Invisible People

``A shell fell and wounded some children. We put them all into a company car and took them to hospital. The kids were crying, and while I was driving I thought: if I could just get hold of some Serb now, I'd wring his neck. I got the kids to hospital, and on the way back in the bloodstained car I felt ashamed of myself for having thought that a little while back.'' This is Bakir's answer to the question what is it like for the Serbs in Sarajevo. Bakir is one of the locals, and some kind of an official. He can't remember when it all started. ``We have lost all sense of time here. I think it happened after I was wounded.''

The Serbs in Sarajevo speak the same way, but they have their specific landmark in the twoyearslong history of this war and the siege: early 1993, when the police in a lightning fast action liquidated local criminal gangs. A top police official who was in charge of the action, a Serb, said that this marked the end of the first phase in the defence of the city. ``In that chaos and confusion of April, all of us were caught unprepared; we had no army, the police were divided, only the criminals were ready. It was necessary to fight and only the police and the criminals were used to violence; that's the way it had to be in the beginning, but then the riffraff became too brazen and we arrested them.'' This moment coincides with Haris Silajdzic's appointment to the post of BH Prime Minister, and all our collocutors agree that the two events are linked in some way.

There is no precise data on the number of Serbs who disappeared during the period of lawlessness. Estimates put the figure at around 150 (sources close to the authorities) and up to at least 250 (some Serbian organizations here); the truth will be known when peace comes, and if it comes, and when everybody takes stock of what has happened to them. It is a fact, however, that people did disappear. As a rule this happened after the shelling was very heavy and there were many victims, or after news of massacres and the expulsion of nonSerbs in the Bosnian Serb Republic, said Brigadier General Jovo Divjak: ``As the pressure grew over there, so it did over here; when it eased up there, it was easier for the Serbs here.''

Many consider General Divjak a Serb benefactor, something he doesn't talk about much, but he got a lot of men and women out of various jails, private and otherwise. Local commanders in the Sarajevo suburbs would capture Serbs so that they'd have somebody to exchange for their soldiers; men and women sometimes spent up to twenty months in private jails. Local big shots like Juka, Coce, Cela and others captured Serbs on the streets or dragged them out of their flats and forced them to dig trenches on the front lines. The locals add that they also captured Muslims and Croats and that when it came to looting they weren't very particular. The usual method was to plant weapons in someone's flat during a search, on the excuse that they were snipers and members of the ``fifth column.'' The whole of Kosevo became familiar with a certain pistol which was planted in the victims' houses. Dusko L. is a pensioner and lives close to the front line; he said that he shared all the good and the bad in this war with his neighbors, but that the searches were an additional headache: ``Six of them enter your flat and start nosing around and you can't keep an eye on all of them. I was just praying that they wouldn't drop a hand grenade into this vase and kept looking at it.''

Goran Simic, a writer and the founder of the Serbian cultural society ``Prosvjeta'' has three brothers: one is a BH Army soldier, another is a Bosnian Serb Republic army general and the third has fled. ``There was Serbophobia from the beginning of the war, and until a month after the massacre at Markala market,'' he said. ``The gangs took advantage of the circumstances and the atmosphere, and the Serbs were the first on the list. And suddenly the question is being asked at a political levelwhere are the Serbs? Well, we're not exactly invisible, an optical illusion, how come you didn't manage to see us so far?'' Goran Simic agrees with those who claim that the influx of refugees is making the situation more difficult and that they will be a political problem in the long run, but adds that the fashionable and careerist underscoring of allegiance to Islam is a greater problem. ``I find it easier to live with Muslims now; they are having a hard time trying to defend themselves from these nouveau Muslims.''

General Divjak believes that the Serbs in Sarajevo made a mistake because they didn't raise their voice in protest earlier and because they didn't get organized along political lines. This is in line with his character and temperament: Jovo Divjak is charming and witty. He walks about the city without bodyguards and weapons and speaks the Serbian dialect, always underscoring that he is a Serb. To the greeting ``Salaam'' he answers: ``May the Lord help you brother''; he sees an acquaintance and yells across the street: ``Radmila, my Serb woman, take care of yourself!'' During a recent visit to the front (the soldiers adore him), an officer said that the fortifications were so good that a Serb foot would never step on them; General Divjak replied: ``Weell, it just has.''

General Divjak divides the Serbs in Sarajevo into three groups: those who opted for the authorities and a single BH immediately and shared all the hardships of the siege and the shelling with their neighbors, from fetching water to serving in the army; the second group are those who are ``neither here nor there: they sit and wait for someone to protect them and create conditions for a normal life''; and the third group are those who ``have certain sympathy for their compatriots on the other side'' and would gladly join them. Jovo Divjak is aware of a longterm problem faced by the Serbs in BH: ``They don't have their own national political party, and therefore they have no political say in the resolving of BosniaHerzegovina's future. The Serbian Civil Council is an association of citizens. The Serbs are to be found mostly in other parties which are not nationally oriented, such as the Social Democratic Party (SDPthe former Communists). The two main parties here: the Party of Democratic Action (SDA) and the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) are backed by the church and the army; Karadzic's Serbian Democratic Party (SDS) over there is in the same situation. The Serbs here don't have that, and you can't have a serious political party without that.''

The number of Serbs in the BH Army has dropped compared to the beginning of the war: from some 13% to 5% (these estimates have been made by journalists in Sarajevo), or 3% (general Divjak); this is explained with the general exodus of Serbs (see box). General Divjak lists the units in which the Serbs dominate or account for a significant number of the troops (several companies, and the recently founded Serbian battalion in Tuzla), and mentions the BH Army command where the national element is the key factor, but adds that 14% Serbs are in the Bosnian police, and that Serbs are very much present in the field of culture in Sarajevo (especially in the theater). ``And don't forget,'' said Jovo Divjak, ``that the Washington agreement speaks of others and says that the two parties, the SDA and the HDZ decide on everything. It is obvious that the SDA is expanding now. The state of BH has been recognized by 83 states, of this 56 are Islamic countries. That is a dangerous situation for our future.''

BH Prime Minister and Federal PM Haris Silajdzic told VREME that he was perfectly aware of the fact that the key of the republic's survival lay in the preservation of the multicultural, multiethnic and civic state of BH. He deplores the excesses and incidents in which the victims were Serbs in Sarajevo and BH and underscores that the situation is much better now. Silajdzic recalled Bosnia's tradition: ``The past is a reference to an individual and a nation; the BosnjaksMuslims, have this reference with regard to their compatriots from the times when they were the dominant group and showed their tolerance. After the terrible crimes in BH I was afraid that the BosnjaksMuslims might retaliate in equal measure. To my great relief they didn't, even when they could have done so. So the Muslims have passed the greatest testthe test of self control. It is not easy to rise above totalitarianism, to reject the call of blood, territory and nation. It is to no one's credit that they have been born as members of this or that nation; when a man is born he is given a certain amount of time, and it is up to him what he will do with it. It's disastrous to make a religion out of it,'' said Silajdzic. To illustrate his point he cited the case of the old Orthodox church in Bascarsija which started to burn during the shelling and which the people in the neighborhood saved: ``It would have burned down if it hadn't been for those people... To destroy 900 sacral facilities in BH territory is a very expensive project...''

In his statement to ``Bosanska vila,'' the organ of the Serbian society ``Prosveta'' archpriest Krstan Bijeljac described the state of the Orthodox sacral buildings in Sarajevo: ``On the right bank of the Miljacka River there are three Orthodox churches, two chapels and several cemeteries where Orthodox believers are buried. The churches have been damaged by shells, machine gun bullets and rifle bullets, the chapels too. The cathedral and the old church were protected from the damp and the rain several times (but the other churches, because of their vicinity to the front lines could not be helped... The Church of the Holy Transfiguration in Novo Sarajevo has been looted. Everything that was moveable has disappeared or been broken...'' Of the seven Orthodox priests (and six pensioners) in the two Sarajevo parishes, only two have remained of whom one is a pensioner.

The example of Sarajevo's Serbs gives a plastic illustration of the main contradictions of political life in BH, the vicious circle of its civilization: how to reconcile a traditional norm of a civic multiethnic and multifaith state with the current reality in which ethnic and religious trialism dominate. Zdravko Grebo, a professor and the editorinchief of Radio Zid (Wall) is bitter but persistent: ``This subjectabout nationsI can't understand that. I know that there are various extremists, but we here don't think that way. The international community has given legitimacy to the ethnic principle and reduced everything to the level of three tribes, and let's go separate them. The national principle is a reality, but neither I, nor the people I live with don't accept it. This division into three is neither a good nor a bad solution; it's no kind of a solution. Some good people are setting up the Serbian Civic Council and the Croatian National Council, because they've been given homework by the UN bureaucracy. The thing ends in an absurdity: associations which have the name `Serbian' and `Croatian' are urging a civic solution of the Bosnian crisis... I don't think that there's a problem regarding Serbs or anyone in Sarajevo; there's just the problem of protecting human rights and minority rights and freedoms.''

The stand of the ruling SDA on this issue hasn't been consistent during the two and a half years of war.

Adil Kulenovic the director of the independent radio ``Studio 99,'' recalls the history of the idea of a joint life as interpreted by the authorities: ``Before the war there were 34% mixed marriages in Sarajevo; in the first year of war there were 15.6% such marriages in the Centar municipality.'' (Prof. Ljubo Berberovic said that the war brought an increased divorce rate, but that only 1% of the divorce cases were mixed marriages).

In 1993 the first moves towards the setting up of an Islamic state were made: there were attempts at replacing Parliament with a Bosnjak assembly, and onepage draft Constitution; the democratic public protested. Until then no one had publicly said that a joint life was a lie, but small, practical steps were made in that direction. In December 1993 Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic spoke against a joint life to the army in Zenica. Asked later on TV BH to explain his statement in Zenica, Izetbegovic was embarrassed and said that a joint life was possible only with amnesia. The same thesis appeared in early spring 1994, at the SDA convention.

Writer Marko Vesovic and Adil Kulenovic have launched the question on ``Krug 99,'' an association of independent intellectuals rallied around the radio of the same name, which led to a polemic with the magazine ``Ljiljan.'' Adil Kulenovic said that the pressure exerted by the Americans and especially President Bill Clinton's letter and that of Secretary of State Warren Christopher which had been read at the opening of the US Embassy in Sarajevo, had helped Izetbegovic change his mind and agree that a joint life was possible.

Changes which have happened of late with regard to this issue are visible: the authorities are making an effort at starting a dialogue with Serbian and Croatian politicians and at including the representatives of these ethnic groups in political life. BH Assembly Speaker Miro Lazovic told VREME that the Serbs and Muslims were closer than the Muslims and Croats: they had a similar temperament and tastes and a closer common history. ``Serbs in BH had no reason to go to war; they were privileged along the party cadre line which promoted partisans and their children, they had no problems. I understand why the Serbs in Krajina rose, but not those here. When Karadzic told the SDS deputies in the BH Assembly that he had agreed with Izetbegovic that there would be no war, a certain Adzic, a deputy from Ilijas, complained: he said that they had prepared the people for war, and how about a little shooting, for one day at least, to which the whole group applauded. At that time Aleksa Buha (current Serb Republic in BH Foreign Ministered. note) told me that we must divide; I asked him how we were going to do that and where we were going to live and he said that he had never thought of living in Sarajevo. Those who wish to be with us can, the others, well, they can stay in Alija's state. That's how they got territories without people.'' Miro Lazovic insists on the thesis that BH will survive as a joint state of all three nations and claims that no one would touch the Serbian people in territory from which Karadzic's troops would withdraw as part of a peace agreement: ``If things here were as Karadzic claims, all the Serbs in Sarajevo and elsewhere would long be dead. And I'm telling you that civicoriented Serbs in Sarajevo have an easier time than Serbs in the Bosnian Serb Republic.''

President of the Serbian Consultative Council Ljubo Berberovic said that this association has set up relations with the state and political parties, and wanted to work on protecting and promoting Serb interests in BH through them. He complains of the ``isolationism'' of some Serbs who in that way bring themselves into the position of hostages, which is perfect for those supporting the strategy: ``the worse it is for Serbs in BH, the better it is for Pale.'' ``Multiethnicity must be preserved in the whole territory of the former Yugoslavia, because that is the only way we can remain a part of Europe. Ethnic purity is a refusal to communicate, and cannot survive as a way of looking at the world.''

General Divjak took VREME's journalist to a commemorative ceremony marking the second anniversary of the death of Ramiz Salcina, a soldier from Dobrinja after whom the former JNA garrison ``Viktor Bubanj'' has been renamed. A local commander from Dobrinja, dressed in black and looking fierce greeted the gathering with the following words: ``Salaam aleikum, and those who don't accept aleikum, good evening to them.'' The words ``those who don't accept aleikum'' sounded ominous and were quite in character with the commander's reputation, a man who describes himself as the ``Dobrinja mutevelija'' (the head of a vakuf, a foundation for the spiritual wellbeing of Muslims).

The prospects of a life together in Sarajevo are not all that black, but a lot of effort, wisdom and tolerance will be needed for things to remain that way. The tradition of tolerance is being put to the test; Sarajevo is not finding it easy to absorb the wave of refugees, nouveau Muslims and the partisanguerilla syndrome. The tension is visible. The citizens of Sarajevo hope that the city's soul will survive it all.

Where are the Serbs?

Before the war there were 157,000 Serbs in Sarajevo. Estimates differ on how many have remained: Miro Lazovic mentioned 70,000; Goran Simic and some other Serbs believe that there are less, while the humanitarian organization ``Dobrotvor'' said that there were 53,000. Berberovic and the wellknown Sarajevo demographer Ilijas Bosnjovic each have their statistics on where the Serbs from BH are now. (The figures are given in thousands)

Berberovic Bosnjovic Refugees from BH 596 (40.4%) 388 (28.2%) In the Bosnian Serb Republic 609 (41.3%) 731 (53.1%) Dead and missing 120 (8.1%) 96 (7%) In BH 150 (10.2%) 162 (11.7%) TOTAL 1475 (100%) 1377 (100%)