The Fate of Dr. Malic

Four young men jog through Grbavica, a Sarajevo suburb which used to be under Serb control (and was right next to the front line throughout the war). They are in step with one another, clearly sportsmen keen to stay fit. One of them is wearing a FC Milan shirt, with number 10 and name Savicevic printed on the back. 'Savicevic' and others disappear in the direction of city centre. They might even go as far as Bas-Carsija where a certain Mr. Blagojevic is about to open a bar. Above the entrance he printed his name in large letters. Twice: once in Cyrillic and once in Latin script. On the other side of the city, in "Holiday Inn" hotel, Bosnian citizens of Serbian origin are holding their third conference organized by the Serbian Civil Council (SGV). It's all there: Conference hall full to the brim, Bosnian national anthem, report from Mirko Pejanovic chairman of SGV, welcoming speech by Bosnian Prime Minister Hasan Muratovic, numerous guests - including two coaches full of anti-war activists, politicians and journalists from Belgrade. Telegrams sent to the conference by people of considerable wisdom and distinction are being read out. Speeches follow one another all containing words like peace, Dayton, reintegration, unified Bosnia, renewal of trust, return of refugees, war crimes trials, democratization, unity, equality...

In the city centre, dr. Mirjana Malic is fixing a wardrobe. She is in no hurry since she is unemployed and has plenty of time. Before the war she was a lecturer in dentistry specializing in diseases of the mouth and paradontosis. There were only three experts in that field in Bosnia, and she was one of them. Then the Serbs started bombing the city. "We practically spent the whole of May of 1992 in the cellar", Mirjana Maric recalls. "My husband Djordje was one of the few people allowed to move around the city, as he was on permanent compulsory duty as a sound engineer on state radio. As soon as I could, I came back to work and immediately felt a change in the atmosphere. Professor Osman Ceribasic, member of the hospital's crisis cabinet invited me into his office and told me that he has been suspended after refusing to sign the list of people to be sacked. He was told that no Serb will be allowed into the faculty as they are all Chetniks. Later, on 9. July, a list of names appeared on the notice board containing around 130 names including my own. We have been sacked for not turning up at work for 15 days, although no one else turned up either.

Later Mirjana Malic received a written note of dismissal giving her the right to appeal within 15 days from receiving the note or 15 days following the end of the war. This legally ambiguous wording ensured no one was obliged to hear to her appeal. In the meantime other two experts in diseases of the mouth and paredontology left Sarajevo: professor Faruk Arifhodzic for Kuwait, while Berslav Topic for Zagreb. There was no one left with expert knowledge in this field. Mirjana Malic was sitting at home. Out of the six members of the hospital's crisis cabinet who signed her dismissal, four left Sarajevo in 1992 and 1993. Some of them are now returning to their old jobs, but not Mirjana Malic, who was in Sarajevo all the time.

Mirjana Malic's story is interesting because Sarajevo, and Bosnia as a whole suffer from a serious shortage of highly educated people. Many professors, doctors and experts in different fields (and all nationalities) left the city. Some are now coming back, but then others are waiting for their passports ready to leave.

The city looks more lively now. There are even traffic jams partly caused by broken down traffic lights pending reparation. Average earnings are similar to those in Yugoslavia, prices are somewhat higher, largely because of the increased presence of foreigners: IFOR soldiers, UN personnel, "Humanitarians", journalists, businessmen... An organized group of Italians with cameras and a guide, examines the ruins of the old town hall, as if on a proper city tour. When the poet Marko Vesovic heard of this he commented: "I would like to ask them if our ruins are nicer than Roman ones". However, foreigners bring money which increases the speed with which things are being fixed and leads to joy and admiration.

According to some estimates, many of the city's Serbs vanished during the first year of war, when street gangs reigned over the city. President of the Helsinki Committee for human rights in Bosnia Srdjan Topalovic emphasizes the role of Musan Topalovic Caca, Ramiz Delalic Cela and other gangsters from Dobrinja: "Caco and his men controlled the line between Vrbanja Most and the Old Town. They loaded men onto trucks and drove them to the front line to dig trenches. They robbed, looted, raped... Delalic was of the same sort, controlling the other side of the old town". It is important to note that stories told by the war mongers in Belgrade about tens of thousands of dead Serbs or whore houses specializing in Serbian women were the product of a sick mind an ill intent, although crimes ought to be called their proper names and many Sarajevans talk openly about the fate of fellow citizens with "wrong surnames". Sarajevo Serbs felt relief when the city was cleared of the gangs. However they remained between a rock and a hard place: when the "brotherly bombardment" from Pale ceased, they had to reckon with bitter words from their neighbours. It was unpleasant having to listen about mass expulsion of Muslims from Srpska Republic. "Although it is true that during the period of terror in the city probably as many as one thousand Serbs have been killed, it is important to remember that among 10,400 victims of bombardment, at least 2,000 were Serbs", brigade general Jovan Divljak, born in Belgrade, now one of the most distinguished Serbs in Sarajevo, told "Vreme". General Divljak failed to turn up at the above mentioned conference organized by the SGV, because he disagrees with the "insufficiently loud and clear disapproval of what is going on in the recently recovered areas of the town. The new tenancy legislation lead many Serbs and Croats to lose the rights they once had. The legislation in question holds that only refugees who report to the authorities within 15 days can retain their tenancy. Deadline expired on 7. January. Since only a few flats and houses in Sarajevo are privately owned, problems of tenancy are fundamental. The legislation is inconsistent with Annexes 2 and 7 of the Dayton peace accord which deals with the return of refugees to their homes. It is thought that the legislation will not last for long, though the dilemma about whether Serbs will continue to leave or start returning remains. Serbs have been living here for centuries, and they left a lot of their property in Sarajevo. According to the 1991. census there were 157,000 Serbs (in Pale they never fail to add to that figure at least half of the 30,000 citizens who declared themselves as Yugoslavs). According to SGV sources there are only 30,000 left plus another 8-10 thousand in the newly reintegrated suburbs (Ilidza, Ilijas, Vogosca, Grbavica) which 80,000 people left immediately prior to the transfer of power. According to optimistic estimates, in the whole federation there are only 60,000 Serbs, almost ten times fewer than in the Srpska Republic.

Their suffering is however is no greater than that suffered by "non-Serbs" in Banja Luka, Doboj, Prijedor, or Brcko, but knowing that is little comfort. A nineteen year old boy from Sarajevo told us: "I am sick of having to be grateful for not being a Muslim in Banja Luka. It is as if during apartheid someone went around telling American Blacks to shut up and consider themselves lucky they are not in South Africa". Situation in the newly integrated areas is a different story and deserves to be left for another occasion.