NEO-HUMANITARIANS AMONG THE SARAJEVANS
"PROBITAS", "TELEPATIJA" I "DZAKOMA" ON THE WAY TO THE MARKET
SUMMARY: The Sarajevans, both in status and financial terms, can be divided into those who have managed to snatch a job in a foreign, or even domestic, humanitarian organization, and those expecting assistance from them. In the capital ov Bosnia-Herzegovina there are about 130 humanitarian organizations. Sarajevans have not even heard of most of them, let alone received any aid. But, those who with about thirty signatures of hungry Sarajevans register their humanitarian organization, enjoy, for local conditions, fairy-tale privileges: a passport, free exit from the city and import of commercial commodities into the besieged city!
AIM SARAJEVO, August 26, 1994
It seems that the citizens of Sarajevo deal with every situation with their keen humor. Just like in the distant Olympic 1984, a joke is again circulating through town : "Only those working for foreigners live well, the smarter ones are learning languages, and the rubble is waiting for news from the surrounding hills". And precisely so - the Sarajevans, both in status and financial terms, can be divided into those who have managed to snatch a job in a foreign, or even domestic, humanitarian organization, and those expecting assistance from them. Is it then surprising that there 130 humanitarian organizations in this besieged city!?
Evidently, so many humanitarian organizations, of which those genuinely helping Sarajevans can be counted on the fingers of one hand, have their dark side too. Were it not so, would the Higher Court of Sarajevo be receiving so many applications for registering humanitarian organizations, which requires thirty signatures of citizens of age. And everything is solved then: the organization gets the status of a legal person, a seal, memorandum and a coat-of-arms, and its obverse and reverse can start working. The obverse should be what the name itself says (human), i.e. work oriented exclusively to help people, especially the most vulnerable ones - children, the elderly and infirm, victims of war. The reverse is, on the other hand, everything directly opposed to the proclaimed noble and lofty objectives. In Sarajevo that, briefly, means:
Getting a passport! Namely, in this city, such a document is a genuine rarity and to get one one needs so many papers, documents, certificates that the first expire until the last are obtained and then all over again. Those who manage to get them through good connections usually have no opportunity to use them. The majority who have no passports idealistically dream of what they could have done with them. Still those who have both a passport and the opportunity to show it in places round the world where passports are shown, as a rule have no need for humanitarian organizations in their lives.
Unhindered entry into and exit from the city. Even when the fortunates get a passport, that still does not mean travel to civilization. Namely, to go out from and to return to the city, one needs special documents issued by the local authorities. With no "connections" in high places these permits turn out to be a greater obstacle than the obtaining of the passport itself. Humanitarians, however, are exempt from such a procedure. And if the domestic humanitarian status is coupled with an UNHCR blue card with which one can elegantly fly from Sarajevo to civilization and back, everything seems like a fairy tale.
Import of humanitarian and commercial goods into the besieged city! A medium sized bag can hold 20 kgs. of instant coffee, for instance. At the worst times the price of that coffee went up to as much as DM 450 per kilo! Free of charge flight by UNHCR planes, where humanitarians do not undergo rigorous weighing and checking of personal luggage, thus brings excellent profits.
But, "blue roads" are also opened. Goods are procured most often in the Republic of Croatia and shipped to the Sarajevan suburb of Hrasnica, on the other side of the airport runway , i.e. open to the world. Commercial goods are there taken over by humanitarian organizations from private firms and taken to Dobrinja, on this side of the airport. Naturally, according to the agreement only humanitarians have the right to use that road. All those who were not skillful enough to collect thirty signatures of hungry Sarajevans, to whom they will sell the same goods at stiff prices later, have to pay the local "humanitarians" for the goods transferred to the city.
But, if things have been arranged so that the same circle of people "holds" both the humanitarian organization and the private enterprise, success is certain. Some of the goods are, indeed, distributed to the citizens, the rest is sold on Sarajevo's markets. Today, when the "blue roads" are closed, 20 percent of the goods is handed over to uniformed persons in front of the tunnel under the runway of Sarajevo's airport. But, the latest Sarajevo rumors have it that such transactions are much less profitable than the "humanitarian" one.
Allegedly, one of the well known owners of city supermarkets, one Alemko, was beaten up when carrying goods through the tunnel while wounded people had to wait for him to finish. One of them had no understanding for trade!
Sarajevans, nonetheless, remember much worse days when food in town was as precious as gold. Then, the following five strongest and most ramified humanitarian organizations were allowed to ship goods to the city: "Merhamet" a Moslem charitable organization, "Caritas" the humanitarian organization of the Vrhbosanska Archbishopric, "Dobrotvor" a humanitarian organization (its leading man recently went to get food and remained on Pale), "Medjasi" the first children's embassy (the controversial Dusko Tomic, recently acquitted because of lack of evidence that food from Macedonia deliberately ended up with Karadzic's Serbs), and ADRA, whose services, for instance the transfer of packages containing wardrobe from Sarajevo, were charged DM 5 per package, while the packages entering town were opened as a rule, and their contents considerably reduced. But, people would turn a blind eye for only a morsel of food.
Then, "neo-humanitarians" started cropping up. Some ran to the doors of the Sarajevo mosques during the month of Ramadan handing out a loaf of bread only to believers after their evening prayer, others cached away sacks and sacks of potatoes waiting for better days (read prices) so that the potatoes, completely rotten, ended up at Sarajevo's dumps, still others organized help only for those believing in the Koran...But, all of them found their "hen laying golden eggs" in the establishment of humanitarian organizations. Some of them have already found their place among the Sarajevans, but the citizens have hardly heard of the majority of them. These are only some of them, as a complete list would take pages and pages:
"Humanitar" (Bagaric Vinko), "Krisna Komuna" (Ljiljana Zurovac), "Crveni ljiljan" (Husein Zulfic), "Humanus" (Zoran Torljanin), "Oziris" (Mulic Hajrudin), "Graditelji bez granica" (Vahjudin Handzic), "Victory" (Marina Glavas), "Prosperitet - humanitarnih" (Sair Koldjo), "Halal" (Fikret Alispahic), "Nada 92" (Dragan Jovanovic), "Humanitarni krug" (Nagib Djurdjevic), "Donator" (Sakib Sasevic), ADEH (Adem Sobmur), "Fatma", "Cvjetovi ljubavi", "Sar ljiljani" (Husein Kurtagic), "Cricom" (Nedim Cehic), "Link asocijacija" (Dusko Toholj), "Djakoma" (Samir Sofo), "Skenderija 93" (Nijaz Basic), "Telepatija" (Resid Muhovic), "Humaniora" (Mehmed Drino), "Phasfik" (Srdnan Aganovic), "Sumak" (Sumak Bertanjali), "Liliace" (Dzemil Zacic), "Moj bliznji" (Zoran Kulenovic), "Nova" (Fadil Lero), "Dar" (Zijada Krvavac), "Bascarsija" (Amir Hodzic), "Drina" (Tarik Muftic), "Human" (Nermin Bilic), "Hajret" (Ibrahim Begovic), "Duga" (Zlatko Mesihovic), "Geng" (again Zlatko Mesihovic), "Dobrinja" (Semsudin Music), "Sasbos" (Salih Smajic), "Sacius" (Zvonimir Bosnjak), "Miris ljiljana" (Dzafer Skenderagic), "Probitas" (Nedzad Delic), "Biser" (Dina Darahasanovic), "Asocijacija" (Ahmo Hadzibegic), "Nas evlad" (Muhidin Zimic), "Aero - aid" (Muhamed Ljutika), "Corridor" (Emina Kapetanovic - Bunar), "Sanus" (Mustafa Savic), "Dielli" (Fatan Gasi), "Herc" (Izet Cengic)...
Given such a large number of "neo-humanitarians" it seems that Sarajevans will not start earning their daily bread for at least fifty yaers more. However, with the well known local slogan "everything honest, and deceive who you can" a salary which one could survive on, is the only hope of citizens of the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Only that requires getting rid of the "neo-humanitarians" and establishing an economically stable state with the rule of law. Until then, one must go to the market, for a can of food dating from 1967, 1968...
Mirsada Bosnic