UNMIK ON AIR

7 Jan. 2003

VOICES OF SARAJEVO

(David Balham)

Sarajevo’s Markale market place, in the centre of the old part of town. These days it’s thriving, a reasonably good-natured throng of people jostling around the packed tables to buy fresh flowers and produce, as well as cigarettes, hardware, and virtually anything else you’re looking for.

It wasn’t always so. In February 1994 dozens of people were killed in this marketplace by what is believed to have been a Serb shell. The carnage shocked even a world used to televised pictures of Sarajevo under siege, and led to the creation of NATO-protected U.N “safe areas”.

Markale is as good a symbol as any of post-war Sarajevo. Seven years almost to the day since the Dayton Agreement ended the war, the city looks good. A few gaunt shells of high-rise buildings still stand as stark reminders of the three-and-a-half-year siege. But many other buildings – including some which seemed to have been damaged beyond repair – have been rebuilt.

The city has a prosperous and welcoming air, in stark contrast to the days of the war when it was literally a death-trap. People were shelled randomly from the hills, or shot by snipers like fish in a barrel.

For someone returning like myself for the first time since the war it’s all slightly eerie, like stepping back in time. But has Sarajevo really gone back to the way it was before, or is it still suffering the after-shocks?

Sandra is 22, and works as a receptionist at a hotel. Though she’s from Sarajevo, and says she loves the city, she’s looking forward to leaving.

SANDRA: I think that Sarajevo is an interesting place, people can find fun, that’s for sure, but speaking about the life in general, it is not OK. The salaries are small, it’s difficult to find a job and I’d like to run away from here; as soon as possible. I wouldn’t be glad to raise my family here, the children to grow up here.

Sandra’s one of the lucky ones – she has a job. Official unemployment figures in Bosnia hover around 40 percent, a catastrophic number, though the thriving “grey” economy means it may be somewhat lower. Whatever the figure, though, there’s no question that Bosnia is one of the poorest countries in Europe, and people are struggling to survive.

Sandra’s boss Ibish also says it’s hard to make ends meet, and he’s gloomy about prospects for the future.

IBISH: For an ordinary man, who was born here, the life is different from what it was before the war in 92. Naturally, the economic situation is very difficult, the political situation is not definitely resolved in Bosnia, so I think that’s the reason for huge immigration of the people from Bosnia. The people are not satisfied firstly because the employment was not put in order; one cannot see any better perspective. And I cannot see a way for our people, our politicians, to resolve it. Foreign investments are the only way …the people here alone can’t do anything.

For what I thought might be a more up-beat point of view I caught one of Sarajevo’s famous trams, and went to a rather glittering social event – a gala party at the Sarajevo museum. Somewhere between the buffet table and the string quartet, I found a woman in an elaborate fur coat. Her assessment? Qualified optimism.

WOMAN 1: As much as a man knows, and can hear, can see, it seems to be OK. I think that huge moves forward were made, I don’t want to make a difference between this authority and the other, this coalition and the other. All of them tried to make something good, but it was very difficult. One English philosopher or scientist, I’ve read it once, said – When you make scrambled eggs once, then you can never make it to be a sunny-side up egg. And here indeed was made a horrible scrambled-egg and we are happy every day if we feel that it is a little bit better.

But even here people were talking about leaving. Another woman said she saw no future for her 12-year-old son in Bosnia. She blamed the government, or rather governments – Bosnia has three, as well as three mutually suspicious main communities, which devote much time to wrangling about such matters as linguistic differences. The woman had a message for the politicians.

WOMAN 2: Not to say I’m a Serb, I’m a Croat, I’m a Muslim, I’m a Jew but to sit down and reflect as a serious men. When I see them on TV I have a feeling I’m in a children’s nursery. I’m laughing at them … unfortunately, but I’m laughing. I mean, these nationalist remarks, is he saying belo or bijelo do we need three translations indeed. We do not need it.

The UN’s last chief in Bosnia, Jacques Klein, has a colorful and well-rehearsed metaphor to describe Bosnia and its ills. It is, he says, like a convalescent patient.

KLEIN: The best way to describe this place to you now is you have here a patient recovering from a very grave illness. The patient’s not dying, the patient’s recovering. The patient has life support systems: economic, the EU, the multi-lateral, the bilateral, the political the OHR, and the security, the SFOR, IPTF that we provide. Now none has defined how healthy the patient has to be, so you don’t know when you can disconnect the life-support systems. Secondly the patient has five doctors: SFOR, OSCE, UNMIBH, UNHCR and OHR. Each of these doctors is very well-meaning, and is doing niche mandate implementation. Niche counter-indicated medication. Surgery, psych-therapy, vitamin therapy, prayer and spiritual healing. And the patient lies there and says, “Well, today wasn’t bad. Let’s see what tomorrow brings”. But the patient doesn’t aid in his own recovery.

The recovery of the patient, of course, is of vital importance: for Bosnia itself, for the prosperity and stability of the region, for the credibility of the international community which let the country down so badly during its war.

That’s all for today from UNMIK on Air. Thanks for listening.