In 1994, Gorazde became known as a "city where only the dead are lucky." Today is different

On a hot summer's day hundreds of people laze on a spit of pebble and sand in the middle of the Drina River, the forested hills which once rained death and destruction on the town towering above. A rickety footbridge erected underneath the main road bridge across the river to allow pedestrians to shelter from snipers still swings lazily but now empty in the breeze. Sidewalk cafés have sprouted around the downtown building where desperate cables from trapped humanitarian workers daily recorded the destruction of this town.

Gorazde almost died from the onslaught of Serbian forces during the war in Bosnia. The U.N. had declared the region a protected enclave, but the besieging forces contemptuously ignored the international community and came within a hair of overrunning it before peace finally prevailed.

Today, the town, set among stunning gorges, rolling hills and forests, is still picking up the pieces. Unlike another infamous enclave, Srebrenica to the north, Gorazde was never overrun and its Muslim, or Bosniak, majority never left.

PROGRESS AND PROBLEMS

The town represents a mirror of both the progress and problems encountered across Bosnia since the Dayton Peace Accord was signed nearly six years ago.

The guns are silent and people again enjoy the small pleasures of life such as swimming in the river or sipping coffee in a café. Buildings have been patched up and there are even two traffic lights working. Some of the land which yielded rich harvests of plums, apples and pears is being cultivated for the first time in five or six years.

There are few security incidents and families have been steadily trickling back to the region.

But there are major problems, too, in Gorazde. Factories which made spare parts, ammunition and chemicals before the war are shuttered. Unemployment is as high as 80 percent and virtually the only work available is with international organizations. On the outskirts of town, private homes lie gutted and abandoned.

Prewar Gorazde had been multiethnic, but the town today is principally Moslem. Serb leaders initially attempted to keep the status quo of divided communities and to block ethnic Serbs returning to downtown Bosniak areas.

THE LAST BUS

But that has begun to change as all sides have become increasingly impatient for further progress and have realized that under toughened property laws there may not be much more time to either reclaim, sell or barter prewar properties.

"The more they wait the more they lose," one UNHCR official said of the increased impetus to return. "More and more people have decided to catch the last bus."

The village of Bukve Miljanovici perches high in the hills. Gorazde snuggles far below in a natural bowl. The old frontlines are only a few yards away and from here it was child's play to accurately lob shells into the town.

"Welcome to the first multiethnic tent settlement in Bosnia," Muhamed Bukva expansively welcomes a recent visitor to the village. As reconstruction continues across the country, many returnees are living in UNHCR-supplied tents next to their destroyed homes and the term 'tent settlement' has become synonymous with progress.

Before the war this was a mixed village and though the entire population fled during the fighting, eight Serb families, seven Bosniak families and two Albanian families have returned.

Muhamed Bukva's father was gunned down by automatic weapons fire 100 yards away from his rebuilt house but he insists: "This was not the doing of my neighbors and we can succeed in rebuilding both our friendship and our village."

He added, "Even if we receive one piece of chocolate, we share it." Serb neighbors nodded in agreement. Against the backdrop of ongoing suffering throughout the Balkans, Bukve Miljanovici could easily be overlooked, but such neighbor-to-neighbor attempts to overcome the legacy of a bitter war carry perhaps the only realistic hope for genuine reconciliation.

Seeking the truth...

As civilians try to return home, the truth of what actually happened in the war remains elusive...

Tihomir Stanimorovic was passionate and adamant: "The international community escorted the Albanians back to their homes in Kosovo in two months. We have been here for two years."

It seemed, according to this Serb, almost like a mission impossible. "People can go to the moon easily these days," he added, "but in the Balkans we can't even go the few miles back to our homes."

Stanimorovic, his wife and two children, along with an estimated 230,000 Serbs, Roma and others left Kosovo – he said he was deliberately expelled by NATO forces – as allied troops and ethnic Albanians flooded back into the province in a dramatic swing in the fortunes for the area's civilians at the end of 1999.

For one week, 'terrorists' blindfolded him and beat him up, he said, before he was released and eventually made his way to a motel on the edge of the southern Serbian town of Bujanovac which was converted into a collective center for around 130 people. They have been there ever since.

A few tractors and cars which they managed to salvage are parked nearby. Each family was allocated a room or a very tiny miniature alpine cabin in the grounds. There is running water and electricity and compared with conditions endured by other uprooted peoples in the region and other parts of the world, things are not too bad.

But there is a festering resentment, growing frustration and a continued sense of 'victimhood' at the Motel Bujanovac. While the guns have become silent and political change has swept much of the area, displaced Serbs are apparently being left behind.

"There should not be one rule for the Albanians and Bosniaks and another rule for the Serbs," said Stanimorovic, a natural spokesman for the motel people. A young girl in the audience which has gathered around a visitor wears a T-shirt: "Nobody sings like Serbians do and we party better too."

But there is no party mood here. "It is all NATO's fault," he insisted in the kind of statement repeated by displaced Serbs across the region. "If they didn't come we would be continuing to live together peacefully. We did not do anything wrong. It is always the 'little man' who suffers."

ELUSIVE TRUTH

Stanimorovic's village of Novo Selo is less than one hour's drive from the motel. It had been a mixed village before the conflict, but he claimed that all the Serb houses had been burned down as they left by ethnic Albanians "and all of our wells were poisoned in the presence of American troops."

After talking to the exiled Serbs, a visitor toured Novo Selo. Serb homes remain wrecked, rusting television sets, cookers and a burned sofa scattered among the ruins. A flock of geese waddled slowly by.

Soldiers from KFOR have established a nearby firing range and the boom of cannon echo down the pretty valley and hillsides.

Truth, however, remains elusive and ever changing.

"He is welcome back," shrugged one Albanian subsistence farmer who lives only a few hundred yards from the Serb's home. "Why not?"

It is the sort of easy answer that visitors receive all the time, making it difficult to gauge the true feelings of civilians and the overall mood of any region in the Balkans.

As the conversation continues, the emphasis changes. "The Serbs burned down our mosque before they left," the ethnic Albanian farmer said. "This guy helped them. He was a leader. His son also fought for the Serbs here and in Bosnia."

The farmer and members of his family warm to the theme. The Serbs, they said, had actually burned down their own homes as they left, to be able to later blame the Albanians.

A half an hour later, Stanimorovic would not be particularly welcome to return home: "If he does come, it will then be up to the police." But the Albanian family added, "If he goes to jail, his wife could still live here peacefully."

Patching up relations between neighbors in villages like Novo Selo remains key to any long lasting stability, but emotions remain raw and volatile in the Balkans.

Source: Refugees Magazine Issue 124: "The Balkans: What Next?" (October 2001). Download the complete issue (pdf, 2.2Mb) here