Dubrovnik to Bosnia

Europe » Bosnia & Herzegovina
October 9th 2006

Published: October 24th 2006

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JDR

dubrovnik

Dubrovnik old town

The dark decade

It was the beginning of the 90's and Europe had just gone through the euphoria of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the 'Iron Curtain' when things started to take a turn for the worst in Yugoslavia. I was about 12 years old when it started. Old enough to understand that something terrible was happening in that country where some of my friends had been on holiday, but too young to understand what exactly happened.

One of the reasons for choosing this destination was to try and understand a bit more about this 'dark decade'.
During my first week I hadn't been confronted that much with the war but that was about to change as I left Montenegro for Dubrovnik.

Explaining what exactly happened and why in less than 500 pages, is close to impossible. It started pretty clear with Serbs fighting the Croats in Croatia but in the end (and especially in Bosnia) it seemed that everyone was fighting everyone. Muslims and Croats against Bosnian Serbs. Croats against Muslims. Muslims against Muslims. Sarajevo Serbs against other Bosnian Serbs. Brother against brother...

After a lot of reading and discussing with locals and other

dubrovnik

Dubrovnik old town

travellers it has become clear to me that there was more going on than just 'Nationalism', 'the bloodthirsty Balkan peoples' or 'a region that has been a source of trouble for as long as one can remember'...as it was often portrayed here by the media.

Here's a little summary on what I understand to be some of the major factors (in no particular order) that made the conflict explode:

- One country (former Yugoslavia and current Bosnia) with 3 religions: Orthodox Church: Serb, Catholic Church: Croat and Islam: Muslims.
-Some people (Milosevic, indicted war criminal at the War tribunal in The Hague) who were desperately trying to cling to their power as the Communist world was collapsing all around them.
-People who wanted to see their name written in the history books
even if it would be written in blood: Tudjman.
- A very cunning and cruel leader of the Bosnian Serbs: the psychiatrist Dr. Karadzic (indicted war criminal, still on the loose) who played the International community like a deck of cards.
-Psychopath military leaders: Mladic (indicted war criminal, still on the loose).
- A very clever use of (international) mass media and public relations by the

Dubrovnik

Stormy day in Dubrovnik

Serbs through which they were able to rally a whole people for a crazy cause (war), while avoiding the intervention of the rest of the world.
- A very clumsy use of media and public relations by the Bosnian Muslims.
- A lot of Fear. The Serbs seem to have built their national identity on the concept of 'being the victim'.
The victim of the Ottoman Turks in the middle Ages: The most important date (28th of June 1389) in their history is the day that they were defeated by the Turks. (Note that it was on 28th of June 1914 that Gavrilo Princip, a Serb nationalist killed the Austrian Arch duke. The start of World War I)
But also victims of Croatian Nationalist extremists. During World War II the Croatian Ustashe regime (a Nazi puppet government) massacred tens of thousands of Serbs. They even shocked the Nazi SS with their brutality!!!
It seems that even though they had the biggest population and they were armed the best, a lot of Serbs were truly scared that the Serbs would be the victim again. They chose the attack as the best defence...
- An International Community that stood by and watched

dubrovnik

Fransiscaner monastery

and until 1995 made every possible mistake that could be made.
The United Nations Peacekeeping mission was a disaster. There was no 'peace' to keep in the first place.
In their desperate attempts to stay impartial, the United Nations bought into all the games and secret plans of the Serbs. How impartial is a complete weapons embargo when one side (the Serbs) has all the weapons and the other side (Muslims and Croats) has almost none?? Or when you make a deal where half the humanitarian aid destined for the civilian population goes to the aggressor army??

As I said this is a very brief and incomplete list but this is the way I started to see some 'logic' in the madness. For those who want to find out more I strongly recommend 'The death of Yugoslavia' by Silber and Little.

And now back to my travels...

Dubrovnik

As I arrived in Dubrovnik (Croatia) it started to rain. The first rain on my trip.
The old coastal town is one the most important tourist destinations on the Adriatic coast...as I found out. Inflated prices and even outside season the huge tour groups constantly poured through the

dubrovnik

Dubrovnik old town

Old Town gates. By 10 am the beautiful main street of Old town looked like a shopping street the week before Xmas. A bit overwhelming.

The town is beautiful but not that much different from the towns I had visited in Montenegro. However two things really made the visit worthwhile: The War hero's memorial and the War picture museum.
In the memorial there were videos and pictures of the attacks and siege on Dubrovnik by the Serbs. A pointless attack as there were no military reasons for it. It seemed to be just an attack to enrage the Croatians without really wanting to take the town.
The 'War picture' museum of a local war photographer was originally a museum on the Balkan wars but now also has pictures from all over the world. The current exhibitions were on Africa and were very shocking... Severed heads and limps galore! It seems that the madness of war is still a bit more intense in Africa than anywhere else.

That evening as I went to pay for my accommodation the owner, a very sweet lady invited me in for some 'strudel'. We ended up talking about the war. She asked me

mostar

New 'Old bridge'

about my stays in Montenegro and said she used to go there with the kids but that now after what happened in the war she will never go there again. She talked for a long time and it was very interesting. At some point I said "I understand" and she answered "No, you don't understand!"... And she was right, what do I know about living during a war.

Mostar

After this quick visit to Croatia, I left the coast and went inland to Mostar in Bosnia Herzegovina.

Mostar was already a big 'tourist destination' back in the Middle Ages. Travellers would come from all over Europe and the East to see the beautiful bridge that had been built there. After the bridge was bombed during the war people started to come to see a bridge that had disappeared. In 2004 the reconstruction of the new 'Old Bridge' was completed and travellers are gathering here again.
The reconstruction was very hard as they wanted to make an exact copy of the old bridge. The problem was that the old bridge was built far from perfect but the imperfections made the result look so nice. Modern day architects have

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Old bridge area

no problem with building perfect bridges but rebuilding an imperfect (but still stable and safe) bridge was a bit of problem. It took them 4 years but the result is great.

Another great tradition that returned with the bridge was the bridge diving. Since the middle Ages young men have been jumping of the bridge. These days it's a major tourist attraction and the local guys will jump off the 22 m high bridge in the ice cold river as soon as they have collected the equivalent of 25 euro.

Mostar is one of the towns in Bosnia where Croats were fighting Muslims. Now, over ten years after the war the town is still divided. All Muslims live on the East bank and the Croats on the West bank.
But the communities start to mix a bit again or so I was told by the lady at whose house I was staying.

Sarajevo

Most of what we got to see of the war in Bosnia was from this city: heavy fighting, rockets and shells hitting the city from the mountains, people running across the street jumping over dead people while trying to avoid sniper fire.

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Bridge diver

The city was under siege by the Bosnian Serbs for about 3 years. It was a real medieval style siege where the Serbs were trying to wear out the defenders of the city by blocking off all supplies and constantly attacking the city with mortars and sniper fire. The people stood their ground and in the end the Serbs had to give up.
Despite terrible conditions and a constant lack of food and water the spirit of the city could not be broken. During the siege life went on. A new education system in bunkers was set up. People went to work (dodging sniper bullets on the way). A Miss Sarajevo competition was organised. There was a film festival, showing movies in the basements of some buildings. There was even an alternative 'travel guide' for wartime Sarajevo: 'The Sarajevo survival guide'. I picked up a copy and the war time recepts are amazing. How to create a decent meal with a minimum on ingredients... also recommended for students!

When I arrived at the bus station I took a shuttle to my hostel in town. The lady drove like a maniac: accelerating really fast and constantly changing lanes as if

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Old bridge area

there were still snipers in the hills.
During my first walk through town it was clear that I would like this town. It reminded me of my other favourite town: Berlin. It's maybe not the most beautiful city in the world but it has plenty of character to make up for that. I loved just walking through the nice small streets of the old town, drinking tea, eating pastries and bureks, reading my book in the park, watching the old guys play chess (and discuss their moves).

I also took a 'war history' tour where we visited the 'tunnel museum'. During the siege the whole town was surrounded by Serbs except for the airport which was under UN control (see picture of map). The people of Sarajevo built a tunnel under the airport to able to smuggle food and weapons into town or people out of town. About 3 million people used the tunnel. Because of the embargo, weapons for the defence of the city had to be bought illegally from al kind of groups trying to make money on the war. For example the Columbian drug lords were an important provider of weapons.
We also went to visit

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Old bridge area

a Jewish cemetery in the hills from where the Serbian snipers were shooting people in town trying to get food or fresh water.
Walking through town you can't miss the 'Sarajevo roses'. These are holes in the ground made by exploding mortars. The holes have been filled up with red paint. The more paint, the more blood was shed at that particular place.

After the world Bosnia Herzegovina became a federal state that has some resemblance to the 'Belgian construction'. Every group (Croat, Muslims, and Serbs) can elect its own president and government. On the same day I heard some positive news from the Belgian elections, I also found out that the elections in Bosnia-Herzegovina the week before had brought good news. For the 1st time since the war none of the groups elected a nationalist candidate. Let's hope this will last.

After all I had seen and read about the war in Bosnia, I couldn't help feeling a bit proud of how we have arranged our federal state in Belgium. It may be complicated and if we lived in China we would probably have 1,000 governments and 100,000 ministers but at least we solved our problems without