Bitter Life in the Town of Salt

"I speak in the name of my daughter who is married to a Serb, in the name of my son who is married to a Muslim, and in my own name. I have been in uniform since April 4, 1992 and I will not take it off until this evil is defeated, until fascism is defeated. I support peace, but we have no other choice. However, our victory will mean nothing unless that evil is also defeated morally. And that may be even harder to achieve than a military victory." These are the words of Alojz Knezevic, an elderly Croat and a soldier in the Army of Bosnia-Herzegovina (B-H), addressing himself to participants at the international conference "Can Europe do Without Multiculturalism", held in Tuzla from October 3-5, 1994 under the sponsorship of European Parliament President Klaus Hansch.

Sejfudin Tokic, a member of the B-H Parliament, unwillingly thanked the European participants for the compliments that they gave during their political safari extolling the example of Tuzla. He asserts that Tuzla is not a rare oasis of multinational coexistence amidst war, and that many Bosnians, as hostages of their national oligarchies, have been unable to act as the citizens of Tuzla have, mostly because of the support that some other Europeans have given to those oligarchies. "We are afraid that this could soon happen in Tuzla also", says Tokic.

Tuzla's pre-war population was almost 50 percent Muslim, somewhat over 15 percent Serb, and approximately 15 percent Croat. Almost 20 percent were those who had called themselves Yugoslavs. Along with Vares, it was the only city in B-H where national parties did not win during the so-called first democratic elections (1990). Local authorities and parliamentary representatives were elected from former Yugoslav Prime Minister Ante Markovic's Union of Reformist Forces, now called the Union of Bosnian Social Democrats, who organized the successful defense and later relatively normal functioning of life in the city. War did not provoke internal national splits and conflicts. Even though around 6000 Serbs left the city with the withdrawal of the former Yugoslav Peoples' Army (JNA), over 20,000 nevertheless remained.

Petar Todorovic, one of the founders of the Serbian Consultative Council in Tuzla, authoritatively maintains that Serbs can hardly claim that they are second-class citizens: "They are endangered, but by war, as are all others, and for this reason they are leaving, as others are leaving". Tuzla also succeeded in avoiding the Croat-Muslim war, even though efforts were made to make it spread there, such as those by terrorists from the Party for Democratic Action (SDA), Bosnian Croat leader Mate Boban's terrorists, and messages from Zagreb telling Croats that they should flee. Tuzla found a response to this. Instead of fiery speeches from their political and religious pulpits, legendary Tuzla mayor Selim Beslagic and the local monastery's superior fra Petar Matanovic, the most prominent of Tuzla's Roman Catholic clergy, together visited Croat villages using their authority to guarantee that there would be no conflict.

Despite all of this, or perhaps because of this, the people of Tuzla faced a third conflict - with the Sarajevo government, which was making more and more open accusations about how "the reds" (Yugo-nostalgics) were starting along Fikret Abdic's (leader of the renegade Autonomous Region of Western Bosnia - APZB - in the Bihac enclave) road and that they wanted their own "state" which they would allegedly later sell to the Serbs. But the authorities in Tuzla did not allow themselves to be provoked. They made it clear that they consider the Sarajevo government legitimate, but that they will solve problems in this region without conflicts. At least without those that are unnecessary.

But the war on three fronts began to succeed and remaining a clear stream within the Bosnian swamp became exceptionally difficult because, as sarcastically noted by one of the city's leaders, it stands in the way of large agreements by small leaders. The people of Tuzla were therefore given the honor of being the first to feel the "benefits" of the Balkan (mis)uses of the Washington Agreement. While it is still more or less confined only to paper throughout the Croat-Muslim Federation, the first Tuzla-Podrinje (region in east-central Bosnia) canton and its government have already been organized in Tuzla. No one would be surprised that the people of Tuzla are ahead in this if a coalition of the SDA and the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) was not behind this zeal. This coalition has assumed almost absolute control over the canton and, in accordance with the constitution, at the same time de facto control of Tuzla.

The type of democratic procedure used is best illustrated by the fact that all municipalities which make up that canton have the same number of representatives in the cantonal parliament - Tuzla, which represents close to a third of its population, and municipalities with only a few thousand residents.

One did not have to wait long for the results of this "democratic" arithmetic. The cantonal government dominated by the SDA quickly showed its own power and well-known course in which a policy of national convenience decides everything. The national purging of all institutions that come under their authority (the military, the police, many firms) is advancing quickly, leaving behind ever wider national fissures, distrust, suspicions and insecurity. This process is well-known in Sarajevo, which is why it is increasingly losing its credibility as the multinational center of Bosnian coexistence. Under the mask of Bosnianness, which was initially accepted by many Serbs and Croats even though they are now becoming more and more allergic to it, Islamic fundamentalism, which was indeed last to enter the political scene, is spreading its tentacles. Even in this case when things are going badly for the Croats, the HDZ, the SDA's small coalition partner, will quietly pass over all of this with the expectation that they will settle accounts elsewhere - either in Herzegovina or with the demand that they be given their own Croat municipality in Tuzla.

Miki, one of those Serbs who has been in the trenches since the beginning of the war, resignedly explains how much has changed since the outbreak of the war: "What do you expect will happen when imams are constantly coming to our unit and saying things that are causing even my Muslim friends to cross themselves in bewilderment? They are dividing us, mate. Both those at the top and at the bottom. The former are growing more and more stronger, while there are more and more of the latter".

A city exhausted by war, through which 200,000 refugees have passed, 60,000 of them remaining and changing its appearance whether they want to or not, is becoming ever more fertile ground for national political manipulation. That which was strongly opposed during these years of war is gradually beginning to shake the city's foundation as well as the salt mines that have provided a livelihood for centuries. It is increasingly difficult to explain to Serbs, Croats and many Muslims that the city's authorities have less and less influence and that new political decisions are made elsewhere. There is less patience and more people are leaving. There is growing room for warriors who thank Allah for everything and will gain more than the others from the heavy losses that the Muslims have incurred during this war. It is ever clearer that not only the Army of B-H is on the offensive. National lines are being drawn even where they never existed before. However, some would say that annoying witnesses who think that Bosnia could have followed another path should be eliminated.