Ten Years On, Something Holds Bosnia Together

Awkwardly for Ashdown, the next week marked the anniversary of Izetbegovic's death. And so on a brilliant Saturday in October, the High Representative gamely traveled to a hilltop cemetery overlooking the city to attend the ceremony. With Sarajevo's diplomatic community and the city's establishment crowded into the cemetery, a Muslim cleric read prayers in Arabic and delivered a short sermon that seemed pointed at Ashdown. "Our right to remember Alija Izetbegovic is our right to freedom," he said. "Denying that remembrance in any way denies us our freedom." Izetbegovic was more than a president, he was "the symbol of our dignity, our Bosnian rising, and our Muslim existence." As the ceremony ended, the loudspeakers hung on the minarets around the cemetery crackled as Sarajevo's mosques burst into prayer.

European leaders are hoping that the prospect of joining the EU will sand down the jagged edges of Bosnian politics. This fall, Ashdown played the Europe card for all it was worth as he lobbied Bosnian Serb politicians to accept a unified police force. Bosnians, Ashdown lectured, "want their politicians to lead this country forward into modern Europe, not chain it to its past." After months of wrangling, the Serbs yielded. The EU instantly opened negotiations with Bosnia, a tentative first step toward membership. "From today the agenda has changed," Ashdown exulted, "and from tomorrow Bosnia is another country."

In another country is where most Bosnian Serbs would like to be. Banja Luka, the capital of the Serb "republic" within Bosnia, is a three-hour drive northwest from Sarajevo toward the heart of Europe. In May 1993, Serbs destroyed its famed Ferhadija mosque and all 15 others as part of a campaign to erase the Muslim presence. Driving into Banja Luka, I spotted a few lonely minarets in nearby villages. Supported by the United Nations and international donors, some Muslim refugees have trickled back to their homes. Yet very few have returned to the downtown, and the spot where the Ferhadija mosque stood is now a vacant lot surrounded by a 10-foot-high wall, almost as if the city itself were embarrassed by the savagery.

Some Serbs may now be remorseful about the war's atrocities, but none that I spoke to, even the most moderate, seemed willing to create a genuinely multiethnic state by surrendering the enclave that Serb forces brutally carved out during the war. Only a handful of Serbs would even consider giving up their autonomy, estimates Branko Todorovic, a Serb human rights activist. "Neither Serbs nor Croats want to be on the margins," he said. Afraid of being overwhelmed by Bosnia's Muslims, they cling tenaciously to their ethnic brethren in neighboring Serbia and Croatia. With the guns silent, the passion and fear erupt in other ways. When the Serbian soccer team defeated Bosnia's side in an October qualifying match, jubilant Bosnian Serbs in Banja Luka thronged the streets while a sullen Sarajevo watched.

Nation-building in Bosnia -- one-fifth the size of Iraq -- is really just beginning. It's a convoluted process, and the absence of blood keeps the camera crews away. Yet the thankless diplomatic slog is making a unified state possible. And someday, Bosnians may even root for it together.

Author's e-mail:

dbosco@carnegieendowment.org

David Bosco is senior editor at Foreign Policy magazine. He worked in and reported from Bosnia between 1996 and 1998.