PRISONERS OF AN INVENTED PAST
(A Peruvian's journey through the Southern Balkans)

José Luis Rénique

2

And yet by then the worst was to come. For the next 12 months not even the UNHCR convoys bringing food and medicines were capable of reaching Bihac. Mere survival became a heroic task by then and war itself acquired levels of great complexity. Besides the Serbian army, Muslims loyal to the Bosnian Government faced a second unexpected aggressor, a wealthy businessman named Fikret Abdic, who denounced what he called the destructive Muslim nationalism of the Sarajevo Government and declared autonomy in the northern third of the enclave.

The marks of the long suffering are still visible in Bihac. The town is not gutted like Sarajevo. But it is a sad-looking place. That peculiar way of wandering around "staring vacantly into space" is still there as the city still struggles to come back into its feet. By September 1996 changes are already visible. Bihac is experiencing its first problems with heavy transit as dozens of modern European cars with German or Austrian plates fill the streets alongside the vehicles of IFOR and those of the numerous international organizations that have arrived in this city in the wake of the signing of the Dayton Agreement. At dusk, a crowd hangs around the bars by the river moving like shadows in the still dimly lighted city. English prevails in the Tropicana Restaurant as foreign officers discuss the events of the day over local beer and the inescapable dish of grilled meat. A soft Latin tune provides an unexpected musical background. With the emigres and the functionaries has come a flow of currency sufficient to trigger a modest economic boom of small shops, restaurants, gas stations and construction materials. Piles of bricks and cement sacks, sawmills working non-stop are the symptoms of a recent but strong process of reconstruction.

Gorenje, a state-owned factory, was until the outbreak of war the biggest producer of electric household appliances in the whole former Yugoslavia. Its main production plant is located a few miles out of Bihac. It had 1,120 employees in pre-war times, only 96 by September 1996. An inflow of capital is badly needed to restart production. What used to be Gorenje's administrative office building, however, is already thriving. It has been rented to the UN and other international organizations. Its interior looks today as a world apart. Walking through the halls I felt myself exploring a jungle of acronyms and code-names. In the office of UNOPS a group of workers assembles the furniture for the new regional office. I admire the quality of the desks, they would cost a fortune in New York I think. Northwestern Bosnia, it should be remembered, is one of the greatest producers of fine woods all around Europe and its woodworkers enjoy the fame of being truly artists in the art of furniture making. And then the computers, the modems, the fax machines, and the cellular phones that will allow calling the Serb-held areas, which is by now impossible using the regular service. Sixteen Nissan Patrols will arrive from Denmark via Zagreb by mid-October and interviews for secretaries and translators will be hold tomorrow is what the logistics officer reports to his co-workers.

As the day ends I sit at one of those gorgeous desks to update my diary in one of the office's computers. From this indisputable height I have an endless and striking view, the rolling green hills dotted by minarets pointing to heaven as a mute and stubborn invocation, the colorful crepuscle of one of the last days of summer, the first one spent in peace after several years of war. At the other side of the room, Emir, the translator, plays emotionless some kind of computer game.

Early the next morning, as we travel southward from Bihac to Kljuc, Emir tells me about his experiences battling the Serbian forces in this same route a little bit more than a year ago. "They had artillery, they had tanks but they were ignorant and dumb." As he speaks, at both sides of the road the already familiar view of roofless houses and smashed religious buildings, the piles of destroyed cars and electrodomestics testifies to the fierceness of the combats. Iris was a member of the legendary Fifth Corps of the Bosnian Army. If the transformation of the Bosnian Army from a ragtag organization into a credible force in the midst of war is a remarkable story in itself, that of the Fifth Corps is considered to be kind of military miracle. The Fifth Corps was the factor that saved Bihac from the unfortunate destiny faced by the other UN-declared "safe havens." According to an intelligence report, the Fifth Corps' campaign between 1994-95 "demonstrated how a lightly-armed formation can ultimately take on a far superior, mechanized, enemy." Atif Dudakovic, a man with no formal military rank, was the leader of this locally recruited unit.

"Today a legend in his own time -the above quoted report continues- had a degree of flexibility that no other fighting commander enjoyed in the whole Balkans. When it suited him, he was able to change tactic, from a guerrilla operation to a conventional land battle and back again. Where he lacked heavy weaponry, he either manufactured it locally or conducted operations to capture it. For this he was renowned."

"Sounds like Tito's partisans fifty years ago" says an American officer with IFOR who travel with us in a UN-vehicle as he listens to Iris' memories of his not so distant military life. Fifty-three years before to be more precise, when, as he battled both the Serbian Chetnik' and the German forces, Tito established in Bihac his first tentative form of government, the Anti-Fascist Council for Yugoslavia. A few miles before arriving into Klujc we pass by the spot where the first Partisan airfield was set up. An old two-engine plane and a granite column commemorate the place.

Atif Dudadovic is now the Mayor of Klujc. As he is currently in Oslo looking for funds for his municipality we are received by his Deputy Mayor who is also a veteran from the Fifth Corps. With precision and a resounding voice, the Deputy Mayor gives us an overview of Klujc's situation. His municipality comprised approximately 850 square kilometers before the war, it holds today only 250 as the remaining 600 are presently under the control of the Republika Srpska. Nearly 18,000 Muslims lived in Klujc when the Bosnian Serbs moved in to take the area in 1992. As part of their campaign of "ethnic cleansing," the Bosnian Serbs drove out almost all the Muslims and either destroyed the property left behind or settled Serbs in the houses. In September 1995, however, that situation was turned around as, after liberating Bihac, the Bosnian Fifth Corps supported by its Croatian allies, pushed southward reclaiming the territory that fell into Serb hands two years before.

"They got 80% of the factories -says the Deputy Mayor- but we got the town." And then, the familiar litany of destruction capped with a statement of appreciation for all is being received from the international cooperation. "Capital is urgently needed," insists the Deputy Major once and again. Actually, our group has not arrived with empty hands. An expert of UNOPS is in charge of setting up a computerized data-base while the American military officer is an economist who is advising Klujc Municipal government on getting funds from the World Bank. In the shortest possible time, UNOPS's officers expect to set up the structures that will allow capital to come in. Still, there are questions about whether foreign investors will risk their capital unless the economic structure inherited from the Communist era is drastically changed.

"We still don't have a privatization law," responds the local authority to this particular point, "but it is also undeniable that after the war there is a boom of entrepreneurial spirit that we of course want to encourage. How is the transition going to take place? Is there going to be any chance for foreign investment? We don't know. But I can assure you that our government is searching for the correct formula. By now, what is important is to restart production, create jobs, to put things in motion again."

Another question, however, alters the business-like tone so far prevailing in this conversation. Are you prepared for re-integration along the lines of the Dayton Agreement? Do you see a normalization of relations with the Serb side? The response comes in a contained diplomatic style that gradually becomes a thunderous declaration.

"All sides have obligations regarding the Dayton Agreements -says the Deputy Major- our side has fulfilled its obligations regarding freedom of movement and some economic matters. Yet, we are not prepared to talk about normalization. To reach that point we had to establish some basic human conditions here. We have to know for instance what happened with 700 of our people who are missing. We know about mass graves, but still we really don't know what really happened. If they know where our people are they have to tell us. At least we want to know where their bones are. But we also want to know what is going to happen with those responsible for war crimes, whether they are going to be punished or not. Unless these basic human conditions exist I don't see how could we talk about reintegration."

As he continues reviving the intensity of his still fresh memories of war, the Deputy Mayor goes on talking about his own experience as a member of the Fifth Corps. Less than one year ago, he recalls, his unit was surrounded by the enemy in a town called Biljani. Around 200 were killed, other managed to flee. He couldn't. He remained hidden while the killing proceeded. Several hours passed before the Deputy Mayor managed to escape to a nine-days odyssey wandering throughout the surrounding mountains before finding his way into Bihac.

After the interview we take a tour around Klujc. Next to the municipal building an Orthodox temple stands closed but intact. A group of young British soldiers give the final touches to a day-care center decorated with colorful Disney's characters. A few meters away, lie the cemetery and the pulverized remains of Klujc's main mosque. Pointing out to the distance, Maci, our translator, says "in our local stadium Maradona came once to play with the Argentinian national soccer team." "What year was that?" I ask demanding more precise information. "I really don't know -he says- it was my father who told me about this; I wasn't born yet when this happened." It is then when I become conscious about how young Maci was. He has recently returned to town after a four-years absence. As we walk down Marshall Tito street, Maci tells us about his early encounter with adulthood.

"My father was killed just as the war was beginning. He was killed because he was the best house constructor in town. There was no other reason. He didn't have enemies. What happened was that anybody who knew something posed a threat to those people," says Maci remembering the moment when his life was swallowed into the bloody whirlpool of Balkan history. "Soon after that I was enrolled -he goes on- in the Fifth Corps of the Bosnian Army." Few months after that, however, Moci was confined to a Serbian concentration camp. "I spent two years living in that barrack with 600 other inmates before being allowed to leave the country thanks to the International Red Cross" he says concluding his story. He went then to Great Britain where he learned the British-accented English that allows him to make a remarkable income in a town with no jobs to offer to a young fellow like Maci.

As we pass in front of a house somebody makes us signals to get inside. Once inside he shows us the board he had placed in one of his houses' windows when he left town in 1992, fleeing from the Serbs. We see, painted in black, the cross between four Cyrillic esse symbolizing the slogan "Only Unity Saves Serbs" attributed to Saint Sava, the founder of the Serbian Orthodox Church. As he holds the tainted board with one hand, the old man slides his other hand across his throat, meaning that he had been sentenced to death. "Death...death....death...." he repeats after listening Moci's prompt translation. Back into the street I ask Moci about the graffiti crossing the door and windows of the next house. "Those are the initials of a Bosnian soldier" he says "they were written as a symbol of property." At the house's threshold three pairs of shoes lay as a mute symbol of the new occupants ethnic affiliation.

As we walk back to the Municipality we pass by a video-rent store. A poster in the front announces the most recent arrival: Steven Spielberg's "Schindler's List." In the school's backyard, a few meters away, a group of kids have interrupted their basketball game to chase a rat. One holds it by its tail as the other poke it with sticks. It is an overall grotesque scene that I watch in complete amazement. After a while the miserable animal is killed by a rain of stones. The basketball game continues; the words of the old man still resound in my mind. Who were the killers here I wonder? Where are they now? Was there any chance to remain neutral in this war?

Walking around the school of Projovo one can still pick up the shells of the bullets that shattered the life of this bucolic village of the Municipality of Klujc not so long ago. With a tense expression in her face, a middle-aged widow living next to the school reconstructs for us the appalling story of this rural community of graceful houses and generous plum trees. It is the same kind of story I have heard in El Salvador or in the highlands of Peru -armed people moving in during the night; a stream of male residents being taken to the school building; and then, the deadly chorus that accompanies torment and death as well as the and the hysterical screams and the shotguns of those three nights of alcohol and barbarity. Finally, the mysterious trucks, the silence and the impotence. A couple of blocks from the school we met one of the few families who still live in this semi-abandoned town. We show them the list of the missing provided by the Municipality of Klujc. As the eyes of these five survivors go over the list review a gradual explosion of anger and tears takes place. And then the now-so-familiar story.

"We lived all together without having the slightest problem. Unbeknownst to us they had been preparing for war. We later knew that helicopters arrived by night carrying weapons that were distributed among them. As the war came closer to town aggression began. We didn't know things were going to become so bad."

As we presented them with the list of those accused of crimes in the area they identify names pointing with their hands into the direction where these neighbors turned executioners used to leave.

The next day as we walk through the ruins of another divided town by the Uma River, an old friend and I tried to find parallels between the Balkan ethnic contradictions and those of our country of origin. If Peru's Shining Path had succeeded in igniting the dry tinder of ethnic divisions, might we not have seen a conflagration as terrible as what happened here? Perhaps by examining events in Bosnia in the light of other conflicts closer to our experience, I wonder, we could begin to make sense of this seemingly irrational war. Marred by conquest and ethnic rivalry, Andean history is considered to be the most complex and prone to violence in the Latin American context. We didn't go too far in our exercise though. As we compare the Spanish Conquest of the Andes with the Ottoman Conquest of the Balkans we come to realize the exceptional density of the history of these lands. Actually, contrasted to the Balkan one, moreover, Peruvian history had never appeared so transparent and readable to my eyes.