Bosnia's other war & the Ahmici pig farm

(Not my picture)

On our way to Plitvice National Park we passed through northwestern Bosnia, where some of the fiercest fighting of the war took place. First a little history. The Yugoslav Wars began in 1991 with battles between Serbia and Crotia, largely on Croatian turf. In 1992, war spread to Bosnia, with Serbia and Bosnian Serbs pitted against the Bosniaks (Muslims) as well. In 1993, Croatia turned on their nominal allies the Bosniaks, attacking them from the west in what was essentially a land grab while the Muslims were weakened and occupied fighting the Serbs. At that point, Bosnia had become one large battlefield for a three-way war, with Bosnians caught in the crossfire between Serbs and Croats while at the same time defending themselves on two fronts. But the Bosnian-Croat conflagaration lasted just under a year before the two sides again joined forces against their common Serb enemy.

Today Bosnia is divided into two entities: a Muslim-Croat Federation and a Serbian Republic. Nevertheless, animosity between Croats and Muslims lingers even today. Some of the worst atrocities of the war were committed by Croats against Muslims and vice versa, and some of the most notorious pictures and stories of modern concentration camps come from Croat camps holding Muslim prisoners.

As we passed through the town of Ahmici, Knute's father Merritt, who has been working for the US government in Bosnia for the past 10 years, told me an interesting story. Ahmici is a divided Croat-Bosniak town, infamous as the site of the Ahmici massacre, when 100 Muslim men, women and children were brutally murdered on 16 April 1993 by Croat militia and former civilian neighbours. Ahmici is perhaps even more famous for pictures of its toppled minaret (shown above), which was shattered on that same day. As we drove through the town, Knute excitedly pointed out that the minaret had been re-erected.

Just 5 years ago, the minaret was still on its side as Merritt came to Ahmici to coordinate an American project to build an elementary school. It was to be situated on the impoverished Bosniak side of town, where Muslim refugees had returned to reclaim their homes. Planning for the school had been in the works for weeks, but when he arrived at the site on the morning of the ground-breaking he found a group of Croat men with guns slung across their backs building a wooden fence.

"What the fuck are you doing? We're putting up a school here."
"No you're not. We're building a pig farm," they said.

Knute's father was incensed, and marched to the Croat mayor to demand an explanation. The mayor claimed to have no control over the group. The next day, Merritt met with the Muslim community and was alarmed to find they were already dusting off their old war rifles, retrieved from under beds and behind refrigerators, as well as their old war rhetoric. They saw no choice but a return to blood-letting. Merritt convinced them to hold back while he negotiated a solution, but over the next few days violence broke out and a man was killed.

Eventually, Merritt was able to persuade NATO to bring a few troops on the scene as Madeleine Albright was scheduled to visit Bosnia in a couple weeks and would want to see the fruits of US investment. The "pig farmers" were forced to leave after Merritt promised investment in a Croat school on the other side of town. And so in 2000, war was barely prevented from returning to Ahmici.

There was an article in Bosnia Daily yesterday about elementary schools with both Muslim and Croat students. Part of the Dayton Peace Agreement stipulated that joint schools be created in Bosnia, but people have found insidious ways to pass their hatred on to their offspring. Although Muslim and Croat children have school in the same building, they have separate entrances, attend classes on separate floors, and even the schoolyard is divided by its own Berlin wall -- they never even see each other. I am not sure whether the Ahmici school which was almost a pig farm is one of these.