Visiting the Remnants of Bosnian War

February 12th and 13th, 2008

Sarajevo was overwhelmingly hit by war and catastrophe, and sadly remains in ruins on the outskirts of town. I must add that Bosnia and Herzegovina is mostly Muslim. The former Yugoslavia (which was formed by Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia, Kosovo, Macedonia and Bosnia) was under communist rule under a man named Tito after they had broken away from Russia and Stalin. Under Tito, everything seemed stable…there may have been oppression towards minority groups - mostly the Muslims, - but everything was kept under control. Then their great ruler Tito dies and suddenly little by little everything starts falling apart. It was a complex war because there were so many different groups fighting against each other… Croat Serbs against Orthodox or Muslim Croats, orthodox groups against nationalistic groups, the nationalistic Serbs against the Bosnian Serbs and then later in 1998, the nationalistic Serbs against the ethnic Albanian kosovars. Anyway, before I get ahead of myself...the point is the main government was and under Tito had always been based in Serbia and afterwards, under the rule of Milosevic who was a huge nationalist, he didn’t want Yugoslavia to fragment itself and didn’t want Serbia to loose its power grip, basically (with Croatia’s and other regions’s conspiracy of independence) and felt that the minority presence was damaging the positive view of Yugoslavia as a union and as a whole... So Serbia's government marches into Bosnia and parts of Croatia and massacres mostly Muslim homes and predominantly Muslim men. The UN finds out so they send troops but they do not have orders to intervene violently so they basically stand around and watch people get killed, and that mission remains one of the UN’s most notably tragic instances of utter failure on the international stage in history.

So while we visited Sarajevo and Mostar, we noticed that a lot of the downtown area and important historical mosques had been rebuilt by USAID and the EU intervention and finance, and the city center was absolutely stunning, with such an exciting blend of religious cultures even present in architecture and buildings (Muslim mosques, Jewish synagogues and orthodox churches all placed around each other, a lot like Paramaribo in Suriname actually). However, the poorer areas such as people’s homes on the outskirts of town are still in miserable shambles and have clearly been neglected by the government and USAID, since bullet holes on the walls are still certainly obvious. There are historical monuments that are still in ruins due to heavy artillery shelling and what not (the city hall remains one of the most affected and not yet rebuilt and at one point was used for a library before the war). Several Muslim graveyards are dotted all over the city and all the tombs indicate deaths occurring in ’93,’94, ‘95. There was definitely a constant reminder or aura of war still very much present in Mostar and Sarajevo. It was clearly a depressing scene, but educational nonetheless to see how politicians can stir such conflict and provoke such devastating wars, yet in the end, are not held accountable and seldom clean up after themselves. Of course then afterwards, the poor and neglected are left with the visible (physical) and mental scars of war, with little to help them get back on their feet. Truly disgusting.

In pictures

1. City hall in shambles after shelling

2. The old bridge in Mostar rebuilt by Europe

3. Bullet holes remaining on the wall of a modest home on the outskirts of town

4. One of the many Muslim cemeteries in Sarajevo