THE SARAJEVO I KNEW GORCIN DIZDAR looks back to the Sarajevo that he left behind in 1992 and reflects upon the role that Bosnia should play in the 21st century
MY PARENTS WAVING from the station, my brother and grandmother next to me in the coach, a vague feeling of sadness, no tears: that is how I remember leaving Sarajevo on April 2nd, 1992. Little did I know, at the age of seven, that I was not going to see my parents for the next three years. Little did I know that it was the last time I was seeing Sarajevo the way I knew it. ‘Little Yugoslavia’, they used to call it, because in its ethnic and religious composition it symbolised the whole country: Muslims, Catholics and Orthodox Christians living not ‘peacefully side by side’, but actually together in a way unknown anywhere else in the world. Less than eight years had passed since the Winter Olympics had been held in Sarajevo and its citizens became proud that the world would associate Sarajevo with more than the shot that triggered the beginning of the First World War. Yugoslavia, a socialist country independent from Soviet Russia, enjoyed economic standards greater by far than those of the Eastern bloc; the people were free to travel wherever they wanted. We were very proud of our country.
Looking back now, however, I cannot understand how my parents – like most people from Sarajevo – did not really believe there would be a war even on that April 2nd, three days before the failed invasion of the city took place. A brief lesson on the recent history of former Yugoslavia: After nationalist parties took power in the first free elections in 1989, it was clear that Yugoslavia in the shape it had existed for the past 45 years had to be changed. No agreement was reached, so in 1991 Slovenia declared independence, soon followed by Croatia. There were no problems in Slovenia: 95 per cent of its population were ethnic Slovenians and the Yugoslavian army, controlled by Serbia, withdrew almost without any fighting. Croatia, however, was home to some 450,000 Serbs, who did not like the idea of suddenly being a minority in a Croatian state after being members of the dominant nation in Yugoslavia. Some regions with a Serbian minority, assisted by the Yugoslavian army, declared autonomy from independent Croatia and started taking over large territories populated by Croatians as well as more liberal Serbs. The world’s attention was finally caught when the Serbian army started bombing Dubrovnik, a beautiful medieval city on the Croatian coast protected under international laws as a Unesco World Heritage site. All eyes were turned to Bosnia now: the federal state whose population consisted of roughly 50 per cent Bosnian Muslims (Bosniaks), 30 per cent Serbians and 20 per cent Croatians. At a referendum held in 1992, the overwhelming majority of Bosniaks and Croatians voted for independence from the rest of Yugoslavia, most Serbs refused to vote. In 1992, the UN recognised Bosnia and Herzegovina as an independent country.
Although the multiethnic population of Sarajevo did not believe it could happen, the Yugoslavian (by now reduced to Serbia and Montenegro) army started ‘protecting the Serbian minority’ using methods borrowed from Nazi Germany. After taking over a town or an area, the army would usually assemble its leading citizens and kill them. As we found out from our Serbian neighbours who stayed in our area during the war, my father, as a distinguished journalist, was one of the first ones on the list, together with his family. Luckily, we had left three days earlier.
THAT IS WHEN the series of disastrous decisions made by the UN began. To respond to the escalating violence, the General Assembly decided to put an embargo on the import of weapons to Bosnia. Before the war, the Yugoslavian army was one of largest in Europe. The Bosnian army did not even exist. It seems difficult to avoid one of the two possible conclusions: either the UN acted very stupidly, or it acted very intelligently, predicting that the easiest solution would be to allow a quick Serbian victory. But somehow, the Bosnians managed to defend themselves. Not just the Bosniaks: particularly in Sarajevo,many ethnic Serbians, showing great courage, decided to fight for Bosnia and against their own people and their fascist plans. But the war was very difficult, particularly in Sarajevo. The city was completely surrounded and exposed to constant bombing and sniper shots from the surrounding mountains, the front line sometimes being as close as 500 metres from the city centre. The first bombs were aimed at the National Library: more than a million books and documents were lost in the fire in 1992. The only possible way out of the city was through the airport, controlled by the ‘Blue Helmets’ – the grotesquely lightly armed forces of the UN. At the very beginning of the war, the UN guaranteed a safe passage for our vice president, Hakija Turajlic. The envoy was stopped at a Serbian checkpoint, however. The Serbian soldier walked past the UN soldiers, opened the vehicle and shot Turajlic. The UN didn’t have the permission to shoot back: forced to be strictly neutral, they were only allowed to shoot when attacked. Acting according to the same principle of neutrality, the Blue Helmets would shoot any civilian who would try to cross the airport in a desperate attempt to escape the city. In 1993, there was a glimmer of hope: John Major was visiting the city amidst rumours that he might authorise a military intervention after seeing the catastrophic humanitarian disaster that was taking place there. Despite being celebrated as the savior of Sarajevo, he declared that according to statistics, Sarajevo was only the 20th most dangerous place in the world.
The people of Sarajevo managed to survive by digging a tunnel under the UN-controlled airport that was the only channel between the occupied city and the rest of the world for almost four years. It was to be the longest siege of a city in modern history. But in the end, the people of Sarajevo won. Srebrenica, a Bosniak town deep within Serb-controlled territory, was not as fortunate in correcting the mistakes of the UN. In 1995, Blue Helmets moved into the city, took the weapons of the local population and declared it an internationally-protected ‘safe zone’. When the Serbian army attacked, the Blue Helmets surrendered without any fighting. The helpless population was divided systematically: women and children on one side, men on the other side. On that day, the Serbian army killed more than 8000 men. Most of the bodies were thrown in mass graves that have still not been found.
After the war had finished, Bosnia was divided into two ‘entities’ – the Bosniak and Croatian Federation and the Republika Srpska. Instead of the ethnic mixture that characterised all parts of Bosnia before the war, it is a country deeply divided along ethnic lines today. Srebrenica is in the Serbian part of the country. The majority of the people do not want to live in the same country as the two other nations. And that is the biggest problem of Bosnia today: either three nations have to be forced to live together against their will, or the country must be divided, thereby necessitating ethnic cleansing and all the associated horrors of the war. The UN has opted for the first option, and rightly so, I believe. The way it is being done, however, is wrong and cannot work. Bosnians are being asked collectively to forget that the war has ever happened. The country is full of propaganda posters: one example contains a fork, a spoon and a knife, telling us that “differences can be an advantage”. But even worse than that, this war has no winner. Every side believes that they were right and therefore the underlying reasons for the conflict still remain. On a smaller scale, it is as if in 1945, the Jews had been asked to forget what happened and live in Germany without blaming the Germans for the Holocaust.
There are people in this country who think that ‘they’ – the UN, the international community – are the most responsible for this war. Although I was very critical of the way the UN has handled the situation in former Yugoslavia, I am not one of them. The blame lies with us. I still cannot understand what could lead anyone suddenly to fight against his former neighbour. I deeply believe, however, that under certain conditions people could do the same thing in any part of the world today; we are not some primitive Balkan tribe, who would inevitably tend to war. Yet the world can still learn from us. In the centre of Sarajevo, within 200 meters, there is a mosque, a Catholic cathedral, an Orthodox church and a synagogue and no harm has been done to any of them throughout the war. Bosnia is the only country in Europe where there is not one, but three dominant nationalities. In these times of cultural paranoia and increasing xenophobia in Europe, life is not easy for a small country with a very young democracy. But I remain optimistic, and I hope that Bosnia and Sarajevo will once again be an example of tolerance and openness to the rest of the world in the near future.
