It’s difficult to talk about the reality of Bosnia and Herzegovina, without casting a glance at our neighbourhood – specifically Serbia and Croatia. In the last two years, that’s where the initiatives for promotion of good-neighbourly relations were coming from, in the form of visits to atrocities sites in Bosnia and Herzegovina from the Croatian president Ivo Josipović, the adoption of the Declaration on Srebrenica (1) in Serbia and another visit from former president Tadić to the commemoration for the victims of Srebrenica in Potočari Memorial and Cemetery complex. We had a feeling that something had shifted.
The willingness to go on with similar initiatives had existed in BH and it yielded results, hence the representatives of the joint delegation of the Federation of BH attended commemoration for the victims in Trusina and Ahmići, in April. I must note here that CNA has been organizing similar activities in cooperation with local veterans’ organizations / associations for a number of years already and we are planning to continue with it in the future, with special emphasis on the areas where it has not been done and where potential resistance to such initiatives might occur. Of course, given that this year the local (municipal) elections are being held, some previously arranged activities were either delayed until further notice or cancelled, which speaks volumes about the impact of the current politics on all spheres of society, especially on veteran’s associations / organizations that are conceptually tied to the ruling oligarchy with an “umbilical cord”.
High ecclesiastical and political authorities from the region and around the world spread the messages of peace from an inter-religious gathering (2) which was organized in Sarajevo in September. They were all talk on reconciliation and multiculturalism (just so that everything wasn’t spick and span, Orthodox Bishop Gligorije accused grand Mufti Mustafa Cerić of wishing for an Islamic BH, while he responded that Bishop Gligorije wanted to have a Republic of Srpska without Bosniaks).
The event that followed the joint commemoration for the victims, has also resulted in numerous direct appeals for reconciliation expressed, by the representatives of the international community and local high-ranking politicians, who, frankly speaking, exploited them almost to perversity. On the ground, actual problems and non-transparency of the politics were once again veiled by ethnic threats and less equality in relation to others, therefore soon enough everything went back to the starting point and everyone dealt mostly with their own victims. Nobody trusts anybody else and no one recognizes victims of others.
The wideness of that gap was demonstrated at the commemoration of the beginning of the war in Sarajevo (3), on April 6, which was deemed inappropriate by the politicians from the Republic of Srpska. Milorad Dodik, the President of the Republic of Srpska wrote to Zlatko Lagumdžija, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of BH, on the occasion of the commemoration, to tell him that it was both absolutely unacceptable and not agreed on prior to the event with all parties involved in BH to organize a party to mark the anniversary of the beginning of “the siege of Sarajevo”. Mirko Šarović, Minister of Foreign Trade and economic relations of BH, said that “one cannot talk about the siege of Sarajevo”, and pointed out that due to different views on the 1992-1995 events, all three peoples in Bosnia and Herzegovina should have used a phrase coined in the Dayton Agreement according to which it was an “unfortunate conflict in the region.”
On the other hand, an incident took place during the commemoration of the deaths of the Yugoslav peoples’ Army (JNA) soldiers in former Dobrovoljačka Street in Sarajevo. Maximum police security prevented an escalation of conflict when a group of citizens of Sarajevo gathered shouting “murderers”, uttering profanities and insults to the victims’ families.
We could hear repeatedly in public that Srebrenica genocide was being denied by the President and other officials of the Republic of Srpska as well as by Tomislav Nikolić, President-elect of the Republic of Serbia. We’ve seen the lonely walks of the families of the victims’ from Prijedor (4) and the ban to approach former Omarska camp, mistrust and accusations expressed during the exhumation of graves in Ozren (5). Basically, there seems to be no end in sight, to bad examples.
What else can one say and how to interpret the attack launched on the U.S. embassy in Sarajevo, by one Mevlid Jašarević (6) , who came here all the way from Novi Pazar (Sandžak, the Republic of Serbia) carrying a “combat gear”, after having decided to take his revenge for the brutality of the global American wars here. Was that the trigger that gave legitimacy to the police authorities to take action against organized “radical Islamists” or a simple proof that BH and Sandžak were the hotbeds of new terrorist groups, aimed to discredit Bosniak political relevance?
The media, as usual, could hardly wait to rehabilitate nationalist rhetoric, chauvinism and hatred and add fuel to the flame just like they never took responsibility for all the evil things they had done in the past. As if they do not realize how fragile the peace in the region is and as if they have not witnessed what’s happening all over the world, with countries once perceived as stable and with an orderly internal structure, almost overnight end up in a quagmire of blood with no end in sight.
Who knew that the conflict in Syria could lead to a government crisis in Bosnia and Herzegovina? It’s because our politicians found themselves trapped in a web of the protectorate and aligned themselves with the parties they instinctively prefer hence they each supported their own “proven friends” in the UN Security Council. Moreover, the consequences of the operation “cuckoo in the nest” launched by the SDP (7) at the domestic political scene of BH in the past parliamentary elections (when Željko Komšić, the Croat member of the presidency was elected with the help of the Bosniak electorate, which outvoted the HDZ (8) and the principle of equal rights of the constituent peoples), are evident because the federal government has not been formed for two years. Meanwhile, an attempt at a partnership between the SDP and SDA ended in a major confrontation between the two parties and in SDP’s efforts to remove all the SDA (9) staff from all federal and cantonal ministries. In june, the new coalition partner became the SBB (10), led by Fahrudin Radončić (11). Basically, in the eve of the local elections, SDP was moaning while caught up in his own trap, in search of regaining credibility with voters, all the while defending its positions that were under threat from both SDA on federal level and from Milorad Dodik (12) at the state level, who was pushing for Zlatko Lagumdžija to be ousted from his position of the Minister of Foreign Affairs. However, knowing the two of them, one may expect to see them tomorrow in a tight embrace. I must here look back at the initiative of Milorad Dodik, the President of the Republic of Srpska, proposed during the election campaign to demilitarize Bosnia and Herzegovina, namely to dissolute armed forces and to reassign all members of the military structures to the civilian ones. He explained that the key reason for it was the high cost of the armed forces, while they do not contribute to the overall security. It must be that all those millions earned by selling telecom and other entity’s assets that he had sold out, are now gone and an excuse for poor economy is found in unnecessary military expenditures. Unfortunately, a really good idea came from a man who is trying to do all he can to diminish BH. If only the entire region would turn to demilitarization as their primary goal in the stabilization of this part of Europe and establishment of mutual relations based of companionship and cooperation.
In addition to all the other peculiarities that the last election campaign was characterized by there’s also the number of people willing to give it a try and participate in the establishment. I will judge neither the quality of the candidates nor their personal motives (ideological ones – ahem!?, economic ones – a few hundred convertible marks per month for a councillor – that should neither be it, but there’s a chance of getting one’s own slice of the cake by way of trading political power for taking money under the table – that makes sense to me). In a sea of same old clichés, that were all over the media around the clock, one could hear the promise that in case their candidates won new jobs would be created and standard of living would rise. Doesn’t that have to do with a macroeconomic plan!? Getting into such a chaotic political situation without a concrete plan and willingness to pull the chestnuts out of the fire is a mere hypocrisy.
Anyway, our people(s) are expecting a cold fall and winter with a steep rise in prices of food and electricity. Federal Office of Statistics might start to provide us with the figures on the number of pensioners that can be catered for from a single garbage container along with the calculations regarding the monthly consumers’ basket for a family of four.
I hope that this overview on the context in which wework will help you understand the reality of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is extremely hard to implement peacebuilding programmes and search for partners who are able to take some responsibility and act in local communities in such reality where one courageous, positive step forward is followed by two steps back, that take us back right to the quagmire of the past. However, the struggle continues, a new round is on.
Amer Delić
(1) The Declaration on Srebrenica that condems the crimes against Bosniak population of Srebrenica, comitted in July 1995, in which the Serbian Parliament appeals to all former Yugoslav states to continue the process of reconciliation and stenghtening the conditions for coexistence based on national equality and full respect for human and minority rights and freedoms, in order for the crimes that were committed never to happen again.
(2) International Peace Conference „Living Together Is the Future: Religions and Cultures in Dialogue“, organized by the Rome-based Community of Sant’Egidio
(3) On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the beginning of the siege of Sarajevo, a performance called „Sarajevo Red Line“ was staged to mark the death of 11.541 citizens of Sarajevo. Red chears were arranged along the Tito’s Street and stretched for 800 meters, one for each citizen who was killed during the war.
(4) Research and Documentation Center (IDC) reports that in the period between 1991 and 1995, 5209 citizens of Prijedor were either killed in military actions or went missing, 4093 of which were Bosniaks, 898 Serbs and 182 Croats. After the takeover of Prijedor and the surrounding area in May 1992, Serbian forces detained thousands of Muslim and Croat civilians inside the Omarska, Trnopolje and Keraterm concentration camps
(5) The Republican Organization of Families of Prisoners, Killed Soldiers and Missing Civilians of the Republic of Srpska and Serbian Operation Team for the Missing are demanding the jurisdiction of the Prosecutor’s Office and the Institute for Missing Persons of Bosnia and Herzegovina be given back on suspicion of relocation of graves and theft of skeletal remains of killed Serbian soldiers in Ozren. The request was made for a conference to be held on this issue, with the participation of High Representative and all relevant domectial and international institutions in BH.
(6) According to his own words, in February 2010 Mavlid Jašarević was in the village of Gornja Maoča, which is well known Wahhabi stronghold in BH, at the time the police arrested a number of members of this movement. He then returned to Novi Pazar in order to „spread Islam“.
(7) Social Democratic Party
(8) Croatian Democratic Union
(9) Party of Democratic Action
(10) Union for a better Future of BH
(11) Fahrudin Radončić is a Bosnia’s tycoon and founder of the Union for the Better Future of BH, often tied to the criminal circles thanks to which he became one of the richest people in BH and the wider region.
(12) President of the Republic of Srpska