UNMIK ON AIR
4 JAN. 2003
WEEK ROUND-UP
(MARTIN REDI)
Hello and welcome to this week round-up of UNMIK on Air.
On the program today.
The world-famous Sarajevo Haggadah, is put on display in
the refurbished Sarajevo museum.
And
Dija; a unique Kosovan woman
After ten years in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the U.N. is pulling
out of the country. Few would argue that its mission started well. The U.N. was
present throughout the Bosnian war, in which hundreds of thousands were killed.
It witnessed the sieges of Sarajevo and Mostar, and the slaughter at
Srebrenica, unable to stop the killing and destruction as war raged for more
than three years.
After the Dayton agreement was signed in December ’95 the
UN mission took on a new and reduced mandate: training and equipping Bosnia’s
police. A force of more than 40-thousand heavily armed and poorly trained
police, seen by most as the blunt tools of repression of the state, was to be
whittled down to a new force of fewer than 16-thousand officers, trained to European
standards.
Today our guest is the U.N’s last head in Bosnia, Jacques
Klein, a long-time U.S diplomat who previously headed the mission in Croatia’s
Eastern Slavonia. He told us candidly that the biggest challenge he faced was
redeeming the reputation of the U.N in Bosnia after its disastrous start.
Seven years on from the Dayton Agreement, Klein says Bosnia
is heading in the right direction. But as far as law and order are concerned,
an unreformed justice system and the strong grip of politicians with pre-war
ideas, mean there’s a long way to go.
Klein: We have now a convertible Marka, which is
the hardest currency in the region: 1 DM to a convertible Marka; we have the
flag; we have the passport, we have the neutral license plates, the whole
mentality is changing. But many of the politicians are recidivists, and as I
said much of the war, much of the breakdown of the former Yugoslavia, had less
to do with ethnicity, religion or nationalism than it had to do with party
elites in all the republics seizing power, privatizing state property, and
profiting, and using the hostility, nationalism, religion, ethnicity, to turn
people against each other while they profited. They’re also the ones who oppose
entry into Europe, because Europe is secular, transparent and democratic, so
it’s still a battle, and it’s on all three sides, it’s not just on one side.
QU: How are you
doing against those mafias that have taken over so much of the commerce here?
Klein: Not very well. Because first of
all you know the dilemma with our mandate here – I have no executive mandate,
so I have no way to basically arrest anyone. Secondly my IPTF officers are
unarmed. So all we can do is train and equip, and try to motivate the local
police to take this on. Now there the reaction is as follows: the police chief
in Trebinje called me. “We’ve arrested the same smuggler three times. Each time
he shoots at us. Each time he’s getting a little better. Now we’re not going to
arrest him any more until someone prosecutes and actually puts him away”.
That’s what’s missing.
QU: How entrenched is
this? You’ve got a weak judiciary, you’ve got powerful people with a lot of
money from the war who’ve now invested in all kinds of things, making a lot
more money, may have the judiciary in their pockets. How do you get rid of
that?
Klein: Well
what Paddy’s doing – you know Lord Ashdown just took over in May and I think he
has the right instincts. In all the meetings we had with him before he arrived
we stressed rule of law. Again, we don’t want to exaggerate. This is not the
world’s best police force, it’s not the worst police force, and it’s a police
force that meets European standards. That’s fine, but that’s like clapping with
one hand. The other hand is the judiciary and the rule of law. Because the rule
of law ties into everything else in society, by that I mean in western society,
law is the oil that lubricates the society. It is cadastres, deeds, titles,
mortgages, banking, divorce, loans; everything ultimately is rule of law.
Without rule of law societies do not function, and consequently we have no
foreign investment here. Because no investor is sure that his money will be
safe, that he can sue, all those other things that you need to do.
But for the U.N., at least, the
time has come to leave. The police mission is being handed over to the European
Union on January 1, under the command of Commissioner Sven Fredericksen, who
led U.N police missions in both Bosnia and Kosovo.
Klein believes the sooner the
international community pulls out of Bosnia, the better.
Klein: And
I think that the best thing we can do for the people of Bosnia-Herzegovina is
to leave. The international community quite often is the problem. We hire
physicists, engineers, doctors and lawyers as language assistants and as
drivers, when they should be helping to rebuild their country. There are
probably 12-thousand and something internationals in Sarajevo. That’s
ludicrous. That’s a false economy. And I think it’s humiliating to the people
of Bosnia-Herzegovina, who are very talented and very able.
But what of the future for
those people. Klein is scathing of the Dayton Agreement, which he calls a very
bad peace to end a horrible war. Bosnia is left a complicated and unnatural
state, with two mutually mistrustful entities, three factions and three armies.
Ultimately, he says, it will be up to the people themselves to find the answer.
Klein: At
some point the three of them have to sit down, without Dayton, without the
international community, and they have to say, “look. Let’s look at it
honestly. We’re trapped here. Neither the Europeans nor North Americans are
going to let us divide this place. So there is no partition, there is no
affiliation with Yugoslavia. There’s no way that you can draw a map here that
any of us will accept without a war. So my friends, I guess we’re stuck
together. Now what’s the deal? We can either live in the Stone Age, have our
young people leave and go to Europe, or we can between the three of us try to
divide power.
Some answers for Kosovo, perhaps?
That was Jacques Klein, head of the leaving UNMIBH mission in Bosnia.
JINGLE
Children from Sarajevo sing the song Aido Kerida, in Ladino
– the language of Christopher Columbus and Cervantes, a Spanish dialect the
Jews took with them when they were expelled from Spain at the end of the 15th
century.
The occasion? The world-famous Sarajevo Haggadah, an
early-14th century religious text, is put on display in the
refurbished Sarajevo museum.
It’s only a little book, not much bigger than a modern paperback.
But the 109 pages of illuminated Old Testament text make up the oldest
Sephardic Haggadah in the world. The UN’s chief in Bosnia, Jacques Klein,
explains how the Haggadah’s story began.
KLEIN: The journey
of our Haggadah begins in 14th century Barcelona, when it is
presented as a wedding present to a young couple. Within its calfskin pages are
wonderfully handwritten texts and exquisite pictures, each delicately crafted
in gold and copper and painted in vivid colors. It tells the story of the beginning
of the universe, to the death of Moses.
Following the expulsion of the Jews from Spain the Haggadah
was taken to Italy. From there it moved across the Adriatic to Split,
Dubrovnik, and finally Sarajevo. Wine stains and children’s scribbles on its
calf-skin pages are proof of its frequent use during traditional Sedar dinners
on the eve of Passover.
The Jewish community found a welcoming home in Sarajevo
under the Ottoman Turks. Pasha Sijavus built a synagogue for them in 1566 – a
building which still stands today as one of Sarajevo’s historical landmarks.
ATMOS WAR
But the peace was not to last. The Nazis occupied Sarajevo
in World War II, and tried to find the Haggadah. They were foiled when it was
spirited away and hidden – some say under the floorboards of a mosque in a
mountain village. And then war came again to Sarajevo. Jacques Klein.
Klein: Forty
years after the Holocaust, violence once again descended on Sarajevo with all
the firepower and destruction of which modern man is capable. Nationalism, hate
and intolerance were again fueled by the corruption of history for political
purposes. The very cultural soul of the city – libraries, archives, museums, -
was obliterated. Thousands upon thousands of rare manuscripts, documents and
books charting the rich heritage of Sarajevo went up in flames. And fine ash
fell like snow over the city. The Sarajevo Haggadah survived. But more than
230,000 people in Bosnia and Herzegovina did not.
The Haggadah was rescued from the National Library in
Sarajevo just days before the building was bombed and destroyed, along with
every book and manuscript inside.
Now, with help from the UN, the Haggadah has been restored.
It’s been put on display along with religious texts from other faiths in the
Sarajevo museum, itself extensively damaged in the war.
Putting the Haggadah on display at the Sarajevo Museum was
celebrated with a gala party – music, food, the sort of celebration and good
times that Sarajevo missed for too long. But still there was a serious message
along with the festivities. Ambassador Klein.
KLEIN:
Tonight the odyssey of the Sarajevo Haggadah has come to an
end. It is home. It has witnessed the enduring courage, determination and
triumph of the human spirit in the face of evil. Surrounded in this beautiful
room upstairs by other works of spiritual beauty, it remains the symbol of hope
and of tolerance. The symbol of Sarajevo that has endured. Let us take to heart
the message it bears. Hostage to persecution, ethnic hatred and exile for over
500 years, it lives on, thanks to the courage and determination of people of
all faiths.
Jakob Finci is the president of the Jewish community in
Bosnia-Herzegovina. It’s a small community of some 1000 people, spread
throughout both the Federation and the Republika Srpska. Mr Finci sees the
finding of a safe place for the Haggadah as a powerful symbol for Bosnia.
Jakob Finci:
I think this is a really important event, but not only for the Jewish community
in BH, but by some means for the whole country, because this is the first time
that some remarkable pieces of art, including the Sarajevo Haggadah, but also
some of the holy books from the other religions, will be exposed for the first
time to the general public. It’s important to mention that these pieces of art,
these holy books, will be situated in the same room. I think that this is a
signal that in Bosnia-Herzegovina we can live under the same roof, and the name
of this roof should be Bosnia-Herzegovina
That was Jakob Finci, president of the Jewish community in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Dija:
I could have been born in
Paris
And girlishly kiss with
lesbian Sena
To be the seventh wife of a
fat-bellied Sheik
Who prays to god during the
day and to her husband through the night?
For a little bit of loving, once a week.
The voice of Radije Hoxha or simply Dija - a
poet, journalist and writer. The author
of two collections of poetry and one novels, she is a unique voice in Kosovo.
Unlike most poets and writers from conflict situations Dija’s work is
characterized by the complete lack of political connotations. There should be
only one force that drives artists forward, she says:
Dija:
I
sing to love. I often say, at literary meetings, that I am not a poet. I do not
know how to sing of my homeland. I do not know… I definitely know how to sing
to love only, within my possibilities, of course….
Dija spent a
part of her life in the Arab peninsula and says that it has been one of the
best experiences of her life.
Dija:
I lived in Iran for almost three years. I went
there to learn Persian, a very interesting language and a very rich culture. I
went there to learn more about middle-eastern poets, poets who inspired Naim,
Naim Frasheri, Goethe, Heine and many other world artists.
MUSIC UP
Dija:
To
be a woman
To be
fed by the father
Divorced
by the husband
Taken
by god
Because
you like the ones who are brave
Dija:
I am
planning to translate a book, which will include various Kosovar authors from
different ethnic backgrounds. The poems will be translated into Bosniak or
Serbian-whichever you prefer into English as well. Every artist will provide
his contact details - e-mail address and the phone number so that wherever the
book goes people, who would like to contact us, artists from Kosovo, will at
least have the possibility to send us an e-mail.
Dija:
I
could have been anything
A
dwarf, a gipsy or an insect
A
man of power, a woman of the world
Like
Cicollina
A
prefect or a defect,
A
contagious disease, a coma, a question or a surprise mark
I
could have even been the wife of a god
To
walk through palaces where no one else can,
To
raise churches and mosques, keep you as a hidden hostage under lock and key
But,
accidentally, I am Dija
And
I do not know what to do with you….
Music up and under
That was Radije Hoxha or simply
Dija closing our week round up of UNMIK on Air, hope you all have a wonderful
weekend.