"MOSTARIZATION" OF SARAJEVO
AIM Sarajevo, March 14, 1996
A festivity was held in Sarajevo: at the opening of the Embassy of Local Democracy of the Council of Europe, a host of politicians gathered and, as extremely important for this story - European mayors and city senators. However, the host, the mayor of Sarajevo was missing from the festivity. Not because he was prevented to attend it due to some more pressing obligations, receptions or, God forbid, illness. The local mayor did not show up for a very drab reason - Sarajevo has no mayor! The last mayor submitted his resignation a day or two prior to the festivity. To be precise, on the day Sarajevo ceased to be a city.
The fact that Sarajevo is not a city any more (so why should it have a mayor in the first place?) has nothing to do with the four-year devastation of the city and its present-day image of a primitive backwater town in the Middle Ages. But it does have a lot to do with those who were going to make Sarajevo a "European capital", "Bosnian Californian" or "Swiss oasis of well-being" in their political pamphlets during the last elections. In the sixth year of their rule, instead of the promised paradise, Sarajevo has lost the status of a city and become a canton as some claim, while the others deny it even that.
In fact, not a single peace document has precisely defined the status of Sarajevo, except for its location on the territory of the Federation. Of course, everything that the international community failed to dictate to the domestic leaders in detail and under ardent pressure - proved to be an unsolvable problem. The Washington Agreement treated Sarajevo as a district, and this provision was later introduced into the formulated Constitution of the Federation of Bosnia & Herzegovina. Nevertheless, the latest peace agreement inaugurated a new, Dayton constitution, pursuant to which B&H cantons differ from what the Constitution of the Federation prescribed about them, and these changes reflected on the status of Sarajevo. Since federal partners, the Party of Democratic Action (SDA) and the Croat Democratic Community (HDZ), failed to carry out their obligation (like many others) to bring the Constitution of the Federation into line with the Dayton Constitution by March 14, the capital of B&H was faced with a situation in which its destiny is occasionally interpreted pursuant to the federal, and occasionally according to the Dayton constitution, always accompanied by a dilemma of the parties in power which of the two documents is more relevant. In other words, which is older in the case of the two constitutions - the hen or the egg?
In referring to the one or the other constitution, depending which suits a coalition party better at the moment, complete chaos was created concerning Sarajevo. The ruling Party of Democratic Action dissolved the city Assembly arbitrarily, it proclaimed Sarajevo a canton, and constituted cantonal assembly from the present representatives of nine city municipalities. To make things even worse, borders of the established Sarajevo canton are still an enigmatic problem becaue it can include not the mentioned nine but up to fourteen municipalitries, including Kiseljak, Visoko or some other surrounding places.
Dissolution of the city assembly of Sarajevo was preceded by certain inter-party differences among city deputies of the ruling Muslim Party of Democratic Action. A part of the ruling establishment advocated survival of the city government contrary to efforts of the other part to create an exclusive Transitional Council of Sarajevo Canton. Deputies of the opposition parties in the city assembly claimed, however, that establishment of the Canton assembly was not controversial if the issue of the urban part of Sarajevo was resolved, that is, if legitimacy of the city assembly was preserved, giving the example of constitution of Zagreb district along with the Zagreb City Assembly in the neighbouring Croatia as the argument in favour of this solution. Nevertheles, from this view the ruling SDA accepted only the part which approves constitution of the Canton parliament and established it pursuant to the alleged will of majority of city parties. Tarik Kupusovic who was until recently the mayor of the city, irritated by the outcome, left the session when the "cantonal" faction of the SDA outvoted those in favour of the "city", and offered his resignation from the position of Sarajevo mayor. By this move, Mr Kupusovic won sympathies of Sarajevans who, even if they do not understand the perfidious games concerning the status of the city, do understand that by dissolution of the city assembly their city is further reduced to a small town by the present authorities.
The ruling SDA then attempted to belittle Kupusovic's resignation and "cool" the emotions of the Sarajevans who had all at once begun to sympathize with the former mayor, who is, by the way, also a member of this ruling party. Omer Ibrahimagic, chairman of the Committee for Organization of Sarajevo (body which initiated establishment of the cantonal assembly) called Kupusovic's resignation an - absurdity! "How can anyone resign from a position which no longer exists and who did Kupusovic submit his resignation to?" - Ibrahimagic wondered, hinting at Kupusovic's letter of resignation addressed to Alija Izetbegovic!?
Formally, President of the Presidency of B&H, that is the President of the SDA, Alija Izetbegovic, has nothing to do with resignation of a mayor, even if it were that of the Bosnian capital. Unformally however, all "state decisions" of the Boshniak party are reached in the office of the party leader Alija Izetbegovic, so realistically speaking, Kupusovic's letter was very well addressed.
Simultanbeously with Kupusovic's, another letter followed - the letter of Sarajevans dissatisfied with the canton, which was also addressed to a "peculiar" address. It was also addressed to the head of a state, but not of Bosnia & Herzegovina, but of the neighbouring Croatia. Namely, dissatisfied with the establishment of the cantonal assembly, members of the city committee of the HDZ referred to the Croat President Franjo Tudjman himself and demanded "urgent and efficient assistance" from him and the Croat Government. Formally speaking again, a minor city committee of a B&H party has no business writing to the president and the government of another state, even if it were a "Croat" party in B&H and the neighbouring Croat state. Unformally, however, all "Croat decisions" in B&H are reached in the office of the party leader Franjo Tudjman, so his meddling in the "Sarajevo problem" should soon be expected.
The main complaint addressed by the HDZ at its coalition partner, the SDA, is that Izetbegovic's party, by insisting on cantonal organization of Sarajevo is trying to inaugurate ethnically pure authorities on an ethnically pure territory. Of course, there can be no doubt that intentions of Izetbegovic's SDA are turned exactly in that direction, but that the HDZ is questioning moves of the SDA because it wishes Sarajevo to remain a multicultural and joint city of all three leading nations in B&H is even harder ro believe. Especially because arguments used by the HDZ in its attempt to challenge constitution of Sarajevo canton do not differ from the policy of national homogenization which is the starting point of SDA's resolution of the status of Sarajevo. Namely, by insisting on the exclusive right to represent all B&H Croats, that is, by denying membership of the Croat nation to all those who do not at the same time belong to the HDZ, the leadership of this party demanded 50 per cent of the power in Sarajevo as the capital and the Federation of B&H for itself. After the SDA had refused to share power in Sarajevo with the coalition partner according to the system fifty-fifty, the HDZ came up with a proposal it still insists on that the Croat party must have 33 per cent of the power in the city, assuming that the remaining percentage should be shared by the Muslim and the Serb national elites.
"It is wrongly interpreted that the HDZ wishes 50 per cent of the power. The percentage is not important, it is important that without agreement of the Croat representatives, decisions on issues of vital significance for the Croat people in the Federation should not be reached", claimed secretary of the city board of the HDZ, Vencel Lasic. By insisting on consensual decision-making in which the HDZ would have the exclusive right to make decisions in the name of B&H Croats, Lasic keeps forgetting that percentages of power he claims to be unimportant are precisely determined in all democratic and multiparty states by election results. The Croat Democratic Community won only 3.5 per cent of the votes in Sarajevo, so that in the dissolved city assembly, just as in the present-day cantonal one, it holds only a few seats. As a comparison, almost any opposition, that is, civic party which participated in city authorities according to election results, had twice as many Croats among its deputies than the HDZ. But, the party of Croat President Tudjman in B&H, of course, does not recognize such representation of the will of Sarajevo Croats. Especially because President Tudjman does not seem to be able to understand that his HDZ is not in power in a capital city. For the beginning in Zagreb and Sarajevo.
According to an established practice during the six-year rule of coalition parties SDA-HDZ-SDS, a solution of all "misunderstandings" is sought in yet another ethnic division of territories. It is no secret that the HDZ, in case it fails to reach a joint solution with its coalition party the SDA, is planning to form a so-called "Croat Sarajevo" which would extend from the present-day Sarajevo municipality Stup (several times already proclaimed to be "Croat"), and across territories which have until recently formed "Serb Sarajevo", be connected with Kiseljak and the rest of "Herzeg-Bosnia". In this context, information about mass purchases of Serb houses in the region of Rajlovac, Kobilja Glava or Hadzici (suburbs of Sarajevo abandoned by the Serbs not long ago) by Herzegovina Croats, and entrance of Croat policemen into Hadzici or problems concerning establishment of federal police in Ilidza acquire a special meaning.
Mostarization of Sarajevo according to the system "we cannot live together, so we'd better split" - has, therefore, already begun. After four years of military blockade the Sarajevans have in fact found themselves again in an encirclement which is strangling them. A political encirclement indeed, but it also leaves behind packed suitcases ready for departure.
DRAZENA PERANIC