Rolling Stones on the Vrbas River

Even if they are immediately informed of the situation in the city, it is difficult for visitors from more fortunate places to get used to the indirect consequences; after a cold shower, one cannot drink coffee in a cafe, and if they order scrambled eggs for breakfast at the hotel "Slavija", they may hear the polite apology: "My, there's no electricity... You'll have to wait a little bit for us to light a fire". In the evening one reads with the aid of battery-powered lamps, and the cafes are lit by candlelight. Even when there is electricity, the street lamps are turned off in order to conserve energy and the city seems a bit eerie at night

The residents of Banja Luka recall that the restrictions began when the war did and that they were worst during the winter before last: "I bathed one or two times during January of 1993", recalls an obviously freshly scrubbed young man. "We did not have electricity at all for more than a month. We froze. You could say that things are even good now." Officials rebuff residents who complain that electricity is traded to the Croats for fuel

"Banja Luka obtains electricity from three sources, of which the hydroelectric power plants on the Vrbas River and imports from the Republic of Serb Krajina (RSK) - Obrovac - are negligible except when there are strong rains", explains Rajko Kasagic, president of the city council. "Most of our electricity comes from Serbia, by way of two Posavina (Sava River valley) transmission lines of 110 kV each

One transmission line is currently unusable due to either the impact of Muslim artillery around Brcko or the theft of materials from the transmission line. The city currently receives 40 megawatts, but we need 150 (210 for the immediate area). This problem can be solved by installing a 400 kV transmission line or by linking up with Visegrad via Tuzla, but we cannot reach an agreement with the Muslims." Fortunately, the blockade on the Drina does not include electricity for now. On the other hand, telephone links to Yugoslavia are "dead"

With the exception of the Radio Television Serbia (RTS) news program, the residents of Banja Luka are having the hardest time "putting up with" the severing of telephone links, which provokes mild panic and, until recently unthinkable, complaints about Milosevic and their "brothers" across the Drina. Yet people are somehow coping: in the beginning connections were being made by first dialing two "zeroes" and a "five", or by attempting to dial via Knin (RSK)

"Not even the United Nations are doing to you what you are doing to us", is a complaint made to people from Serbia

The first days of "the brotherly sanctions" saw a run on the shops, which are just now beginning to slowly fill up. A kilogram of bread now costs 90 para, a kilogram of sugar has increased in price from 1.5 dinars to 2.5 dinars, as has cooking oil, which can be obtained for 2.2 to 2.6 dinars per liter (1.6 previously). Salt is hard to find, although the price tripled within a few days (from a price of 50 paras, it "reached" 1.5 dinars per kilogram). The selection of detergents and shampoos has decreased, and to add to problems, hail damaged crops in the area, so that even the "green market" has become more expensive. The "gasoline barons", already wallowing in money, took advantage of the opportunity to sell gasoline at a price of 10 DEM per liter at the beginning of the blockade! The price has now stabilized, so that a liter of gasoline now costs "only" 3-5 DEM (In this business Avramovic's dinar is not highly esteemed because of a fear that the embargo could compel the (RS) government to introduce its own currency). The price of cigarettes is 20 to 30 percent higher than in Belgrade, while prices for other goods are about the same or a little bit higher as they are here. All of this must be bought with salaries of 45 to 160 dinars per month. A soldier's salary is 50, a non-commissioned officer's is 60, and an officer's (valid for those in the reserves) is 70 per month and it is three months in arrears

The salaries of active officers had come from Serbia until now and it is currently unknown whether or not this will continue. Obtaining supplies on the front has been made more difficult, the food is terrible, and five men sometimes share one can for a meal. It is no easier for pensioners who attempt to live on 20 dinars a month (the average is 22.8, if that means anything). Approximately 22,300 pensioners live in Banja Luka, and could begin to massively fall into the ranks of welfare recipients. There are approximately 13,000 registered refugees (the actual number is much higher) and 32,000 people receive welfare, almost every fourth resident of Banja Luka (the city had a pre-war population of 150,000 and the county had a population of 195,000). Many people, or more precisely, women (men are mainly at the front), are "on waiting" (a form of forced vacation), and the economy is functioning at fifteen percent capacity. Firms involved in the production or processing of food, tobacco or alcohol are still doing something; other factories are clinically dead. Health services, according to Rajko Kasagic, "are helped by God alone". The problem of obtaining oxygen has been solved, but there is a shortage of everything else, especially solutions for chemical dialysis and medicines for cardiac patients

Indeed, medicines arrive from Serbia and abroad (international humanitarian organizations, "Caritas", "Merhamet", "Dobrotvor", emigrant sources...), but because of administrative procedures and unprofessional collection abroad their expiration dates have often passed by the time they reach Banja Luka. Of course, a portion is stolen en route

The aforementioned figures are valid for the period prior to the establishment of the blockade on the Drina, so it is presumed that the actual situation is worse: "Since Friday, by Yugoslav government orders, trucks can only cross the border crossing at Rac", says Kasagic. "Our future is unclear, but we are determined to withstand." Yugoslav authorities have thwarted the maneuvers of many private companies in Banja Luka who had massively begun to reregister in Knin because of the blockade - merchandise from the RSK no longer crosses the border without RSK Prime Minister Borislav Mikelic's signature and from the opposite direction the signature of "that Hungarian" (The mention of Mihalj Kertes, head of Yugoslav Customs, in Banja Luka is unfailingly followed by verbal complaints in which a worthy linguist would find much evidence of the wealth and flavor of the Krajina variant of the Serbian language) is sought

New York, Brussels and Belgrade are currently exerting pressure upon the government of the RS, and accusations of the intensification of ethnic cleansing, especially in Bijeljina and Banja Luka, are arriving from international institutions. At the same time, one can observe that Banja Luka is calmer than before: the sound of gunshots cannot be heard at night, soldiers armed with machine guns no longer stroll through town, the state and public security services are now separated, and the police claim that not a single serious criminal act has gone unsolved since the spring of this year. The authorities are therefore now disposed to attribute the latest accusations of ethnic cleansing to conspiracies by the Muslims, Banja Luka (Roman Catholic) archbishop Franjo Komarica, the international Red Cross and who knows whom else. They are currently getting ready for the trial of a group of Muslims (of whom the youngest is 57 years old) under charges of espionage (the "Valter" group)

However, it is a fact that a few thousand remaining Muslims are preparing to leave. There are ten thousand left in the city, representing one third (one-fifth according to some statistics) of the pre-war population. They have survived all imaginable forms of oppression; they lost their jobs as soon as the war began, then they lost their businesses, they lost their larger apartments in the city center and were forcibly moved to smaller apartments on the outskirts of town (or put out on the street), and many even lost their lives

According to unofficial estimates, 50 civilians of Muslim nationality have been murdered in Banja Luka since the beginning of the war. The number robbed, mistreated and beaten is much larger. A wide variety of methods have been used: from anonymous or open threats to humiliation, beating with rifle-butts, swimming in the Vrbas..

Indeed, the most brutal terror has passed - the police have began to do their jobs - but more subtle methods now suffice, especially the "work obligation", which implies the most difficult physical labor

The residents of Banja Luka had the opportunity to recognize their most eminent fellow townspeople (doctors, professors,...) in a group of workers who were recently cleaning the Vrbas river front. The Serbs say that someone must do these things, that the "work obligation" applies to all, that it is nevertheless easier for the Croats and the Muslims because they are not on the front and that, as citizens of a country at war, they are subject to the same obligations as all other. The problem is, however, that the Muslims in Banja Luka are not second-class citizens - in the local media they are not citizens at all - they are instead "balije" (derogatory term), "Turks", "Islamic fanatics", "Alija's Mujaheddin",... The politicians, through minister and coordinator Radoslav Brdjanin, whose public statements provoke sneers or fear, are behind all of this

"The Constitution of the RS says that all citizens have the right to freely practice their faith", says an understandably anonymous Muslim from Banja Luka. "I guess that also applies to us, except that our clergy are not able to walk the streets in religious garb, we cannot publicly call one another 'merhaba' ('hello' in Turkish) and we do not have anywhere to worship"

All sixteen mosques in Banja Luka were demolished or set on fire from April to September of last year, including the two largest and most important: Ferhadija (1579) and Arnaudija (1584). None of the guilty parties have been caught or sentenced, and it seems as if the Serbs here are not yet aware of the magnitude of this crime. "I was shocked by the sight of the demolition of Ferhadija, but now, as I pass by this leveled surface, I do not really feel any loss", says a young and educated Serb. His girlfriend explains that her brother is on the front lines, that she only thinks about whether or not he will return alive, and that she simply does not have enough emotion left to lament the loss of the Ferhadija mosque. Another girl remembers the destruction of the Ferhadija mosque by the fact that the windows at her electrotechnical college were broken by the explosion and that there were no classes for a few days: "The mosque exploded, the windows broke, and our college was given a view of the city because the minaret no longer blocks it". Her answer to the sarcastic question of why the castle was also not destroyed since it is a contemporary of the demolished buildings from the Turkish occupation (the mosques, the Sahat Tower, Halil-Pasha's Dome) is even more caustic: "The castle was built upon Roman foundations, and we respect their culture. After all, Christianity links us to them

Of course, the demonstration of insensitivity is aimed at the visitors from Belgrade who have the luxury of moralizing, but it is obvious that younger and educated Serbs in Banja Luka do not really approve of what is happening. Justifications are sought, and the favorite one is the destruction of the large Orthodox church in the center of the city during the Second World War: "Did you know that the Ustashi (World War II Croatian Fascists) forced the Serbs to destroy their own church, stone by stone?" That is true, but it is also true that, in 1942 a group of 64 eminent Banja Luka Muslims, headed by their Mufti, sent an open letter to Ante Pavelic (President of the fascist Independent State of Croatia encompassing all of Bosnia-Herzegovina) demanding a suspension of the persecution of Serbs. With honorable exceptions, you cannot today find that many Serbs in Banja Luka ready to publicly protect their fellow-townspeople of another faith

Fortunately, many more Serbs are ready to help their neighbors in a different manner, quietly and discretely. Some professional Croats and Muslims have retained their positions simply because they are irreplaceable and their Serbian colleagues strive to keep them there and to keep them from their "work obligations"

Speaking of one of his colleagues, one Banja Luka Serb says: "He is an excellent professional and a good man, I like to work with him. I would defend him - until it came down to a matter of him or me"

Things are somewhat easier for Croats in Banja Luka than for Muslims: Catholic churches in the city are riddled with bullet holes but otherwise untouched, and they have been treated somewhat better

Better informed observers of local circumstances explain that the Croats have at least formally remained in the county assembly (Anton Ruzic is vice-president of the city council) and have thereby preserved the possibility of direct communication with the government. They were also saved to a certain degree by the months-long Croat-Muslim war in central Bosnia and around Mostar

Many people, especially the youth, of all religions have left Banja Luka since the beginning of the war. "We are no longer a thriving community, but instead a geriatric ghetto", laments a middle-aged Muslim. "Wherever you look only old people remain. They cannot even leave easily - a pile of papers and a mountain of money are needed

Because of frustration, pressures and ever worsening living conditions, our mortality has risen - every day we have a few funerals. Our graveyards are overcrowded, some are desecrated or leveled flat, and they do not allow us to expand them." Soon, even the Serbs will no longer have a place to bury their dead

The municipal graveyard at Borik is already overcrowded. A new part of the graveyard, in which mainly fallen soldiers are buried, is located right next to the entrance to the large, nicely decorated and popular discotheque "Portoriko". An eighteen-year-old young man who had just returned from the front lines explains that he has never entered the discotheque for that reason: I am not a national extremist, but I think that it is not right for me to have a good time here, next to the graves of people who died for this country. They were all young men. I don't know, it somehow isn't right." The war has entered many houses in Banja Luka in the most brutal manner. The tree-lined avenues are filled with death notices containing photographs of young people killed on battlefields from Bihac to the Corridor or Sarajevo

The city is also slowly dying. There were many professionals and intellectuals among the tens of thousands of Muslims and Croats who left. Thousands of Serbs, predominantly the most educated, have also left the city. Considerably less qualified refugees have arrived in their place, and the younger residents have named the migrants from the surrounding areas "Rolling Stones" (they have "rolled down" into Banja Luka from their native mountains). There is a great need for professionals everywhere, and students in their final years of study complain of a fall in the quality of teaching. Young men who spent a year in the army immediately after finishing their secondary education desperately attempt to sign up for any possible college in order to avoid the front for at least some time; girls from the medical college recoil at rumors that they will be mobilized. Some plan to leave, others do not have any plans, and some will surely attempt to get by in a country in which, as the authorities admit, the selection of a minister is made by applying the following criteria, in this order: patriotism, devotion to the Serbian cause, party affiliation, professional ability.