Brcko, Post Festum

More than a Slogan

AIM Banja Luka, 27 March, 1998

"Brcko to Its Citizens!" is the slogan which has in the past two years driven the citizens of the smaller B&H entity crazy. Not because of their convinction that Brcko should not belong to its citizens, but because the mentioned slogan launched from the circles of the international community, excessively used by political circles from the B&H Federation implied as the only arbitration solution the one accoridng to which Brcko should be excluded from Republica Srpska. As if Brcko in Republica Srpska denotes only the extremist variant in which Brcko will never belong to its citizens!?

Launching of the slogan "Brcko to its citizens" in the campaign of federal authorities, but of the opposition as well, with the stress on the principle of justice as the decisive factor for excluding this town from RS, slightly reminds of the notorious slogan from the "glorious" communist era: "Factories to their workers, land to the peasants!" Indeed, the level of injustice and unrighteousness which effectuation of both slogans cause or can cause at a certain time and in certain historical conditions is the same, although they nominally seek for justice and righteousness.

Dayton, this is nowadays quite clear even to the most incorrigible Daytonphiles, did not offer exactly the absolutely just solution for anybody in B&H, and not even for the international community which had imposed it. To seek justice and fairness for Brcko only in the case of its exclusion from RS is not exactly just in a situation when adequate justice cannot be sounght, fo example, for Drvar or Petrovac. Or, observed also from the aspect of RS, why would Brcko in RS belong to its citizens less than, say, Sarajevo to Sarajevans, within B&H? After all, why would belonging to an entity be a measure of justice, if both entities belong to the one and only B&H.

Now when the political dust around Brcko has completely settled (at least for the time being), it should be considered not in the so far practiced manner of sloganeering, but in the manner which will essentially and finally resolve problems of the city on the bank of the river Sava. If the Serbs, although with great pain and difficulties, finally accepted the fact that, regardless who the city will finally belong to, nothing will be left of Arkan's famous slogan: "Brcko is Serb and it will remain Serb", so it would be good if those who are insisting on of the slogan "Brcko to its Citizens" with its real meaning - Brcko outside RS, finally realised that the whole problem of Brcko and its citizens is in ensuring a truly democratic society, and not in establishing mere political or territorial control.

Brcko is in fact a political problem and a political question, because in this space even much less significant questions are always given political connotations. The arbitration process for Brcko was in fact laid down from the very beginning as a political problem, but not in the sense of satisfying somebody's political and territorial aspirations, but as a specific indicator of democratic progress of the society distorted by the terrible war conflict and retrograde regimes disfigured by hatred towards everything that does not belong exclusively to them.

Now when Brcko has for some time ceased to be the "hit story", when from the whole set of political and other complications concerning Brcko, only uncertainty of its citizens has remained in it, it would be recommendable to face the one-year possibility to place Brcko in the framework that belongs to it. Taking facts into account, the federal party should also take into consideration that without Brcko Republica Srpska would not be as it was defined in Dayton, and that in that case, Bosnia & Herzegovina would also acquire a different, to say the least - vague and problematic contours. Therefore, the fact that Republica Srpska without Brcko would not be an integral entity but an undefined territory of two parts which simply calls for redefining its status in every respect should have more weight than the simple and, why not say it, completely unfounded allegation that Brcko will belong to its citizens only if it is "driven out" of Republica Srpska, and that only this solution will satisfy the criteria of historic justice and fairness.

If there could have been some understanding for the slogan "Brcko to Its Citizens" (in translation - Brcko outside RS) until two months ago, primarily as an expression of resistance of the Bosniacs to the regime they had lain the entire blame for the war atrocities they had experienced, after the election of the new authorities in RS which (at least as one can conclude by reading the newspapers and watching TV) has won undivided support of the whole world and acquired the epithet prodemocratic, the reason has disappered for general federal lack of confidence towards Brcko as an integral and inseparable part of RS. Insisting on "driving out" the city on the bank of the Sava out of RS at this year's arbitration hearing had quire recognizable daily political aims, but also more and more obvious anti-Dayton connotations.

This, indeed, marks the lack of confidence and belittling not the character of the authorities in RS, but of Republica Srpska itself as the constitutionally defined state and political entity which is part of B&H. In other words, such a stand slightly resembles digging rats' tunnels through RS which should in the political and territorial sense make it tumble down. In that case, obviously, B&H would not be what it has been since Dayton either, which again implies the conclusion that those who are insisting on it are not only against RS, but also against B&H (at least the one defined in Dayton).

About ten months are left until final disentanglement of the Brcko Gordian knot. In order to reach a solution which will violate neither justice nor righteousness, it is obviously necessary that political passions be restrained, that no resignations or threats that political support will be witheld be used any more, that Brcko be considered in a quite pragmatic and vital manner. It is, therefore, necessary that Brcko surmounts the motives of down-to-earth daily political use and that it acquires the character of a truly democratic issue. Because, only in that way Brcko which has become a political problem will acquire again the character and status which truly belongs to it - a place where people simply can live.

During the ten-month interregnum, the two parties can also think about slogans with which they will set out to the next arbitration session. If after everything that has happened in this space we still need slogans, it seems that the most practical, necessary and vital would be the one "Brcko - at last!" Because only the final arbitration decision will make Brcko as the "political case" a place where it is possible to live decently.

Goran Mihajlovic

(AIM)