's case with the Dutch government. They weren't about to convict themselves."
When I met with Hasan later in the month, he told me that he was planning to appeal the decision all the way to the EU human rights court in Strasbourg. But this will take years.
For more information on this case and the history of the Srebrenica massacre, see http://srebrenica-genocide.blogspot.com/2008/05/under-un-flag-international-community.html
and
DomovinaNet page on Srebrenica
and
Wikipedia entry on Srebrenica Genocide (recommended to me by Hasan Nuhanovic)
and
Balkan Witness: The Srebrenica Debate
###
Next -- Bosnia-Herzegovina journal #3: A visit to Srebrenica
1. BOSNIA'S MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS
The nationwide pre-election campaign for municipal assemblies and mayors was in full swing when I arrived early in September. Over 3,000 assembly seats and some 140 mayoral positions were to be contested.
Elections in Bosnia take place every two years, with state and entity polls alternating with municipal races. Every election is a circus in which most candidates compete with each other to see who can raise tensions higher through the use of nationalist rhetoric. In the context of this time-proven campaign method, the rhetoric of fear and mistrust recalls the fraught discourse that dominated the pre-war period. As such, it is unavoidable that a very tense atmosphere will prevail.
A high point in the manipulation took place when Haris Silajdzic, Bosniak member of the three-person state-level Presidency, gave a speech before the UN General Assembly on September 23rd. There, Silajdzic called on the U.N. to "reverse the recognition of the Republika Srpska," which, as he terms it, is a "genocidal creation." He was not speaking for the Presidency, which has trouble crafting a unanimous position on just about any issue. As his counterparts -- mainly Serb politicians -- were quick to point out, Silajdzic was speaking for himself.
This speech, and a similar one that Silajdzic later gave before the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, caused an outcry from RS Prime Minister Dodik and his spokesmen. Always quick to respond to any perceived call to abolish the Republika Srpska, Dodik's followers voiced their oft-repeated threat to call a referendum, to be held in the RS only, on the question of secession from Bosnia-Herzegovina.
This back-and-forth verbal warfare was of great use to the nationalist parties during the election campaign. It worked to reinforce the voters' perception that they could only identify as members of one ethnicity or another, rather than as citizens with common interests. As such, they could only vote for the candidates who said that they held their constituents' "national interests" at heart -- even though what a "national interest" is, and why it always takes precedence over all citizens' needs for stability and economic recovery, have never been clarified.
For the rest of the campaign period, and beyond, the issue of abolition of the RS versus secession of that entity from Bosnia dominated the discussion. It didn't matter that this was unrelated to the local elections. It was a sideshow that upstaged the relevant issues -- but that was not an accident.
In fact, a media monitoring organization conducted a review of thousands of press releases and other pronouncements by the various political parties during the campaign, and found that a relatively small number of statements -- under a third -- pertained to local issues whatsoever. A much smaller number of statements, only around one hundred altogether, actually offered solutions to local problems.
While dust was being thrown in the eyes of the 3-million-odd voting population, other ways of swinging the vote were also underway. The clichéd practice of direct vote-buying was uncovered in some locations in both entities. This was implemented particularly in municipalities where the vote was expected to be close, such as Doboj, where Dodik's SNSD was trailing the SDS (the party founded by Radovan Karadzic). There, seventeen SDS activists were arrested a few days before the election, on suspicion of vote bribery.
Another somewhat transparent manipulation that promised an advantage to any local ruling party was the timely allocation of municipal funds for civic improvement in the months immediately before the elections. Such improvements included repair and upgrading of sports facilities, planting of new lawns, and installation of water fountains and public monuments. In some cases, spending on such projects in a two-month period equaled the expenditure for the entire previous year.
One enduring scandal involved the threatened rejection of the right of thousands of absentee voters to post their ballots by mail, due to "lack of proof of citizenship." This number included over 2,000 Bosnian Croats from northern Bosnia residing in Croatia, who wished to vote by mail. Their votes could significantly affect the outcome in some elections.
Just as scandalous was the involvement of high police officials in the RS in providing false identification -- and thus eligibility to vote -- to criminals and citizens from neighboring countries. In Brcko, some people who were illegally provided with new ID even registered the local government building as their home address.
The Bosnian state police agency, SIPA, arrested around twenty such officials in May, and another eight in September. These included top police commanders in Srebrenica and Bijeljina, and the head of the identification administration in Bijeljina. Upon the September arrests, top RS police officials complained that only the entity police had the right to arrest their own employees. These top police officials were the same ones who had cleared the appointment of the Bijeljina ID. official.
In response to these campaign manipulations, some concerned members of Parliament from an opposition party suggested that elections in some municipalities should be postponed, but this idea was rejected by the central elections commission.
The strongest non-nationalist opposition party in Bosnia is the Social Democrat Party, led by Zlatko Lagumdzija. Lagumdzija has for years written and said very reasonable things, but his party has lost popularity steadily over the years. It doesn't help that the SDP, reformed heir of the pre-war Communist Party, still works on the model of CP leadership, where the party's image is defined by one autocratic personality. (This is true of other parties as well.) Nor does it help that that personality, Lagumdzija, is one of the most wealthy politicians in Bosnia. He owns two fine apartments in central Sarajevo; an office building in Skenderija; a huge parcel of land with a summer house in the resort area of Poljine; an apartment in Dubrovnik; and a very comfortable savings account.
This year, a new non-nationalist party made a splash: Nasa Stranka ("Our Party"). NS was founded by an independent politician from the RS, with significant backing from Bosnia's best-known film-maker, Danis Tanovic, who won an Oscar for best foreign film for "No Man's Land" a few years ago. Tanovic is a non-nationalist who says many reasonable things, and seems to want to move the electoral and political process out of the hands of the finagling elite. He has been living in Paris since the war, but moved back to Bosnia recently, saying, "I want to live in this country, but I want it to be a country that my children can thrive in."
Nasa Stranka fielded candidates throughout Bosnia. Many of them were former SDP members, and others were prominent artists and intellectuals. You couldn't say that they represented as strong a movement as that of Barack Obama in the US, but among some people, they provided a measure of hope.
Another new multi-ethnic party made a small ripple, but it interested me because its principles were more in harmony with grassroots activism than with traditional electoral politics. That is the Pokret Mladih, which means "Movement of Youth." While in Bosnia there is generally a strong distinction between a movement and a political party, Pokret Mladih seemed to straddle the fence.
I talked with Jasmin Vedran Mehicevic, leader of Pokret Mladih. The party was campaigning in about twenty municipal races. Jasmin told me, "We have Serb candidates in our party in Trebinje and in Laktasi. It does no good to have a multi-ethnic political party in places where there is not a multi-ethnic voting body." I asked him if his candidates in those ethnically-cleansed towns were at all progressive. He said, "Anyone in a party in the RS with 'Bosnia-Herzegovina' in its name is forward-thinking."
Jasmin described the way that the odds were stacked against newer parties. During the 1990s, the OSCE helped to fund all parties' campaigns, but this is no longer the case. Now, parties receive governmental funding for campaigns only after they have been elected. What's more, the advertising companies are controlled by the larger political parties which, naturally, discriminate in distribution of advertising resources. Jasmin also told me, "One second on television costs ten KM (around $7.00). So a ten-second spot, every day for ten days, costs 1,000 KM." Pokret Mladih and Nasa Stranka simply did not have the resources for such advertising. Perhaps to its advantage, Pokret Mladih's youthful candidates -- and their graffiti-esque posters -- probably attracted some new young, otherwise jaded, voters.
Speaking of division among the multi-ethnic parties, Jasmin said that there are "at least seven good parties." His activists broke away from a party that had earlier split off from the SDP. He said, "The SDP is essentially a good party. The multi-ethnic parties should unite, but they can't, because all the leaders want to be the main leader. Each leader thinks they are the smartest, and they won't cooperate with each other. If we were to unite, there would be results.... Everyone would go into the SDP if it were without Lagumdzija. Zlatko Lagumdzija is someone who is wrecking his party."
I asked Jasmin about the relevance of "Dosta!" (Enough!) and other non-governmental organizations -- sometimes not even registered as NGOs -- that organize street protests. Could they help to make change happen in Bosnia? He answered, "The problems with the government can't be solved on the street, only in the government...The only change in government can happen in the elections.
I also had a chance to speak with Darko Brkan, a leader of Dosta. This group, which grew out of the successful conscientious objector movement, has been working on various civil rights issues for around four years. (see http://www.dosta.org/) It has activists in five or six cities, in both entities. Dosta's activities include protesting utility price hikes and corruption, fighting anti-Roma racism, generally promoting grassroots activism, and most recently, protesting street violence that seriously affects the population in the larger cities.
In February, some high school students randomly attacked and killed a seventeen-year-old, Denis Mrnjavac, on a streetcar. This shocked the citizens of Sarajevo, who had observed that the city government failed to respond in any effective way after several other similar murders. Fed up, people came out onto the streets and demonstrated for two months. In the largest protests since the war, between 5,000 and 6,000 people stood in front of the canton government building. They demanded the resignation of the city's mayor and the prime minister of the canton. Unfortunately, in one incident some of the angry protestors threw stones at the canton building, and this rather took the wind out of the sails of this movement, for the time being.
Darko says that although his movement lacked a strategy for building on the energy of these protests, they did attract some new activists. Dosta is currently working to expand and unite more groups of people, including student groups, in the grassroots movement. Darko agreed with Jasmin's assessment that change could only take place through the electoral process.
*
While I was following the Bosnian elections, people in Bosnia were watching those in the United States. Bosniaks were somewhat wistfully wishing for the election of Hillary, of Clinton fame. And as Obama was gaining steam, my friend Iva said to me, during a discussion of nationalism, that anything that made people feel that they were better than others was not acceptable. In that context, she wondered "why it was necessary for Obama to state that the United States was the greatest nation in the world."
2. "QUEER SARAJEVO FESTIVAL": Threats in advance
As I was arriving in Sarajevo in early September, a new scandal was brewing. Some young gay and lesbian people had been preparing to hold a "Queer Festival" in Sarajevo. This was not going to include a parade, but would present a photography exhibit, hold a public panel discussion, and show some films. Gay activists from around the region were going to attend. Association Q, the organization preparing the event, was observing its sixth year of activity. Its goals were to "offer a space in which we will evoke and reexamine heteronormativity and patriarchic values." (For the Queer Festival's web site, see http://www.queer.ba/qsf-en.htm)
In Zagreb there has been a gay parade for several years. There were violent incidents at first, but the local response has since calmed down. In Belgrade, there have been two parades. The first, in 2001, was met with such violence that there was not another attempt to hold a parade until mid-September of this year. There were attacks again, with one participant hospitalized and two attackers arrested.
In Sarajevo, opposition to the gay festival was going strong by August, and it was wide-ranging and vicious. At one end, posters appeared on the streets reading "Death to Gays." Someone founded a group on Facebook called, "Stop the gay parade in Sarajevo during Ramadan." On another web site, someone wrote in and said of the participants, “They should be bathed with gasoline and set ablaze.” Other people called for the festival's organizers to be attacked with baseball bats or molotov cocktails, subject to impaling, or run out of Bosnia.
At the high end, public officials condemned the event, and some media incited the public against it. The objections went like this: "That behavior is rejected by Islam, and it's a provocation that they are organizing the festival to happen during Ramadan."
A couple of prominent Imams, including Seid efendija Smajkic of Mostar, spoke out. Smajkic said, "We will not grab them by the neck on the street, but we have to say: This is immoral ... a promotion of ideas that are in violation with religion" (published in the Sarajevo daily, Dnevni Avaz). He added, “Freedom and democracy should not be used to promote deviant ideas and garbage imported from the West...We are certainly for a free society, but healthy ideas and healthy life must be nurtured.”
Representatives from Bosnia's other ethnicities got in on the act, providing a rare instance of agreement across ethnic lines: The general secretary of Milorad Dodik's party, the SNSD, said of homosexuality that "it is unnatural, sick and deviant behavior." Bosnian Croat politicians and clerics voiced similar opinions. The top Muslim cleric in the country, Reis Mustafa ef. Ceric, kept quiet.
Member of the Bosnian Parliament Amila Alikadic-Husovic declared that homosexuality was an "illness should be cured, and not supported." Later, she admitted that she had recently learned that homosexuality was no longer classified as an illness (for at least the last 30 years), but she was not apologetic. Mayor of Sarajevo Semiha Borovac condemned the death threat posters, but said that the festival should not be held during Ramadan.
When Start magazine writer Samir Sestan said, “With such democrats, who needs fascists?”, he nailed it. According to its constitution, Bosnia-Herzegovina is a secular society. It is a signatory to all the relevant international human rights conventions, including those that specifically protect gay rights. But these modern principles have not been well-assimilated into the patriarchal culture of Bosnia. Just as important, the violence and aggression of the past two decades has elevated mistrust of the "other" to the top rank of prevailing ethics. Sarajevo is touted as a city of tolerance, the multi-cultural city that, for example, welcomed the Jews exiled from Catholic Spain. This tolerance was showing wear and tear in August.
Some human rights activists and otherwise pro-democracy figures lapsed and joined in the criticism, suggesting that the event should have been scheduled outside of Ramadan. In response the coalition "Odgovornost" (Responsibility), composed of a dozen-odd NGOs and civil human rights organizations, reminded the public that in Bosnia, as a secular society, it is neither required nor possible for all events to be "synchronized with different religious calendars." The coalition described the festival as a "test to show whether Bosnia was truly democratic."
Among the political parties, only Nasa Stranka and the Liberal Party expressed support for the festival, which was to be partially funded with donations from the Dutch, Canadian and Swiss Embassies. The silence, on the part of people who should have reacted in defense of the event, was every bit as inappropriate as the attacks.
Besides the incitement by prominent individuals against the festival, parts of the media were involved. A late-August edition of Avaz published the blaring headline: "Provocative Gay Gathering during Ramadan! - BiH Public against Queer Festival in SA," and went on to print that "Bosnian politicians and most religious leaders think that this festival shouldn't be held during Ramadan, and some think that homosexuality is a disease."
A few magazines and radio stations defended the upcoming festival. These outlets received telephoned and written death threats. Dani magazine published a couple of relatively articulate, if angry, criticisms that it received. In one, an imam attacked Dani for expressing "anti-Muslim" opinions that were a "holdover from Communism." Another writer warned that the world-wide Mason conspiracy was promoting anti-Muslim, degenerate Western values in order to destroy Bosnian society, and asked, "Would you like to see your children marching in a gay parade, holding hands with others of the same sex?"
In a rare response from someone in the political establishment, a legal advisor to member of the Presidency Haris Silajdzic wrote that "anyone who is getting votes by justifying hatred on the basis of religious feelings misunderstands the meaning of religion. Homophobia, like Islamophobia, is a subgroup of xenophobia. The same rules apply to gender issues that apply to discrimination on the basis of race and religion."
Amnesty International and the OSCE issued statements of concern about the threats of violence against the festival. In a clarifying statement, organizers of the festival noted that it was to be a festival of arts and culture, and that it was not intentional that it coincided with Ramadan. As the festival approached, several venues cancelled their agreements to host events, citing the need to "repair the ventilation system" or other excuses.
A festival spokesperson voiced the hope that there would be no violence, saying that she was counting on the protection of the police department and a private security agency. But commentator Asim Beslija wrote, referring to Ramadan, "And while sins are being confessed, and people are behaving in a humble and pious manner, under the table the knives are being sharpened and the clubs are being grasped. It is good to kill at least one queer..."
*
DEFEAT IN HOLLAND: Dutch Court Rejects Srebrenica Lawsuit
Hasan Nuhanovic, a survivor from Srebrenica, filed a suit several years ago against the Dutch government, together with the family of another former employee of the Dutch battalion in Srebrenica. The lawsuit charged the Dutch with criminal involvement in the massacre of at least 8,000 Bosniak men and boys, which took place upon the fall of Srebrenica in July of 1995. On September 10th, Hasan's claim was rejected in the first-instance District Court at The Hague.
During the war Hasan, living in Srebrenica, was a young interpreter for the Dutch Battalion, which was tasked by the UN with defending that enclave. Upon Srebrenica's fall, thousands of residents fled to the Dutchbat base ahead of the advancing Serb forces. The Dutch allowed 5,000 refugees to enter their base, and then welded shut a hole in the fence. After negotiating with the arriving Serbs, the Dutch decided to hand the Bosniaks on their base over to General Mladic's troops.
Most of the men in that group were killed, and the women and children were expelled from Serb-controlled territory, driven to the front line and dumped there. Hasan still had protection from the Dutch because he was their employee. But Dutch officers ordered him to tell his mother, father, and brother that they were to leave the base. He never saw them again.
This story is written in greater detail in other places, such as Emir Suljanovic's Postcards from the Grave, and Hasan's own, recently-published book, Under the UN Flag. For anyone who wants to know the story of what happened in Srebrenica, and especially for anyone who is inclined to be forgiving towards the Dutch, this book is absolutely necessary. With painstaking detail, Hasan provides an airtight condemnation of the Dutch troops' active cooperation with Serb forces, especially, but not exclusively, at the time of the fall of the enclave.
After the Dutch District Court's rejection of Hasan's lawsuit, Hasan told a magazine interviewer that he had not expected much from the court, but he was glad that the court was finally forced to address the issue of Dutch responsibility in a serious way. Hasan said,
"The Dutch court used the phrase 'Under the UN Flag' several times, but there were two flags [the UN flag and that of the Netherlands] there at the time that the Dutch were expelling my family and 5,000 more people from the base. I saw this with my own eyes.
"In my opinion, the Dutch are responsible for participating in a war crime. They actively controlled the situation, deciding to drive people from the base and to hand them over to the Serb forces. Not one official organ of the Dutch government has answered the question of how to legally address the act of handing over the refugees.
"They have in fact admitted that they knew ahead of the handover that there were people who had already been killed; they saw the bodies....but they left open the question of who drove people from the base, as if it was the Serbs who did it."
Hasan explains that Dutchbat, instead of handing the refugees over to the Serbs, had the power to allow more of them, at least the males, to enter the base. But the Dutch were more concerned with smoothing the way towards their own safe departure than with the safety of the Srebrenicans.
The Dutch court denied that the Dutch government had any responsibility for what happened in Srebrenica, and said that the appropriate place to address this question was the UN. However, the same District Court had previously judged that the UN had "absolute immunity" with regard to the massacre.
A friend of mine who works at the Bosnian war crimes court said, "Where politics meets justice, politics wins. So the ICJ [World Court] didn't decide to convict Serbia of genocide, because of the possible repercussions in other countries where such things have happened, thus preventing the payment of restitution. The same thing happened with Nuhanovic's case with the Dutch government. They weren't about to convict themselves."
When I met with Hasan later in the month, he told me that he was planning to appeal the decision all the way to the EU human rights court in Strasbourg. But this will take years.
For more information on this case and the history of the Srebrenica massacre, see http://srebrenica-genocide.blogspot.com/2008/05/under-un-flag-international-community.html
and
DomovinaNet page on Srebrenica
and
Wikipedia entry on Srebrenica Genocide (recommended to me by Hasan Nuhanovic)
and
Balkan Witness: The Srebrenica Debate
###
Next -- Bosnia-Herzegovina journal #3: A visit to Srebrenica
Saturday, December 13, 2008
UN Mission in Kosova Muzzles Woman's Right Advocate
As if we didn't need another reason to condemn the United Nation's ill-advised attempt to appease Serb extremist sentiment by violating Kosova's sovereignty, the UN is now taking it upon itself to dictate the limits of participation in civil society.
Please read the link at Advocacy Project.
Once again, the UN manages to screw things up in the former Yugoslavia. These people seem positively addicted to partition and capitulation.
Please read the link at Advocacy Project.
Once again, the UN manages to screw things up in the former Yugoslavia. These people seem positively addicted to partition and capitulation.
Friday, December 12, 2008
Journalist Peter Lippman--Travel Journal to Bosnia-Herzegovina Part I
JOURNALIST PETER LIPPMAN HAS BEEN KIND ENOUGH TO INCLUDE ME ON A DISTRIBUTION LIST FOR HIS JOURNAL REPORTING HIS RECENT TRIP TO BOSNIA. I WILL BE PASSING HIS JOURNAL ENTRIES ALONG TO MY READERS. PLEASE ENJOY.
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Bosnia-Herzegovina journal #1: Sarajevo and Bosnia
Hello friends,
This is the first of a new series of journals. I almost never send out journals unless I have been traveling outside of the United States; the last one I sent was just a check-in around December of 2007. Now, for the first time since 2006, I have traveled again. I recently came back from a six-week visit to Bosnia-Herzegovina, with a short visit to Bucharest at the end.
Note: Most of you are on my distribution list because you requested to be put there. If you don't wish to receive these journals, just let me know.
And you are welcome to forward these journals.
I traveled to Bosnia this year in order to refresh my impressions about the country, to discern new trends, and to catch up with old friends and colleagues. Since I am writing a book about the place, it's not good to stay away for too long. This visit was shorter than usual, and I had to hustle to get to the ten towns and cities that I most wished to visit, and to make the approximately 35 interviews that I made. While there's no limit to the information you can gather there - and I am a compulsive information-getter - I am fairly satisfied with what I got.
Besides general updating, I also paid close attention to the nationwide municipal election campaign that was taking place. Any election campaign in Bosnia is an occasion for the renewed, creative expression of nationalist tension, and for a free-for-all of mud-slinging and fear-mongering. Since the war, all politics has been taking place in the context of a country with a barely functioning state, carelessly administered by the international community. So during the elections, the internecine dynamics of the domestic political infrastructure, staffed by war profiteers and their political successors, come into high contrast. And the interaction of domestic political maneuvers with international officials, whose goals are much more obscure than their rhetoric would pretend, is also something worth examining.
The following journals will be about these dynamics and interactions, as I observed them during my travels through much of Bosnia-Herzegovina, from Sarajevo to eastern Bosnia, over to the Krajina (northwest Bosnia), and down to western Herzegovina. As important to me as the politics of Bosnia is the way that the ordinary citizens of the country respond, over the long term, to the wrenching changes that have taken place in their lives. As always, I have sought and found people - in no way ordinary - who are trying to work with those changes in a positive way.
Some people's personal details have been changed, in order to protect their privacy.
yours, Peter
*
SARAJEVO
It is always a bit of a wonder to return to Sarajevo after some time, and to see what has been fixed. It's a beautiful city, situated in a valley among the mountains. Sarajevo is a good place for walking. All you have to do is walk a few minutes up any road perpendicular to the main street, and you can see the whole town. Foreigners love Sarajevo because of what they don't know. Sometimes, they explore more of the city than the local residents.
On my return, I walked around the city from my hillside neighborhood of Vratnik down to Bas Carsija (the old Turkish section of Sarajevo) and then to Skenderija. I spotted lots of new, little changes. The main government building in Marin Dvor has been repaired and shines sky-blue. The Americans are building an enormous new embassy up the street, where the old Tito barracks once stood disintegrating. Some other old buildings have been torn down -- some falling apart since the war, and some deteriorating for much longer than that. Investors are building a new tower by the twin-tower Unitic buildings in the same neighborhood. The most striking thing of all is the gleaming new Avaz building, a twist tower just across from the train station. It looks like a city monument on the scale of the Space Needle. It is also a monument to the outsized ego and ambitions of Fahrudin Radoncic, local magnate, ever-active meddler in politics, and owner of Sarajevo's most popular daily newspaper, Dnevni Avaz.
Closer into town, more of the old Austro-Hungarian buildings have been restored to their old loveliness, brighter than they probably ever looked since World War II. And there are many new kafanas (pubs). One near the Bas Carsija is called "Bill Gates," with his nerdy likeness displayed in a bright neon sign on the front.
The old blue Sarajka department store was demolished a few years ago. Built in 1984 for the Olympics, it was a solid contender for status as the ugliest building in town. Now the replacement building, all blocky concrete and glass, is almost finished. And they are finally restoring the stately old Evropa Hotel, where my landlord Senad worked before the war. After 15 years crumbling, its Austro-Hungarian façade is a pleasant maroon and white.
There are now ATMs on practically every corner downtown, where there used to be only a few. The pickpockets, though less obvious, are always something to watch out for. They work in teams, and are especially active on the streetcars - and in the vicinity of the ATMs. On the streetcars, they take advantage of the crowded periods, which are their working hours. Sometimes they use a razor to cut the straps of a woman's purse, or simply to slit open a bag and remove the wallet. Cell phones are a most popular item to steal. I read in the newspaper that a young man whose cell phone had been stolen called his own phone number, and the person who answered said, "The telephone can be yours again, if you leave 20 KM (convertible marks, the Bosnian currency, worth anywhere between $0.60 and $0.75) on the park bench." The ransom was paid and the man received his phone back.
Besides Sarajevo's façade in reconstruction, the other thing that strikes the eye is the preponderance of campaign posters around town, leading up to the municipal elections scheduled for October 5th. Posters for SDA candidates (Bosniak nationalist party founded by now-deceased President Alija Izetbegovic) are the most common. They tend to be photos of a group of fifteen or twenty middle-aged functionaries who, from the bland and seedy look of them, I'd rather trust to run a funeral home than my home town.
There is graffiti here and there that reads, "Haris 100% izdaja," referring to Haris Silajdzic, Bosniak (Muslim) member of the presidency: "100% betrayal." The slogan of Silajdzic's party, SBiH (Party for Bosnia), is "100%," that is, 100% for employment, 100% for Europe, and so on. He was elected in 2006, and apparently, not everyone is happy with the fulfillment of his party's promises.
Graffiti in Sarajevo:
"How can I live here, when my blood pressure is higher than my pension?"
A voice from the ordinary people breaks through the election clamor. Prices on everything from fuel to bread have been rising drastically all year. My landlady Minka said to me,
"They raised our pensions 7 KM (around $3.50), but meat doubled in price, from 15 to 20 km. The politicians doubled their salaries; some of them get 10,000 km monthly. But the people are to blame. They complain and shout, but they should go to the government and throw them out. Someone calls me on the phone and says, 'are you going to vote?' I say, 'And who am I going to vote for? For another thief, another cretin?'"
When in Sarajevo I stay at Senad and Minka's house in Vratnik, on the hill above the Bas Carsija. I'm often there in the month of Ramadan, as happened this September. In this month there is an air of humility and spiritual concentration in observant homes, as people eat before dawn, fast all day, and then prepare a special meal, Iftar, for sundown. In Vratnik, the loud boom of a cannon announces the fast breaking, and the table is set within minutes. Usually there are visitors for Iftar.
In my neighborhood there are mosques in every direction. They aren't synchronized; five times a day the muezzins start their prayer call at almost the same time. The first muezzin starts, and then another, and a couple more, until you hear them near and far. And for a moment, all the dogs in the neighborhood join in a-barking, as well.
Bajram (called al-Eid in Arabic) is the several-day holiday that takes place at the end of Ramadan, which this year coincided with the end of September. A calm festivity prevails in Sarajevo, now a Muslim-dominated city, with people wishing each other a good holiday, visiting their closest relatives, and bringing gifts of sweet food.
It happened that Rosh Hashonah took place as well during these days, and I attended a service in the chapel of the ancient stone synagogue, which has long served as the Jewish museum. During the war and through the 1990s it was closed and used for storage, then refurbished and reopened a few years ago. Before leaving the building after the service, I rushed upstairs to view the huge book on display. This is the book of names of the 10,000-odd Sarajevo Jews who were killed during World War II.
Afterwards, I took part in the celebration and social gathering at the Jewish community center, located in the newest synagogue. This was built by the Ashkenazi minority of the (otherwise Sephardic) Jewish community, in 1903. In recent times it has been the only active synagogue and gathering place for all of Sarajevo's mixed, but dwindling, Jewish community. There, we shared wine and the traditional apples and honey, that the New Year may be a sweet one.
CORRUPTION
Note: this section may seem dense to some readers, but it touches upon the essence of what it takes to understand Bosnia today.
For some operators in politics and business, the coming year is sure to be a sweet one. These people tend to be members of political parties and/or informal clans formed during or even before the war, and they rose to power and riches in the turbulence of the 1990s. It is not an exaggeration to say that the newspapers print a story nearly every day about some instance of corruption, large or small. Since most of the newspapers are, at least unofficially, affiliated with one political party or another, the cases they treat pertain to members of other parties.
One figure whose name is very often associated with corruption these days is Nedzad Brankovic, the current prime minister of the Bosnian Federation (one of two "entities," along with the Serb-controlled Republika Srpska, that comprise Bosnia). Before entering the government, Brankovic was director of Energoinvest, one of the Federation's strongest state-owned companies. While holding that position, he participated in selling off rich assets of the energy production and management company at ridiculously low prices. He also blocked development of Bosnia's oil terminal on the coast, leaving oil import prices subject to extortion by foreign providers. Brankovic was thus considered responsible for the outlandishly high price of fuel in Bosnia this fall, at a time when the world price had fallen around forty percent.
Brankovic, closely connected to the conservative wing of the SDA, has consistently taken measures that prevented development of the oil refinery and distribution infrastructure in the Federation, and in general prevented the revitalization of the energy sector, in favor of criminal privatization deals that helped his own business associates. A proposal for industry reform, submitted by managers of one section of the oil infrastructure, stated, "There is not a single reason why the oil economy in the Federation should be controlled by a group of private businessmen and other suspicious interests."
The obstruction of development by Brankovic and his cronies has cost the Federation hundreds of millions of KM in revenue. A mid-level director in the oil distribution system commented on Brankovic's participation: "On the legal level, the state has done nothing to prevent chaos in the oil market or to sanction the behind-the-scenes plunder of the citizens, and to take the situation under control. However, it is not a simple thing to prevent Brankovic, together with his 'competent' cadre, from continuing to plunder, destroy, and sell off the property and development potential for the construction of the Federation's economy." (Some of the information on Brankovic is from Dani #597, November 21, 2008)
Meanwhile, Brankovic has purchased a fine apartment for himself, and decorated it ostentatiously with expensive artwork. None of this makes the prime minister popular with people in Bosnia. In fact, Brankovic possesses a country mansion, a five-bedroom apartment in Sarajevo (bought for him by Energoinvest and the Federation government), an apartment in Slovenia, and a hefty foreign bank account. Brankovic's declared monthly income of around 6,000 KM is not enough to explain his extensive wealth.
A friend of mine said of Brankovic, "As soon as you see him, you know he's going to steal something." Shortly after the October elections, there were widespread rumors of his impending removal by the head of the SDA, Suleiman Tihic. However, Brankovic's close ties with powerful conservative figures in the party, including Bakir Izetbegovic (son of the deceased former president), prevented this move.
Journalist Senad Pecanin characterized the lesson of Brankovic's dealings as follows: "Inasmuch as you are sufficiently arrogant, unscrupulous, and cynical, and you belong to the ruling political structures and/or the leadership of the religious community, your criminality will remain unsanctioned, unless you commit armed bank robbery -- and then only if you kill more than two people." (Dani, Sept. 12).
And Brankovic is not even a major player in the economic finagling that constantly takes place throughout the republics of the former Yugoslavia. The majority of lucrative business deals, as in Brankovic's case, center around privatization of the socially-produced wealth inherited from the Tito era. Much of this privatization is crooked. When you hear the word "transition," this is key.
One of the richest such profiteers of transition is the billionaire Serbian "tycoon," Miroslav Miskovic. He has been called the "true owner of Serbia." Miskovic is the owner of four large retail chains in that country, and he has worked tirelessly to expand his empire into the rest of the former Yugoslav republics. To date, Miskovic owns property in Montenegro, Macedonia, Albania, and Bosnia, and he has a business partnership with a wealthy Croatian investor.
A crucial element in the process of the rich getting richer is trade protection -- that is, whether it exists in a given area, and how effective it is. In the postwar transitional phase, the former Yugoslav republics have to contend with pressure from the EU to open their markets. However, for a small country, opening markets to foreign traders can mean something like letting sharks into the swimming pool. If a domestic market is not strong, and if there are local actors (such as Brankovic) who are willing to sell off the state's assets at a low price for their own profit, then the country in question is doomed to end up with a third-rate economy that cannot support its citizens in anything like the standard of living they knew before the war. That is Bosnia, where the classic model of "transition" is to sell off the valuable parts of the state's wealth; the managers and politicians keep as much for themselves as they can get away with, and the ordinary people live an insecure existence..
Miroslav Miskovic has been buying weak companies in various places and, often as not, turning their prime real estate into shopping centers. He did this in Podgorica (the capital of Montenegro). In Serbia, Miskovic's sway is such that foreign companies that wish to build shopping centers in Belgrade are forced to build them on the periphery of the city, giving Miskovic an effective monopoly in the more lucrative areas -- where he prices his goods at 20% above the market rate. Miskovic is said to control 70% of Belgrade's retail market.
No such problem for Miskovic in Bosnia. There, he recently bought the furniture company "Standard." Now, he is planning to tear down most or all of it, and build a shopping center. This repeats the ongoing process of wiping out productive employment and putting large numbers of workers on the street. Meanwhile, grandiose retail establishments, such as the Slovenian-owned "hipermarket" Mercator, sell imported goods to Bosnia's jet set and produce precious little income for the domestic economy. And domestic ownership of the retail sector is somewhere around 10%!
Not long ago Miskovic bought a shop in Ferhadija, the pedestrian zone in the center of Sarajevo. There are several reasons why his incursions into the Bosnian market upset people in Sarajevo. Miskovic was a deputy prime minister of Serbia for a time under Milosevic, and also served as Milosevic's main economic advisor. Since Milosevic's fall in 2000, Miskovic has donated funds to various political parties, including the Serbian Radical Party (SRS). This is the SRS that, led by Vojislav Seselj (now on trial at The Hague) organized paramilitary formations that rampaged, murdered, burned, and committed rape during the wars in Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo.
And Miskovic's shop on Ferhadija is not far from the place where, during the siege of Sarajevo, a bomb landed in 1992, killing dozens of people waiting in line for bread. So the investment and Miskovic's presence in this symbolic area just don't feel right. It feels like the continuation, through economic means, of the war goals of Serbian expansionism. (Some of the information on Miskovic is from Slobodna Bosna #619, Sept 25, 2008, and Dani #589, Sept 26, 2008.)
To make matters worse, the above-mentioned home-grown tycoon Fahrudin Radoncic (actually originally from Serbia himself) earlier this year formed a business partnership with Miskovic. Radoncic is the owner of the Sarajevo daily newspaper Avaz, and he constantly publishes articles promoting one Bosniak nationalist politician or another, manipulates readers' ignorance and their fear of Serbs -- and apparently puts profit before everything else. It is interesting that in 2002, Radoncic opposed an attempted economic incursion by Miskovic into Bosnia on political and moral grounds. At that time, he mounted a media campaign against Miskovic, with the considerable resources at his disposal. Now, he is campaigning in the same way in favor of his new partner's various investment schemes.
These last several pages about corruption and the financial wrecking of Bosnia may seem abstract, or obscure. However, they illustrate the essence of the aftermath of the war in Bosnia. In addition to being a case of aggression, and after all the atrocities we know about, the war was also a campaign by the elite against everyone else, and the elite won. Now they are cooperating with each other across ethnic lines and across borders, and reaping the benefits of "transition."
What I have written here about Brankovic, Radoncic, and Miskovic is just a drop in the ocean, not only as far as their own exploits are concerned, but also as far as the entire vast scene of corruption in Bosnia. I listed off some names of well-known politicians to a friend of mine, concentrating on those with a reputation for their non-nationalist speech. My friend is a long-time official in one of the financial inspection agencies, and knows the details of economic corruption thoroughly. His response regarding the names I mentioned was overwhelmingly negative. And when he has tried to lodge complaints against some of the higher-up figures, including Brankovic, their cases have, more often than not, been stalled forever, or otherwise made to disappear.
Here's what another friend of mine says about the situation:
"Brankovic steals from Bosnians, not from humanitarian donations. In Croatia, on the other hand, Croatia is a state, there is law, every day you hear about how something was given to [Prime Minister] Sanader, and there is an ongoing investigation of these gifts. And you hear how they fired seven doctors for corruption, and so on. Here, there are so many cases before the court, at least a million, that no one can get anything prosecuted.
"And how can anyone live? Say you earn 400 KM a month. Half of that has to go to upkeep of your apartment. Then they think of some other way to get the other half. You go to a doctor. The doctor says you'll need a heart scan, immediately. You say ok, let's do it. He says, you can do it in eight months, everything is booked up. You say I'll be not only dead by then, but rotten in the grave. He says, ok, come by my private practice this afternoon and we'll do it. Then you have to pay extra. And 95% of the medicines, you have to buy yourself. The owner of the medicine company charges a 300% markup on the medicines, and pays five people to keep up his lawn.
"I stay here in Sarajevo out of heroism, although some people say it is masochism. This country makes me sick. Something has to give. Only the Arab countries are supporting us, and they are driving us into the ground, only building mosques. Meanwhile, Croatia is jumping through hoops to join the EU. And with all the conditions they give us to do so, we say ok, and then don't do anything. I hope we will join the EU. And then we will wreck it."
And here's a story that shows how one of these post-war operators became rich during the war (and I promise I'll stop talking about corruption...pretty soon...for a while ...).
My old friend Marc told me that one tycoon said, "I earned everything that I own by honest means. Just don't ask me how I got my first million." Marc commented, "With the politicians, the problem is not that they steal, but that they steal everything."
Here's some wartime background: I heard a story about a commander in the defense of Sarajevo during the war who was planning an attack on Stup, a place in the western part of the city, that was under the control of the Serb extremists. He was going to go try to liberate Stup. An officer in that military unit had more experience than the commander, and he didn't feel the attack was being planned well. So he gave the commander some serious tactical advice. Then, when the group of soldiers got to the outskirts of Stup, they stopped and raided a bottling plant, taking all the wine and spirits. The commander set up a speakeasy in the basement of a hotel in the center of the city, and got rich, still during the war. Later he emigrated to Australia.
In late September, Transparency International, a corruption watchdog, announced the results of its global Corruption Perception Index. Out of 180 countries surveyed, Bosnia-Herzegovina took 93rd place, near Algeria, Lesotho, and Sri Lanka. As such, Bosnia had not moved much from previous years. But it is significant that it has been left behind by its neighbors (including Albania), who moved up the scale (towards honesty). In its region, Bosnia is at the bottom of the scale.
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Next -- Bosnia-Herzegovina journal #2: Sarajevo and Bosnia, continued: Elections, Queer Festival.
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Bosnia-Herzegovina journal #1: Sarajevo and Bosnia
Hello friends,
This is the first of a new series of journals. I almost never send out journals unless I have been traveling outside of the United States; the last one I sent was just a check-in around December of 2007. Now, for the first time since 2006, I have traveled again. I recently came back from a six-week visit to Bosnia-Herzegovina, with a short visit to Bucharest at the end.
Note: Most of you are on my distribution list because you requested to be put there. If you don't wish to receive these journals, just let me know.
And you are welcome to forward these journals.
I traveled to Bosnia this year in order to refresh my impressions about the country, to discern new trends, and to catch up with old friends and colleagues. Since I am writing a book about the place, it's not good to stay away for too long. This visit was shorter than usual, and I had to hustle to get to the ten towns and cities that I most wished to visit, and to make the approximately 35 interviews that I made. While there's no limit to the information you can gather there - and I am a compulsive information-getter - I am fairly satisfied with what I got.
Besides general updating, I also paid close attention to the nationwide municipal election campaign that was taking place. Any election campaign in Bosnia is an occasion for the renewed, creative expression of nationalist tension, and for a free-for-all of mud-slinging and fear-mongering. Since the war, all politics has been taking place in the context of a country with a barely functioning state, carelessly administered by the international community. So during the elections, the internecine dynamics of the domestic political infrastructure, staffed by war profiteers and their political successors, come into high contrast. And the interaction of domestic political maneuvers with international officials, whose goals are much more obscure than their rhetoric would pretend, is also something worth examining.
The following journals will be about these dynamics and interactions, as I observed them during my travels through much of Bosnia-Herzegovina, from Sarajevo to eastern Bosnia, over to the Krajina (northwest Bosnia), and down to western Herzegovina. As important to me as the politics of Bosnia is the way that the ordinary citizens of the country respond, over the long term, to the wrenching changes that have taken place in their lives. As always, I have sought and found people - in no way ordinary - who are trying to work with those changes in a positive way.
Some people's personal details have been changed, in order to protect their privacy.
yours, Peter
*
SARAJEVO
It is always a bit of a wonder to return to Sarajevo after some time, and to see what has been fixed. It's a beautiful city, situated in a valley among the mountains. Sarajevo is a good place for walking. All you have to do is walk a few minutes up any road perpendicular to the main street, and you can see the whole town. Foreigners love Sarajevo because of what they don't know. Sometimes, they explore more of the city than the local residents.
On my return, I walked around the city from my hillside neighborhood of Vratnik down to Bas Carsija (the old Turkish section of Sarajevo) and then to Skenderija. I spotted lots of new, little changes. The main government building in Marin Dvor has been repaired and shines sky-blue. The Americans are building an enormous new embassy up the street, where the old Tito barracks once stood disintegrating. Some other old buildings have been torn down -- some falling apart since the war, and some deteriorating for much longer than that. Investors are building a new tower by the twin-tower Unitic buildings in the same neighborhood. The most striking thing of all is the gleaming new Avaz building, a twist tower just across from the train station. It looks like a city monument on the scale of the Space Needle. It is also a monument to the outsized ego and ambitions of Fahrudin Radoncic, local magnate, ever-active meddler in politics, and owner of Sarajevo's most popular daily newspaper, Dnevni Avaz.
Closer into town, more of the old Austro-Hungarian buildings have been restored to their old loveliness, brighter than they probably ever looked since World War II. And there are many new kafanas (pubs). One near the Bas Carsija is called "Bill Gates," with his nerdy likeness displayed in a bright neon sign on the front.
The old blue Sarajka department store was demolished a few years ago. Built in 1984 for the Olympics, it was a solid contender for status as the ugliest building in town. Now the replacement building, all blocky concrete and glass, is almost finished. And they are finally restoring the stately old Evropa Hotel, where my landlord Senad worked before the war. After 15 years crumbling, its Austro-Hungarian façade is a pleasant maroon and white.
There are now ATMs on practically every corner downtown, where there used to be only a few. The pickpockets, though less obvious, are always something to watch out for. They work in teams, and are especially active on the streetcars - and in the vicinity of the ATMs. On the streetcars, they take advantage of the crowded periods, which are their working hours. Sometimes they use a razor to cut the straps of a woman's purse, or simply to slit open a bag and remove the wallet. Cell phones are a most popular item to steal. I read in the newspaper that a young man whose cell phone had been stolen called his own phone number, and the person who answered said, "The telephone can be yours again, if you leave 20 KM (convertible marks, the Bosnian currency, worth anywhere between $0.60 and $0.75) on the park bench." The ransom was paid and the man received his phone back.
Besides Sarajevo's façade in reconstruction, the other thing that strikes the eye is the preponderance of campaign posters around town, leading up to the municipal elections scheduled for October 5th. Posters for SDA candidates (Bosniak nationalist party founded by now-deceased President Alija Izetbegovic) are the most common. They tend to be photos of a group of fifteen or twenty middle-aged functionaries who, from the bland and seedy look of them, I'd rather trust to run a funeral home than my home town.
There is graffiti here and there that reads, "Haris 100% izdaja," referring to Haris Silajdzic, Bosniak (Muslim) member of the presidency: "100% betrayal." The slogan of Silajdzic's party, SBiH (Party for Bosnia), is "100%," that is, 100% for employment, 100% for Europe, and so on. He was elected in 2006, and apparently, not everyone is happy with the fulfillment of his party's promises.
Graffiti in Sarajevo:
"How can I live here, when my blood pressure is higher than my pension?"
A voice from the ordinary people breaks through the election clamor. Prices on everything from fuel to bread have been rising drastically all year. My landlady Minka said to me,
"They raised our pensions 7 KM (around $3.50), but meat doubled in price, from 15 to 20 km. The politicians doubled their salaries; some of them get 10,000 km monthly. But the people are to blame. They complain and shout, but they should go to the government and throw them out. Someone calls me on the phone and says, 'are you going to vote?' I say, 'And who am I going to vote for? For another thief, another cretin?'"
When in Sarajevo I stay at Senad and Minka's house in Vratnik, on the hill above the Bas Carsija. I'm often there in the month of Ramadan, as happened this September. In this month there is an air of humility and spiritual concentration in observant homes, as people eat before dawn, fast all day, and then prepare a special meal, Iftar, for sundown. In Vratnik, the loud boom of a cannon announces the fast breaking, and the table is set within minutes. Usually there are visitors for Iftar.
In my neighborhood there are mosques in every direction. They aren't synchronized; five times a day the muezzins start their prayer call at almost the same time. The first muezzin starts, and then another, and a couple more, until you hear them near and far. And for a moment, all the dogs in the neighborhood join in a-barking, as well.
Bajram (called al-Eid in Arabic) is the several-day holiday that takes place at the end of Ramadan, which this year coincided with the end of September. A calm festivity prevails in Sarajevo, now a Muslim-dominated city, with people wishing each other a good holiday, visiting their closest relatives, and bringing gifts of sweet food.
It happened that Rosh Hashonah took place as well during these days, and I attended a service in the chapel of the ancient stone synagogue, which has long served as the Jewish museum. During the war and through the 1990s it was closed and used for storage, then refurbished and reopened a few years ago. Before leaving the building after the service, I rushed upstairs to view the huge book on display. This is the book of names of the 10,000-odd Sarajevo Jews who were killed during World War II.
Afterwards, I took part in the celebration and social gathering at the Jewish community center, located in the newest synagogue. This was built by the Ashkenazi minority of the (otherwise Sephardic) Jewish community, in 1903. In recent times it has been the only active synagogue and gathering place for all of Sarajevo's mixed, but dwindling, Jewish community. There, we shared wine and the traditional apples and honey, that the New Year may be a sweet one.
CORRUPTION
Note: this section may seem dense to some readers, but it touches upon the essence of what it takes to understand Bosnia today.
For some operators in politics and business, the coming year is sure to be a sweet one. These people tend to be members of political parties and/or informal clans formed during or even before the war, and they rose to power and riches in the turbulence of the 1990s. It is not an exaggeration to say that the newspapers print a story nearly every day about some instance of corruption, large or small. Since most of the newspapers are, at least unofficially, affiliated with one political party or another, the cases they treat pertain to members of other parties.
One figure whose name is very often associated with corruption these days is Nedzad Brankovic, the current prime minister of the Bosnian Federation (one of two "entities," along with the Serb-controlled Republika Srpska, that comprise Bosnia). Before entering the government, Brankovic was director of Energoinvest, one of the Federation's strongest state-owned companies. While holding that position, he participated in selling off rich assets of the energy production and management company at ridiculously low prices. He also blocked development of Bosnia's oil terminal on the coast, leaving oil import prices subject to extortion by foreign providers. Brankovic was thus considered responsible for the outlandishly high price of fuel in Bosnia this fall, at a time when the world price had fallen around forty percent.
Brankovic, closely connected to the conservative wing of the SDA, has consistently taken measures that prevented development of the oil refinery and distribution infrastructure in the Federation, and in general prevented the revitalization of the energy sector, in favor of criminal privatization deals that helped his own business associates. A proposal for industry reform, submitted by managers of one section of the oil infrastructure, stated, "There is not a single reason why the oil economy in the Federation should be controlled by a group of private businessmen and other suspicious interests."
The obstruction of development by Brankovic and his cronies has cost the Federation hundreds of millions of KM in revenue. A mid-level director in the oil distribution system commented on Brankovic's participation: "On the legal level, the state has done nothing to prevent chaos in the oil market or to sanction the behind-the-scenes plunder of the citizens, and to take the situation under control. However, it is not a simple thing to prevent Brankovic, together with his 'competent' cadre, from continuing to plunder, destroy, and sell off the property and development potential for the construction of the Federation's economy." (Some of the information on Brankovic is from Dani #597, November 21, 2008)
Meanwhile, Brankovic has purchased a fine apartment for himself, and decorated it ostentatiously with expensive artwork. None of this makes the prime minister popular with people in Bosnia. In fact, Brankovic possesses a country mansion, a five-bedroom apartment in Sarajevo (bought for him by Energoinvest and the Federation government), an apartment in Slovenia, and a hefty foreign bank account. Brankovic's declared monthly income of around 6,000 KM is not enough to explain his extensive wealth.
A friend of mine said of Brankovic, "As soon as you see him, you know he's going to steal something." Shortly after the October elections, there were widespread rumors of his impending removal by the head of the SDA, Suleiman Tihic. However, Brankovic's close ties with powerful conservative figures in the party, including Bakir Izetbegovic (son of the deceased former president), prevented this move.
Journalist Senad Pecanin characterized the lesson of Brankovic's dealings as follows: "Inasmuch as you are sufficiently arrogant, unscrupulous, and cynical, and you belong to the ruling political structures and/or the leadership of the religious community, your criminality will remain unsanctioned, unless you commit armed bank robbery -- and then only if you kill more than two people." (Dani, Sept. 12).
And Brankovic is not even a major player in the economic finagling that constantly takes place throughout the republics of the former Yugoslavia. The majority of lucrative business deals, as in Brankovic's case, center around privatization of the socially-produced wealth inherited from the Tito era. Much of this privatization is crooked. When you hear the word "transition," this is key.
One of the richest such profiteers of transition is the billionaire Serbian "tycoon," Miroslav Miskovic. He has been called the "true owner of Serbia." Miskovic is the owner of four large retail chains in that country, and he has worked tirelessly to expand his empire into the rest of the former Yugoslav republics. To date, Miskovic owns property in Montenegro, Macedonia, Albania, and Bosnia, and he has a business partnership with a wealthy Croatian investor.
A crucial element in the process of the rich getting richer is trade protection -- that is, whether it exists in a given area, and how effective it is. In the postwar transitional phase, the former Yugoslav republics have to contend with pressure from the EU to open their markets. However, for a small country, opening markets to foreign traders can mean something like letting sharks into the swimming pool. If a domestic market is not strong, and if there are local actors (such as Brankovic) who are willing to sell off the state's assets at a low price for their own profit, then the country in question is doomed to end up with a third-rate economy that cannot support its citizens in anything like the standard of living they knew before the war. That is Bosnia, where the classic model of "transition" is to sell off the valuable parts of the state's wealth; the managers and politicians keep as much for themselves as they can get away with, and the ordinary people live an insecure existence..
Miroslav Miskovic has been buying weak companies in various places and, often as not, turning their prime real estate into shopping centers. He did this in Podgorica (the capital of Montenegro). In Serbia, Miskovic's sway is such that foreign companies that wish to build shopping centers in Belgrade are forced to build them on the periphery of the city, giving Miskovic an effective monopoly in the more lucrative areas -- where he prices his goods at 20% above the market rate. Miskovic is said to control 70% of Belgrade's retail market.
No such problem for Miskovic in Bosnia. There, he recently bought the furniture company "Standard." Now, he is planning to tear down most or all of it, and build a shopping center. This repeats the ongoing process of wiping out productive employment and putting large numbers of workers on the street. Meanwhile, grandiose retail establishments, such as the Slovenian-owned "hipermarket" Mercator, sell imported goods to Bosnia's jet set and produce precious little income for the domestic economy. And domestic ownership of the retail sector is somewhere around 10%!
Not long ago Miskovic bought a shop in Ferhadija, the pedestrian zone in the center of Sarajevo. There are several reasons why his incursions into the Bosnian market upset people in Sarajevo. Miskovic was a deputy prime minister of Serbia for a time under Milosevic, and also served as Milosevic's main economic advisor. Since Milosevic's fall in 2000, Miskovic has donated funds to various political parties, including the Serbian Radical Party (SRS). This is the SRS that, led by Vojislav Seselj (now on trial at The Hague) organized paramilitary formations that rampaged, murdered, burned, and committed rape during the wars in Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo.
And Miskovic's shop on Ferhadija is not far from the place where, during the siege of Sarajevo, a bomb landed in 1992, killing dozens of people waiting in line for bread. So the investment and Miskovic's presence in this symbolic area just don't feel right. It feels like the continuation, through economic means, of the war goals of Serbian expansionism. (Some of the information on Miskovic is from Slobodna Bosna #619, Sept 25, 2008, and Dani #589, Sept 26, 2008.)
To make matters worse, the above-mentioned home-grown tycoon Fahrudin Radoncic (actually originally from Serbia himself) earlier this year formed a business partnership with Miskovic. Radoncic is the owner of the Sarajevo daily newspaper Avaz, and he constantly publishes articles promoting one Bosniak nationalist politician or another, manipulates readers' ignorance and their fear of Serbs -- and apparently puts profit before everything else. It is interesting that in 2002, Radoncic opposed an attempted economic incursion by Miskovic into Bosnia on political and moral grounds. At that time, he mounted a media campaign against Miskovic, with the considerable resources at his disposal. Now, he is campaigning in the same way in favor of his new partner's various investment schemes.
These last several pages about corruption and the financial wrecking of Bosnia may seem abstract, or obscure. However, they illustrate the essence of the aftermath of the war in Bosnia. In addition to being a case of aggression, and after all the atrocities we know about, the war was also a campaign by the elite against everyone else, and the elite won. Now they are cooperating with each other across ethnic lines and across borders, and reaping the benefits of "transition."
What I have written here about Brankovic, Radoncic, and Miskovic is just a drop in the ocean, not only as far as their own exploits are concerned, but also as far as the entire vast scene of corruption in Bosnia. I listed off some names of well-known politicians to a friend of mine, concentrating on those with a reputation for their non-nationalist speech. My friend is a long-time official in one of the financial inspection agencies, and knows the details of economic corruption thoroughly. His response regarding the names I mentioned was overwhelmingly negative. And when he has tried to lodge complaints against some of the higher-up figures, including Brankovic, their cases have, more often than not, been stalled forever, or otherwise made to disappear.
Here's what another friend of mine says about the situation:
"Brankovic steals from Bosnians, not from humanitarian donations. In Croatia, on the other hand, Croatia is a state, there is law, every day you hear about how something was given to [Prime Minister] Sanader, and there is an ongoing investigation of these gifts. And you hear how they fired seven doctors for corruption, and so on. Here, there are so many cases before the court, at least a million, that no one can get anything prosecuted.
"And how can anyone live? Say you earn 400 KM a month. Half of that has to go to upkeep of your apartment. Then they think of some other way to get the other half. You go to a doctor. The doctor says you'll need a heart scan, immediately. You say ok, let's do it. He says, you can do it in eight months, everything is booked up. You say I'll be not only dead by then, but rotten in the grave. He says, ok, come by my private practice this afternoon and we'll do it. Then you have to pay extra. And 95% of the medicines, you have to buy yourself. The owner of the medicine company charges a 300% markup on the medicines, and pays five people to keep up his lawn.
"I stay here in Sarajevo out of heroism, although some people say it is masochism. This country makes me sick. Something has to give. Only the Arab countries are supporting us, and they are driving us into the ground, only building mosques. Meanwhile, Croatia is jumping through hoops to join the EU. And with all the conditions they give us to do so, we say ok, and then don't do anything. I hope we will join the EU. And then we will wreck it."
And here's a story that shows how one of these post-war operators became rich during the war (and I promise I'll stop talking about corruption...pretty soon...for a while ...).
My old friend Marc told me that one tycoon said, "I earned everything that I own by honest means. Just don't ask me how I got my first million." Marc commented, "With the politicians, the problem is not that they steal, but that they steal everything."
Here's some wartime background: I heard a story about a commander in the defense of Sarajevo during the war who was planning an attack on Stup, a place in the western part of the city, that was under the control of the Serb extremists. He was going to go try to liberate Stup. An officer in that military unit had more experience than the commander, and he didn't feel the attack was being planned well. So he gave the commander some serious tactical advice. Then, when the group of soldiers got to the outskirts of Stup, they stopped and raided a bottling plant, taking all the wine and spirits. The commander set up a speakeasy in the basement of a hotel in the center of the city, and got rich, still during the war. Later he emigrated to Australia.
In late September, Transparency International, a corruption watchdog, announced the results of its global Corruption Perception Index. Out of 180 countries surveyed, Bosnia-Herzegovina took 93rd place, near Algeria, Lesotho, and Sri Lanka. As such, Bosnia had not moved much from previous years. But it is significant that it has been left behind by its neighbors (including Albania), who moved up the scale (towards honesty). In its region, Bosnia is at the bottom of the scale.
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Next -- Bosnia-Herzegovina journal #2: Sarajevo and Bosnia, continued: Elections, Queer Festival.
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
Bosniak American Advisory Council for Bosnia and Herzegovina Commemorates the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Bosniak American Advisory Council for Bosnia and Herzegovina
815 Connecticut Avenue NW, Suite 200, Washington DC 20006
(202) 291-7080; board@baacbh.org; www.baacbh.org
For Immediate Release Contact: Elmina Kulasic
December 9, 2008 Executive Director
Washington, D.C. Direct: 202-291-7080
BAACBH Commemorates the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The Bosniak-American Advisory Council for Bosnia and Herzegovina (BAACBH) would like to
commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as well as the 60th
anniversary of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
BAACBH holds true the principles outlined in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of
the Crime of Genocide and condemns any act committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a
national, ethnical, racial or religious group. The disregard for human rights led to genocide and
ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) that eliminated the historical pattern of tolerance
and shared experiences from a plurality of religious and cultural groups from which BiH profited
and flourished as a multi-ethnic nation in Europe. Although the Dayton Peace Agreement ended the
aggression on BiH, it lacks the core principles of democratic governance needed for a stable BiH. In
fact, the Agreement has institutionalized ethno-territorial divisions overshadowing human rights and
enabling nationalistic sentiments to prevail.
In order to embrace the Declaration’s mission, BAACBH strongly believes that justice is the closure
for victims and the only foundation for peace in BiH. Therefore, advocating on behalf of Bosnian-
Americans, people who have survived the Bosnian genocide and escaped human rights abuses by
immigrating to the United States in search of a better and peaceful future, BAACBH strongly
believes a constitutional reform is needed that will accentuate equal rights and democratic
governance for all of its citizens.
Therefore, we can not forget about the victims of the Bosnian genocide and ethnic cleansing as well
as the Holocaust, Rwanda, Darfur, and other betrayed countries and regions who saw “never again”
happen after World War II, for their memories are our voices for the future.
Guided by the principles for justice, freedom, democracy, and equality for all, BAACBH is
committed and dedicated to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedoms.
815 Connecticut Avenue NW, Suite 200, Washington DC 20006
(202) 291-7080; board@baacbh.org; www.baacbh.org
For Immediate Release Contact: Elmina Kulasic
December 9, 2008 Executive Director
Washington, D.C. Direct: 202-291-7080
BAACBH Commemorates the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The Bosniak-American Advisory Council for Bosnia and Herzegovina (BAACBH) would like to
commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as well as the 60th
anniversary of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
BAACBH holds true the principles outlined in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of
the Crime of Genocide and condemns any act committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a
national, ethnical, racial or religious group. The disregard for human rights led to genocide and
ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) that eliminated the historical pattern of tolerance
and shared experiences from a plurality of religious and cultural groups from which BiH profited
and flourished as a multi-ethnic nation in Europe. Although the Dayton Peace Agreement ended the
aggression on BiH, it lacks the core principles of democratic governance needed for a stable BiH. In
fact, the Agreement has institutionalized ethno-territorial divisions overshadowing human rights and
enabling nationalistic sentiments to prevail.
In order to embrace the Declaration’s mission, BAACBH strongly believes that justice is the closure
for victims and the only foundation for peace in BiH. Therefore, advocating on behalf of Bosnian-
Americans, people who have survived the Bosnian genocide and escaped human rights abuses by
immigrating to the United States in search of a better and peaceful future, BAACBH strongly
believes a constitutional reform is needed that will accentuate equal rights and democratic
governance for all of its citizens.
Therefore, we can not forget about the victims of the Bosnian genocide and ethnic cleansing as well
as the Holocaust, Rwanda, Darfur, and other betrayed countries and regions who saw “never again”
happen after World War II, for their memories are our voices for the future.
Guided by the principles for justice, freedom, democracy, and equality for all, BAACBH is
committed and dedicated to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedoms.
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