REINTEGRATION OF B&H

Destiny Against People's Wishes

AIM Sarajevo, June 13, 1996

Injustice done to people by maps drawn in Dayton is not so convincing anywhere as on territories of the Federation bordering with the Serb entity Republic of Srpska. Petty-political blindness in drawing the maps in some cases was so drastic that former neighbours, the Bosniacs and the Serbs, were forced to leave their own homes and move into their neighbours', and now neither ones nor the others wish to live in someone else's. But, like on lives of the people, reality created by cartography has repercussions on revival of the economy, which is also one of the essential elements of successful reintegration of Bosnia & Herzegovina. But, first things first.

The small town of Koraj, centre of the local community with the same name in municipality Celic in the north-east of Bosnia, which was populated before the war solely by Bosniacs, pursuant the Dayton Accords became part of the Serb entity. At the same time, villages of Lukavica, Mladici, Brezje, Visori and Sibosnica - which were, with the exception of a part of Sibosnica, before the war, populated only by the Serbs - are now in the B&H Federation. Politicians have calmly signed such a "solution", but the people - both the Bosniacs and the Serbs

• do not accept this injustice and demand exchange of territories. People from Koraj are especially persistent and loud in their demand, while the Serbs, afraid of repression of Karadzic's regime, are not quite so loud and they talk about their wishes only with their former Muslim neighbours, when they visit them or go to see own their houses and estates.

Why do citizens of Koraj consider this exchange to be the only solution in the newly established situation verified in Dayton? Primarily because Koraj has been their native town for centuries (Koraj is older, for exmaple, than Bijeljina, Brcko and other larger settlements in this part of B&H) and people have simply fused with their land. That is why not a single citizen of Koraj wishes to live in Serb houses and on Serb soil, which Dayton maps force them to do. It is true that they have been banished from their town which was then demolished and burnt to the ground, it is true that the Serb houses assigned to them in Dayton are whole, but what is the use when they are not theirs. That is exactly what the Serbs also feel, expressing a single wish only - to return to their own!

That is why people from Koraj, hard-working and rich people who lived off their orchards, vegetable gardens and agriculture, nowadays have neither houses, nor land, and suffer living off humanitarian aid and waiting for the politicians to correct their blunder. But, they are not idle: they are going from one federal and republican institution to the other in Sarajevo demanding correction of this injustice, and via municipal, cantonal and other agencies, they are initiating talks with the Serb side. In vain, however, even mediation of international organizations cannot help: Serb officials are so firm in their stands that it is simply impossible to establish any form of dilague. The hardest negotiator in Koraj is "duke" Dragomir Kerovic, a physician by profession, whom noone in their right mind ever expected to be more flexible, since this humanist by education was the one who ordered setting Koraj on fire! Aware that their demands will be resolved neither easily nor quickly, people from Koraj continue their action whose outcome is equally eagerly expected by their Serb neighbours. But, who cares what peasants think!

The example from Ustikolina, a place on the bank of the Drina in municipality of Foca, is not as drastic as the previous one, but it is equally indicative. During occupation and later, when they were leaving the place after Dayton, Serb extremists burnt down and completely demolished Ustikolina which was mostly populated by the Muslims before the war. Now Ustikolina is the Bosniac seat of the municipality of Fioca: the place practically does not exist any more in the urban sense of thew word, but all Serb houses in the surroundings have been spared. Because the Muslims and the Orthodox have always lived here in harmony: evidence of that is the Orthodox church in Ustikolina which is nowadays the only preserved building in the whole town. Bosniac authorities permitted the Serbs - who had left their estates under pressure of the leaders of Foca extremists Velibor Ostojic and Vojislav Maksimovic - to visit occasionally and use their houses, orchards and vegetable gardens. Pressured by such developments, the Serb authorities in Foca, which they renamed into Srbinje, allowed banished Bosniacs to "pay back" the visits to their estates, but that is all, although these visits on have never been cause to a single incident. And the greatest wish of both the Bosniacs and the Serbs is to return to their own homes and land, regardless of borders drawn in Dayton!

Bosniac authorities in Ustikolina are offering this possibility to the Serbs, but they do not dare accept the offer and return, because they would have to pay for such a step - with their lives! The Bosniacs, however, were not offered such a possibility. Moreover, the official Serb authorities have persistently been refusing all efforts of IFOR to bring them to the negotiating table with their former neighbours. The Serb officials just keep sending word: destiny has decided that we should live side by side! The Bosniacs, however, think differently and reply: God has decided that we should live together, and you should know whose word counts more!

For the time being the newly determined destiny prevails over God's will. Optimists claim: not for long, but pessimists wisely shake their heads.

The economy of Gorazde and of the entire region of upper Drina valley is also waiting for the time limit of the destiny from Dayton to expire. For instance, maps drawn in Dayton gave the suburb of Gorazde Kopaci - which was before the war populated almost exclusively by the Muslims and which was the seat of most profitable factories in this region - to the Serbs. This practically means that the Serbs have the machine factory, the cable factory and others, and Gorazde, i.e. the Bosniacs - have experts and labour power. Restart of production in a few other factories in Foca and Cajnice (the Serb entity) depends on these factories, but so does optimum production in entire B&H mining and chemical industries. Sejo Kuljuh, the top expert in the sphere of metallurgy, who is a native of Gorazde, believes that this Dayton tangle and specific stalemate is actually one of the key elements of future reintegration of B&H. Engineer Veljko Bjelanin shares this opinion. This Serb who is the founder and one of the designers of the wire factory, a man who has together with 150 of his fellow countrymen, mostly educated workers and experts, remained to live in Gorazde, says: "Life itself confirms why we cannot live one without the other. But, the Serb party does not wish to even consider the possibility of talks and persistently, as people like to say, works to the benefit of its ows detriment. Nevertheless, we in Gorazde, but people in Kopaci as well, and those in Rogatica on the Serb side, have honest and brave people among ourselves who are ready to cross to the other side and negotiate about how to start production so that we can finally start living off our own work, and not off world charity. However, we do not seem to be able to break the ice of mutual distrust. Briefly, we need a mediator, someone who will enable the first step to be made, who will break the barrier of distrust, and the rest, I am sure, would proceed on its own accord. International organizations are helpless, neither can the Serb Civic Council of Mirko Pejanovic do anything, so that now, instead to live and work as human beings, we are all, ones and the others, stretching our necks trying to see trucks with humanitarian aid".

This means that politics is on the move. But, one cannot expect the politicians - who have been sowing dissension among nations for five years and who do not understand that there are numerous interests which connect people, and keep insisting only on the national (or should one say: nationalistic!) - to voluntarily make such a sharp turn. Even less to obey the will of the people, the same people who have brought them to power, which would be the simplest and the wisest thing to do!

But, wisdom was always scarce in the Balkans.

DRAGAN STANOJLOVIC