Bosnia: January 17

I think it is a bit of an understatement to say that Bosnia is a wounded country.  To me, the word "wound" somehow conjures up a peripheral injury, like an arrow through the shoulder or leg.  If I wanted to be more accurate in my description of the place, I would say that Bosnia is a country with a broken heart.

Over 1,000 years of history, the country and the region had developed a culture of multi-ethnicity, especially around Sarajevo.  It was especially known abroad for the way in which the different national/religious groups were able to live intermingled together.  After the fall of Yugoslavia in 1992, however, came the war, and the various genocides and "ethnic cleansings," including the massacre at Srebrenica.  The upshot of all the killings and fleeings is that huge swaths of the country are now ethnically homogenous, with the autonomous Republic of Srbska being populated by Serbs, and the Federation of Bosnia and Hercegovina by Bosniaks and Croats in different Cantons.
It wasn't just the demographic change, however, that affected the country, but a psychological one.  There's no longer any trust between the ethnic groups, which has hindered the implementation of the peace accords, and the rebuilding and repairing of Bosnia in general.

We met today both with representatives of the Constitutional Committee of the House of Representatives, and the foreign policy advisor to the Bosniak member of the Presidency, who reinforced this message.  The current constitution of Bosnia is actually Annex IV of the Dayton Peace accords; and one of the major problems with this constitution is that it institutionalizes ethno-centric politics.

For example, there isn't one President, but three, one from the Republic of Srbska, who is a Serb, and two from the Federation, one Bosniak and one Croat.  It's specifically stated that each will be from those ethnic groups; no one who identifies as a minority group, a mix, or refuses to identify ethnicity is eligible to run for President.  In fact, the European Court of Human Rights declared this Constitutional Provision as violating the international accords that Bosnia is a signant to back in 2008, so the Constitutional Committee has been at work on revision since.  However, since adjusting the constitution would mean weakening their own constituencies, they've been... reluctant.

In addition, there's a fixed number of parliamentary seats for each ethnic group as well, which means that nationalist campaigners tend to do better than compromise candidates, which means that those elected aren't much of a mind to compromise.  However, since all decisions passed in Parliament have to have an equal number of Serbs, Bosniaks, and Croats supporting it, not just a majority, it's very easy to block necessary legislation or reforms.

There has been talk of allowing the Republic of Srbska secede in order to smooth out the Federation's politics and reform, but the Foreign Policy advisor pointed out that it would essentially be confirming the victory of Mladic and the rest of the perpetrators of genocide, since their very aim was to create a sovereign, ethnically autonomous sovereign state.  It's sobering, when one considers it, how often those who commit genocide are successful in their aims, whatever account they may be personally brought to afterward, or how much a horrified world may vow "never again."

Nevertheless, Bosnia has managed to make some progress, especially compared to its state back in 1997/98, when our professor first visited the city.  We actually visited a part of the history of that war, of the siege of Sarajevo.  In order to supply the surrounded city, the citizens built a tunnel underneath the airport, which served as the main conduit for arms, food, and medicine from 1993 to 1995.  It was actually built underneath a house, and the owner, who had fought in the war, guided us through it personally.
The land surrounding had healed over, physically.  The houses were in one piece, there were no longer any trenches in the ground.  But whether the Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats here can ever come back together to make a country again remains to be seen.  In spite of the obvious difficulties, most of the people we've talked to were optimistic that we would see progress in another 15 years.  Perhaps so.