Banja Luka

Last week I took a trip to Banja Luka, the second biggest city in Bosnia and the capital of the Republika Srbska (Serbian Republic), the nation within a state. The RS is officially an "Entity" of Bosnia-Herzegovina, a darkly comical term chosen because it hovers between the too weak "province" and the politically charged "nation." For all intents and purposes, however, going to Banja Luka from Sarajevo is like stepping into another country.

For one, the road signs change to the Cyrillic alphabet immediately upon crossing the "border," perhaps to confuse nauseating internationals. In reality, the prevalence of the Cyrillic alphabet in the RS is the product of post-war legislation designed to artificially erase as many similarities between the two halves of Bosnia as possible.

For another, the denizens of Banja Luka pay allegiance to a different flag. Take the above photo, for example, which is from the main Serbian Orthodox Church in town. The mosques in Sarajevo only rarely carry a green banner with the crescent and star, but this is at worst an ambiguous symbol for it represents Islam in general. But there is no mistaking the message behind this flag in Banja Luka. It is that of Serbia with the "CCCC" logo on it, which roughly translates to "Only Unity can Save the Serbs." Seeing an enormous national flag flying from a church was a surprise in itself for this Westerner; seeing one national flag in a different country is another; but seeing one emblazoned with an extremely charged nationalistic motto is a step above. I do have to give props to the Serb nationalists -- they never do anything half-heartedly.

Sadly, the desire for a "Greater Serbia" is inextricably intertwined with the Serbian Orthodox Church. The Patriarch Pavle, the Church's holy father, has repeatedly called for the dismantling of the ICTY and the freedom of Karadzic and Mladic, the most wanted war criminals in the world. The infamous Arkan, whose "Tigers" ravaged Bosniak towns along the Serbian border, once called Pavle his "supreme commander."


As for mosques, this is what one looks like in Banja Luka. There were 8 before the war, and they have all been utterly demolished. Having seen plenty of bombed out buildings in Bosnia, you realize that razing an edifice down to its foundations must have taken plenty of dynamite and enormous effort. All that is left of this particular mosque are a few broken tombstones, watched over by a little UN hut. The officials of Banja Luka continue to refuse to grant a building permit to the Muslim community seeking to rebuild. In fact, this mosque was for many years used as a parking lot! By comparison, Sarajevans will tell you with pride that not a single church in Sarajevo was destroyed during the war. Where I live in downtown Sarajevo, you can find a Serbian Orthodox Church, a mosque, a cathedral, and even a synagogue, all within a stone's throw of each other, all many decades old. It may just be the only place in the world like that.

There is not much else to say about Banja Luka, except that I had a great time when I wasn't thinking about war and politics (something which is very hard to do in this country). For example, I highly recommend the club Titanium if you want to experience Euro-trash (with an Eastern Europe twist) at its finest. There is enough hair gel, cigarette smoke, leather, scantily clad women and thumping techno music there, that if you found some way to bottle the club's essence you could probably provide heating to the Ukraine.


I also wish to note two other important things from the trip. 1) There be homies in Bosnia too. 2) Who on earth would find this ad appetizing?

See more photos from Banja Luka and of Jajce too.

Bascarcija metal shop

One of the many trinket shops in the old Muslim part of town, Bascarcija.

Land of 155 governments

It dawns on me that I have yet to explain Bosnia's political system. Bosnia is a country of 4 million people run by 155 governments. There are 140 municipalities, 10 cantons, 3 "Entities" and 1 federal government. The Entities are the Republika Srbska (for Serbs), the Federation of BiH (for Muslims and Croats), and the Brcko District (a multi-ethnic, strategically important border town administered by the international community). The federal government consists of a parliament and a three-headed, rotating Presidency -- one Muslim, one Croat, and one Serb.

You probably didn't catch all that, but the point is that this system really sucks. It is designed around ethnic identity, entrenching divisions and hanging the "others" out to dry. Furthermore, no legislation can be passed without the agreement of all three groups (and the two Entities), which means nothing ever gets done because disagreeing with the other ethnicities is usually the raison d'etre of all Bosnian politicians -- if they aren't too busy taking bribes. Finally, it is an enormously bloated bureaucracy, with over 50% of Bosnia's GDP going towards sustaining its own government.

The only thing keeping the system in check is the High Representative, who represents (from on high) the international community and is appointed by the European Union. The post is currently held by Paddy Ashdown, a British Liberal Democrat, who is soon to be replaced by a German diplomat. The High Rep's job is basically to sack anyone he pleases, as he did last year when he removed the Croat Presidency member on charges of corruption. Beyond that, I can't really figure out what he does except absorb endless criticism for being an "international dictator" and attend a lot of cocktail parties.

The government(s) are currently in the midst of re-negotiating the constitution, which was written in 1995 on an American Air Force base in Dayton, Ohio. But the newspaper the other day reported that the talks had ended without any progress and will be put off for a few more months. In the meantime, the 155 governments will go on happily twiddling their thumbs, blaming everyone but themselves for doing nothing.

Sarajevo Tram

I am alone

I discovered the other day that my name, "Sam," means "alone" in Bosnian. This explains all those strange encounters with girls.

"Ciao, my name is Alma."
"Hi, nice to meet you. I'm alone!"

Belgrade

In the main park of Belgrade. I do not know where or when this artillery was used -- I can only speculate, but I'd rather not. See more photos from Belgrade.

I came to Sarajevo with an open mind. I believed the war was simply a human tragedy and that there was no use in pointing fingers. But living with the victims of war means having those assumptions constantly challenged. The Serbs were the villains, you are told. They attacked unprovoked, killed thousands of innocents, and, worst of all, continue to deny and antagonize. I listened respectfully, but continued to insist to myself that these were just natural responses to trauma, in fact dangerous beliefs.

But as time went on, cynicism seeped in, tolerance faded. It began with anger. The siege of Sarajevo, the longest in modern warfare, must rank as one of the great crimes of history. I stared at bullet holes and shell craters in residential neighborhoods every day. Most of all, there were the horrifying anecdotes from people I knew.

But maybe this happened to both sides, I told myself. They were just stories, possibly exagerrated and not representative. So I turned to the facts. There were, for example, the rulings of the ICTY. Nearly every major Serb political leader and military commander had been indicted or convicted for crimes against humanity. On the other hand, the highest ranking Bosnian Muslim sent to the Hague was General Sefer Halilovic, in charge of only one region of Bosnia and accused of massacres against Croats in the west. He was recently acquitted.

Serbs often charge that the ICTY is biased, funded by vengeful Americans. But I have read the judgments, and there is no denying the mountain of evidence. I also work with many former prosecutors from the ICTY, and I know they are dedicated and impartial. Most importantly, I still can't figure out why America would spend so much energy and billions of dollars on villifying a tiny country like Serbia (Serb nationalists say it is because they were Communists, or that they are a vital trade conduit between East and West, or a number of other delusions).

What of the history? There is much debate, but here is a telling fact: no battle was ever fought on Serbian soil in the 1992-1995 war. How could Serbs claim to be defending themselves if their country was totally unscathed? Almost every historian has concluded that the Bosnian war amounts to a clear case of a "war of aggression," not a "civil war."

So it was with a sense of trepidation, but mostly burning curiosity, that I traveled to Belgrade last weekend, accompanying my best friend Knute to the airport for his flight home. I wanted to get a feel for Serbia, to prove to myself that it was just another poor, struggling country trying to right itself.

The first night we had dinner with a couple Serb friends of Knute's family. We were talking politics, and I almost choked on my food when one of them mentioned that 45% of Serbians had voted in 2004 for a party called, believe it or not, the Serbian Radical Party (at least they're honest). Their leader is a man named Vojislav Seselj, who commanded extremist Serb paramilitaries during the war and was one of its most despicable criminals. In a 1996 documentary he bragged about the effectiveness of his ethnic cleansing campaign, and he ranks amongst the worst mass murderers of the war. Today, Seselj sits behind bars in the Hague. Together with Milosevic's old SRS Party, almost 50% of Serbian voters in 2004 supported parties whose declared leaders are in prison for crimes against humanity. I dread to think that the ongoing controversy over Kosovo's independence will give the Radical Party the few extra percentage points they need to take power. Since I discovered this fact, I take those who tell me that war will come again to the Balkans a lot more seriously (nearly every Sarajevan believes this).

Of the Serbs I met, mostly young people, I asked a few of them if they had ever been to Sarajevo. None had. "It would be weird for me. I don't really want to," one guy explained. I was taken aback. Many of the young Muslims I had met in Sarajevo had visited Belgrade. It's a great party town, after all. They had even given me recommendations of good clubs to visit. Sandra, who told me about the election results, had been to Jahorina, a Bosnian Serb ski resort only 20km from Sarajevo, but never to the city itself. I can only speculate, but I suspect this is partly due to the perception of Bosnians their culture imbues them with, but also a sense of deflected guilt -- they would have to see with their own eyes the devastation wrought in the name of their country.

Speaking of devastation, one can see several destroyed buildings in Belgrade, the result of NATO bombings in 1999. Rumor has it the government purposely leaves them unrepaired. Regardless, the few buildings, which compare laughably to the widespread devastation of Sarajevo, are emblematic of the myth of Serbian victimization.

A pro-soccer player, Boska, who once played for a Sarajevo team and told me he loved the city because the people were so accepting of him, told me about the devastating demographic toll Serbia had taken for experiencing 3 wars in 10 years (1991 in Croatia, 1992-1995 in Bosnia, and the 2-month long bombing by NATO in 1999 over Kosovo). Boska said that because of these tragedies, the ratio of women to men in Belgrade was 7 to 1. Sandra told me 9 to 1. This was a great confidence booster for me, as I prepared to be marauded by hordes of beautiful, desperate Serbian girls. Needless to say, expectations were set a little too high. A simple Google search reveals that the ratio is actually more like 1.07 to 1. Maybe Boska just misplaced the decimal.

At a bar I met a young Serb named Vlado who worked in London for Deutsche Bank. He had recently graduated from Rutgers University in New York. I asked him if he had received a scholarship from the American government, as many Bosnians often do. He chuckled and said "Of course not! Only these Bosnians who claaaim they were in concentration camps get money. It's such bullshit."

I wanted to like Serbia. I wanted to be able to return to Sarajevo and tell my Muslim friends that Serbs were just like them, that it was all a big misunderstanding and you should all sing kumbaya and be friends. If you avoid politics, Belgrade is a fascinating, fun and vibrant city of 2 million people. But something is undoubtedly rotten in the state of Serbia.

Driving back from Belgrade, we got lost in the Serbian countryside near the Bosnian border, the heart of extreme nationalism. We rolled through town after town of delapidated towns sunk in the depths of poverty. They looked just like Bosnian villages. The same brick huts and tile rooves, the same groups of tired-looking old men sitting on benches. The same kids kicking around an old ball. The same garbage-ridden rivers, beat-up Yugos and VW Golfs, and weathered faces. Only there was a steeple on their church instead of a minaret, and instead of nestled among mountains they were surrounded by muddy plains.

I recalled the dinner in Belgrade where I was offered a "Serbian delicacy," cevapi, a sort of hamburger. In Sarajevo they call this a "Bosnian delicacy" and in Croatia it is, of course, a sacred dish of ancient Croats. Language is another exmaple. Basically everyone speaks the same language in the former Yugoslavia, only slang varying by region. And yet people will tell you, depending on where you ask them, that they speak either Serbian, Croatian or Bosnian, even though the differences between them are probably less than between English in New York and Boston. If there is one thing that continuously baffles me about division and hatred in the Balkans, it is how utterly similar the various "ethnicities" actually are.

It is worthless and wrong to blame the Serbian people writ large, for as a whole their only crimes are ignorance and desperation. As I realized from the drive, their contact with the outside world probably consists only of what the few state-run television networks tell them. Propaganda under Milosevic was thorough, and the war can largely be characterized as a gang of thugs and murderers hijacking a weak-minded populace. Then again, I can't explain why some choose to be misled even now, like the Rutgers graduate, presumably educated and enlightened, who was so dismissive of Serbian atrocities. I have heard that it is often the emigrants who are the most extremist.

A theme emerges, I think. As Hemingway said, "The closer to the front, the better the people." Bosniaks and Sarajevans have seen with their own eyes what evils nationalism brings and realize that the only real protection against hatred is peace. But in Serbia, little of what they know of the war is real or tangible. They live much as Germans did after WWI -- in a landscape largely untouched by war, convinced of their own victimization, and sure that if only they had pushed a little harder they would have defeated the enemy once and for all. Perhaps once and a while the radicals mutter to themselves: "Maybe next time." As one author put it, Serbs live "with their backs to the world," and until something forces them to turn around and look at what has been done to their own neighbors in the name of a Greater Serbia, war may indeed return one day to the streets of Sarajevo.

Stumbling out of the starting gate

The international community's support for prosecuting war criminals gets the most publicity here and abroad, for it is the priority of hearts and minds. But in fact most of America's money, to name just one donor, goes towards dismantling the all-powerful organized crime element in Bosnia. Simply put, it's wise investing. From their perspective, war crimes cases are a decade old and serve only to heal old wounds. But breaking the mafia's stranglehold on the economy opens the way for investment and, ultimately, gives a better return on the dollar.

Recently I attended the trial of a former Bosnian President, accused of widespread corruption and involvement in Croat crime syndicates. He was sacked last year by the international quasi-dictator, the High Representative Paddy Ashdown, and brought before the Court. Nevertheless, he remains a major player in Bosnian politics. In fact, just today he was quoted in the newspaper after leaving a negotiation session on reforming the constitution. Such is life here, where thieves and murderers help formulate the country's founding principles.

I understood relatively little of the trial discussion when I was there, but I will relate a brief episode which demonstrates how the court system here is only just learning how to tackle these immensely sensitive cases. It would be unfair not to mention first that the Court is overall praised for how it has handled the cases thus far. But once and a while someone slips up and reminds us that we're only just getting out of the starting gate.

The defense was questioning a police officer on the witness stand. At one point, the attorney stood up and said he would like to discuss a confidential police document which indirectly reveals the location of a protected witness. Could the public please be asked to leave the coutroom? So we filed out and waited in the lobby. 20 minutes later we were called back in.

I had only just sat down and put on my earphones when the policeman, in the middle of answering a question, said: "No, I was not made aware of (so and so's) location in Norway at the time. I was..." He was interrupted by the lawyer, who groaned audibly, but it was too late.

I swear, the judge had a look on his face that told me if it were appropriate in a high profile, public coutroom, he would have banged his head against the desk repeatedly and yelled, "Aww, COME ON! You can't be SERIOUS!!"

We were taken aside after the session and reminded to keep our mouths shut. Which is why Norway is not the actual country; in fact, it's... -- just kidding.

Minaret in winter

There are not many places in the world where you can find a centuries-old mosque covered in snow.

Money MD

My good friend Owusu, the intrepid Ghanian, broke his leg playing soccer. The loud, sharp crack was heard by an old man sitting all the way up in the stadium seats, and occasionally I hear it again while lying in bed or brushing my teeth and wince. He received surgery in the local hospital, then shipped off to London to be with his family and recover. Once in a British hospital, the doctors examined his x-rays and, much to Owusu's horror, advised him that his Bosnian surgeon had fixed his leg at an unnatural angle and that he would require corrective surgery... after they re-break the leg. Ouch.

My friend Adnan is a diligent medical student at Sarajevo University. He is having trouble passing his anatomy exam, the highest hurdle in medical school. He told me with a sense of resigned frustration that it is simple for one to pay one's way to an MD. A student can slip the professor around 2000 Euros to pass a major exam. Adnan estimated that about 1 in 5 do so at least once. Not sure which half of the brain does what? No problem! Just run a few errands for the local mafia boss and you won't need either half.

This tells you a lot about the extent of corruption in this country. To be fair, there are many experienced surgeons in Bosnia, thanks (I suppose) to the war, and no one expected Owusu's operation to go wrong. But now, one can't help but wonder if his surgeon took a few of his exams under the table rather than on it.

View from the Bosniak war cemetery

A rare sunny winter day in Sarajevo. In the foreground is the Muslim 1992-1995 war cemetery.

Justice only just beginning, a decade later

I have been reluctant to write about my workplace because everything I do is either strictly confidential, exceedingly boring, or both. Part of the boring aspect is that much of my service work over the past couple of months has involved administrative matters ("editing bad English") in preparation for the commencement of war crimes trials, which, until very recently, the Court has not been prepared to undertake. But in the past few weeks, the trials have, one by one, quietly been launched. I am fortunate enough to be here during this exciting and unique period. There is a new energy to the Court now that the institution is tangibly relevant.

As a lowly intern, I am allowed to leave my internet surfing station ("desk"), to watch some of the trial proceedings, all of which are open to the public. I will try and relay some of my observations in the coming weeks.

A couple weeks ago I attended the trial of a Serb officer accused of taking part in the mass execution of 24 people. It was in a small courtroom, and I found myself only a few feet away from the defendant himself. He was a diminutive, skinny man with big glasses and an awkward moustache -- the class nerd 30 years later.

One seems to look at a war criminal differently than a serial killer, perhaps because he is perceived to be free of homicidal inclinations outside of war, and thus not entirely psychotic. Or perhaps this is a corollary of the taint on human nature which allows some to consider mass murderers heroes, as long as the killing is done for a political cause. In any case, I doubt I would have been as calm sitting next to Ted Bundy. (Sadly, this sentiment is reflected in the fact that sentences for war crimes, even for multiple murders, rarely exceed 20 years.)

On that day, a woman whose husband had allegedly been murdered by the defendant testified. In all trials, the most dramatic and shocking of statements are relayed in English by a dull interpreter's voice through headphones. I shifted uncomfortably as the voice droned on robotically about how she had finally found her husband's body, a dirty skeleton with a crushed skull. She managed to identify the remains by his distinctively curved spine and a pair of scissors found in his pocket.

She ended her testimony with: "At his funeral, we could hear shooting in the distance..."

It's the little things too

Over the past two weeks, I have ducked to avoid incoming gunfire several times. Of course, it was just some brats setting off fireworks, which you can buy (and set off) on any street corner over the holidays. I'm getting used to it though. I barely flinch anymore. No more "Haha, stupid tourist!!" looks, at least not for that.

At one point I sat in my appartment and listened to a long string of explosions. For a moment, I imagined hunkering down as war raged outside, sitting in the dark and listening intently to the muffled echoes of death-bearing metal. Then I felt guilty for pretending. And then I realized no one wasted time listening anyway -- time was better spent living.

You see, you would think the people of Sarajevo would be sensitive to loud bangs, but then you would be an ignorant, spoiled foreigner (or so I've been told). No one even blinks.

The other day my friend Damir showed me where the shell had entered his kitchen, destroying it in the middle of the night. Damir, 11 years old and sleeping in the room next door, didn't even wake up. When he arose hours later -- his parents let him sleep in -- he was shocked to find a gaping hole in the side of the house. Little Damir was used to being lulled to sleep by the waves of rhythmic bombing.