Calls for further fragmentation of Balkan states continue
Published: 25 April, 2009, 09:45
A cyclist rides past destroyed building iin Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AFP Photo / Pascal Guyot)
(18.6Mb) embed videoTAGS: Breakaway regions, Conflict, Politics, Europe, Human rights
The state of Bosnia-Herzegovina was formed over a decade ago as a result of the breakup of the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
But after a bloody civil war that tore the region apart, the peace is still far from being perfect.
Some groups never accepted the ethnic melting pot of Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats that is modern Bosnia.
One such group is centered in the southern Bosnian city of Mostar, inhabited mostly by Croatians, nationalists of whom are demanding their own autonomy, and where a future state is being planned.
For more than a year, Croats from Mostar have been calling themselves an alternative government to the one that exists in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and their calls for independence are getting louder day by day.
“We do not have any kind of federal unit to protect our rights here in Bosnia-Herzegovina. We do not even have media in our own language. The only way that we can protect ourselves is through a Croatian federal unit,” insists Croatian member of federal parliament, Petar Milic.
The calls for independence were set into motion by the Dayton Peace Accord that in 1995 brought three bloody years of war to an end.
Under the deal, two entities were set up: a Bosniak-Croat federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the Bosnian Serb Republic.
Croatian nationalists are now demanding their own autonomy.
The president of the alternative government of the Croatian republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Leo Plockinic, says that the main reason for all the problems now is that Bosniak Muslims are a majority.
“We do not have any legal representatives at state levels of power in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The reason is we do not have a legal framework, or any kind of opportunity to establish equality with the other two peoples,” Plockinic says.
The former commander of the Croatian defence council, Zoran Zolko, who spent the war years fighting in the southern city of Mostar, was wounded three times.
He says whereas once he fought for independence from Serbia alongside Muslims, today he’s fighting for independence from his former allies.
“At the beginning of the war, we were fighting for the liberation of all the people in Bosnia-Herzogovina. The Muslims had our support, there were many of them who were fighting in the Croatian defence council, but in the end, we were betrayed by them. Many ran away. I don’t believe we can live together. In principle, maybe, but in my soul – I don’t believe it,” Zolko says.
The city of Mostar showcases these ethnic divisions more clearly than anywhere else in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
It is the country’s fifth largest city, and political control here is equally shared between Croats and Bosniaks, but tensions are high – and the city is divided.
Through the middle of the city runs the Neretva river which separates the predominantly Croatian side of the city to the west, from the Muslim side to the east.
Relations between both sides are so bad that when Croats cross the bridge, they come with a police escort.
A tour guide in the Muslim part of the city, Kenan Divljak, says no one here supports Croatian calls for independence and Mostar, like the rest of Bosnia-Herzegovina, needs to remain part of the country.
“Mostar is a part of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Mostar cannot be an independent country. It is impossible, because the town has just 320,000 inhabitants. The infrastructure was destroyed,” reasons Divljak.
Mostar is a reminder of how unstable the Bosnian federation really is, nearly 15 years after the Dayton deal was signed.
So far, Croatian calls for independence have been overshadowed by events elsewhere in the Balkans, but should they one day win, their success could potentially have disastrous ripple effects throughout the region.
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Much of Bosnia look worse then Chechnya. Even though billions are supposedly being invested over years by the West. It is really a mystery. The only part of the economy that is working is the Serb Republic, even though they have been systematically disadvantaged for one reason or the other in getting foreign help. Perhaps, this may the reason for their better economic shape.
“Disastrous ripple effect” is difficult term stemming from Russian scientific legacy. TV Belgrade in 80-es featured – as the first internationally awarded - Russian documentary about computer simulation of harmonic oscillations of human heart. The genial movie has shown “ripple effect” as the self-generating cyclic waves, which make heart to follow its unconscious perfect life. When introducing simulation of “heart attack” – it turned out to be result of a spiral, which is transforming harmonic into “disastrous ripple effect”. The movie further commented possible restoration of the basic rhythm by introducing recovery shock into hazardous healing attempt, but stressed that the location and timing of the shock remains unknown! Otherwise “Disastrous ripple effect” can be falsely substituted with “domino effect” where the initial cause is clear and where the healing intervention is simple by detachment of any of the linked figure (NATO pattern). Coming back to the political structure of Yugoslavia – “disastrous ripple effect” can be treated on two ways: USA-Western or Russia-Eastern ones. The first one is currently in use and has proven political modeling by causing regional intrigue accompanied with external military shock in order to revitalize the area. As a matter of fact – it failed. Being the live-experiment it brings the menace to apply nuke for global “resetting”. Psychologically this model harbors rich people mentality – or fast conclusions and easy formatted hatred against peoples’ environment. Another – Russia Eastern - model uses the approach of introducing religious wave into series of political events in order to reform harmonious cycling of the region. Paradoxically but expectedly, instead of Western external pressure, this Russian one uses the passive and positive inner pressure from the people stimulated to fill political vacuum of life they currently encounter. The most expressive usage of joint venture of politics and religion was demonstrated between UK monarchy and Hinduism represented by M.K. Gandhi, being himself great and the last pronounced friend of L.N. Tolstoy. Yugoslavia never went her own way and collapsed in self-destruction of Tito’s primitivism petrified in privileges on account of true left-wing qualities being highly charged with true religious, not institutionalized, substance. Still, the focus of a new epicenter of Eastern Europe is not yet in Yugoslavia. It is in Ukraine! There the potential of “disastrous ripple effect” is entering its full blow stage. Ukraine failed to catch political independence necessary to achieve the minimum sovereignty required for joining demanding disciplinary partnership with Russia. Blocking the overhaul of shortest paths of energy (pipelines) – Ukraine is introducing Nabuco on account of her catholic double-reluctance “incentive” and makes synergy of Christianity components impossible. Even more Ukraine is finally formatting the collapse of the very core of Judeo-Christianity, before even realizing the value of this intangible asset. Not to mention the Slavic coherence and inherence. (I do sorry for the comprehensiveness of the comment, trash it…)
Hence the term "Balkanization". I don't want to sound controversial, but there have been scholars, I believe Mahmood Mamdani is one of them, who claimed that state-building has a certain natural process. European states were built upon hundreds of years of "ethnic cleansing": populations were shifted, converted, etc. It resulted in modern-state borders which are drawn in order to represent ethnic populations. I am pointing this out because if we compare European states to African states (which have arbitrary borders based on colonial powers, rather than ethnic populations), Balkan countries look more like African states: populations are still very mixed and unsettled. There are ethnic groups overlapping among many states. Serbian minorities, for example, live in 8 Balkan states. State borders have not been completed, they have been forced and drawn by big powers. Croatia succeeded in ethnically cleansing all the Serbs out of Krajina, but Bosnia as a state serves no ethnic group other than Bosnian Muslims. It is an unnatural state. The fact that there is such a difference doesn't mean there will be a war or division, however, social fragmentation is one essential ingredient to conflict. Studies by researches such as Colliers have proven this among countries worldwide. (Other factors would include economic growth, young male population, etc). Until the social fragmentation is resolved, Balkans will continue to be a "gunpowder barrel".