Travel Stories >> Bosnia >> In South Bosnia, all they want is to go home

In South Bosnia, all they want is to go home.

After World War II seeped into Yugoslavia, Amna Popovac’s grandmother gathered her family together in their Mostar home. She said to them, "I have lived in Mostar all my life, I will not flee when war comes to us. Some of us will die in this war, and some will live. It is our duty to remain here for our forefathers, and for our children." That woman lost one son in the "great" war. Fifty years later, Amna’s father gathered the extended family in their home in Mostar and said, "Our family has lived in Mostar for 350 years, live or die, I will not leave Mostar when the war comes to us here." Although he and his wife spent some time in prison, they are still alive in Mostar today. The family lost five beloved kin in this war.
Books have been written about the ignoble fighting that took place in Mostar during this last war, so I will not repeat the statistics. Suffice it to say that it was a complicated set of battles because Croats, Serbs, and Muslims lived in very mixed quarters here and the complexities that the international community is facing in its attempts to promote the return of refugees, are enormous. Amna is our Head of Office in Mostar. She survived the war here ("I have more friends dead than alive," she notes), and she is convinced that she can help Mostar return to the beautiful city it once was. Her determination and good-spirit in the face of the gargantuan tasks she faces daily are extraordinary. She is very involved in the difficult process of assisting in what we call "returns". She spends her days visiting displaced populations in outlying villages and towns, meeting their community leaders, arranging meetings between them and other recently returned communities (for information exchanges, etc.), and providing the international donors with a wealth of information about returning populations, their needs, their fears, and their accomplishments.

Yesterday, under the blistering sun of Southern Bosnia, we visited what was once the town of Bacevici (say: Bah-che-vee-chee). Bacevici is situated about four miles south of Mostar on the flat plains between the Neretva and Jasenica Rivers. The 450 residents of the town were almost all Serb before the war, most employed in the aluminium plant just up the road. Pre-war Bacevici (named for the Greek god, Bacchus) was known for the quality of wines and vinegar produced by the townspeople, in fact, most of the small towns now destroyed throughout this valley are still surrounded by vast plains of the charred remains of the vineyards.

The Serbs are returning to Bacevici, and we are trying to find the funding to help them to rebuild their homes and their lives. On June 11, 1992, when war came to the area, they collected their papers and their children, locked up their homes, and fled in the night over the hills to the Southeast (to Nevesinje, Trebinje, and in the direction of Montenegro). Their town was completely destroyed, homes looted (of everything, even the electrical wiring, plumbing pipes, and fixures), trees chopped down, vineyards burned, water pumps rendered unusable, and all the buildings then shelled to ruins.

For the first time, after six years, they have begun to return. If one has a good imagination, one can picture what were once the treelined streets, the lovely gardens, the enclosed patios, the hardwood floors (which are now only charred vestiges on the concrete foundations in the remains of the homes which were not completely razed), the school building, and the corner grocery.

In Bosnia, unlike the US, the homes are built of reinforced concrete, a lot tougher to loot, burn, and raze. The destruction of these buildings, however, leaves a much more dramatic scene than the simple burning of a wooden house. The clean-up is also a monumental task. In the Mostar area, the Spanish SFOR troops are eager and proud to provide the heavy machinery needed to haul and clear away the streets, and the remains of the destroyed buildings – large chunks of concrete that cling to each other by twisted rusted steel wires.

The European Commission’s Humanitarian Office (ECHO) has given us the funding to help these residents rebuild 50 houses (how the other 80 will be rebuilt is anyone’s guess). The German Embassy has offered to find food, clothing, garden tools, and other supplies that the residents will need to spend the next six months clearing the land, cleaning the remains, and rebuilding the structures.

As we walk through the rubble, the men (who travel an hour every day to get to the village) are clearing and hauling heavy debrus, and running temporary water lines, and electrical cable. The few women, who have set up a make-shift kitchen in the shell of a former garage (with stoves donated by UNHCR), provide sustenance for those laboring in the hot sun. They are so glad to see us, and to show us what they have already accomplished. While pleased they have done so much, I am quietly depressed by the mammoth amount of work that still awaits them. There will be not an inhabitable building there for at least a month. Because the land is in Croat hands, the threat of nocturnal destruction by local police forces and their cronies (local hoodlums, generally shiftless youth) could easily set the work back months.

The land of Herzegovina, named for King Stefan Herzog (of ancient times) was once a veritable cornucopia of produce. The Croats fought hard to keep this region for obvious economic reasons, and the Croat population currently in the area is highly resistant, nasty, and are encouraged by their political leaders not about to relinquish ANY of this land. They may have lost it in the war, but they firmly believe the borders established by any international agreement mean nothing. A great deal of Tudjman’s money is pouring into the munipicalities here where Croats from Central Bosnia are being "relocated" to this region. Franco Tudjman (the President of Croatia) has brazenly "bought" contractors and suppliers here to build entire villages of big, new, beautiful houses strategically located at and along the entrance roads to most of the formerly Serb and Muslim villages throughout Southern Bosnia. This activity provides a visibly powerful disincentive to any Serb or Muslim population who might wish to return to their villages.

The residents of Bacevici are understandably nervous as they pass by these new structures every day at the entrance of town – and probably somewhat angry to see the expensive private construction contractors, the new backhoes, piles of quality blocks and tiles, cables, and piping for the utilities. The best we can do is provide them with the materials and even then – for fewer than half the houses in town. They spend their days in the hot dry air clearing their debris by hand with one eye on the local police forces (Croats) who drive back and forth through the littered streets in the town, watching their every move. You can feel the tension in the air, you can imagine how they must lay in bed every night wondering if the day’s work will be standing when they get back tomorrow, and you wonder how difficult it will be to try to eventually live there.

After bidding a fond farewell to the Bacevici residents, we travel south to a series of smaller villages in the hills north of Stolac. The municipality of Stolac is best remembered by the donor community here as having spent much of 1996 and 1997 bombing the rebuilt houses of their returning population. The contractors and former residents would build during the day, and the buildings would be bombed at the night. This reprehensible activity turned a small six month pilot project for the rebuilding of 100 houses into a two and half year ordeal for ECHO and the former residents.

As we meandered the hilly countryside through the former Serb-Muslim villages of Recice, Oplicici, Lokve, Rotimilje, and Hodbina, we could see an occasional former resident clearing brush (usually with small controlled fires), building large piles of concrete, rusted wire, cables, broken tiles, bricks, and other detrious to be hauled away, and attempting to turn the soil for future years’ crops. Many of the buildings that remain half-standing have spray-painted on them, "Prodaja se - ine Norveski" (For Sale, [we are] in Norway), a little joke left by the marauding enemy forces. The same big, beautiful, new Croat-funded houses were going up at the feeder streets to these villages, and the villagers themselves – all currently without any funding to rebuild – must struggle wondering whether it is worth returning.

As time passes, many people who have lived in exile somewhere where they may be amongst their own ethnic group, want to go home. Serbs, Muslims, and Croats alike want to return to their homes – even though that home might now be a pile of debris polka-dotted by mines. The donor community cannot find the money it needs, and while they are well-meaning, the singular activity of rebuilding the structures will not be enough. You cannot send someone home to a new structure if there is no income generating activity in which he may engage, nor a municipality or community in which he can participate. The municipalities refuse to acknowledge the ownership of minority homes, the schools are built but with no money for furniture, books, or blackboards, the ambulantes (medical clinics) can be built but if there is no money to fund a nurse or doctor or the supplies necessary it remains an empty building. These are communities that need a few plows, some sheep, greenhouse materials and equipment. The right agricultural inputs in this valley could turn it into a smaller version of California’s Central Valley – all of the other conditions are right.

As we finish our site visits, meet with the requisite representatives of the donor community, and our own small staff in Mostar, we are struck by the human-ness of all the interactions we witness. Amna (who claimed Croat ethnicity during the war because she was studying in Split) tells us that her (Muslim) family survived the war with the regular help of Croat neighbors. We are told that Croat farmers in the villages north of Stolac occasionally maintained the cultivation of their Muslim neighbors’ vineyards during the war (whether this is because they hoped to take them over once the land was won to Croatia during the war, is unknown). Croat populations who wish to return to their villages north of Mostar, like Dresnice, hesitate because they are waiting to get word from the Croat government in Zagreb ("is the village strategically ‘important’ for the Croats?"). Amna meets an old (serb) friend of her parents’ in the midst of the ruins of Bacevici. There are tears in this old man’s eyes as he recognizes Amna, and they hug and laugh and exchange wonderful greetings. No one seems to notice that this Muslim woman, with Croat "nationality" is sharing a hug and a laugh with a Serb man. In fact, the idea that any of those ethnic titles matter is rather absurd.

We begin to see more clearly that if the federal, cantonal and municipal governments were removed from the picture, most of these human beings would find it much easier to "come home". The villages of Jasnice (Croat) and Bacevici (Serb), which were located right next to each other, could rebuild the generations of friendships they had before the war. Under the hardline institutionalized pressures from the various levels of government, citizens are lied to, brainwashed, and unnecessarily incited to anger and violence. The political agendas are the single and most damaging impediment to the reconstruction of this society and this country. The battles may be over, the shells have indeed stopped, but the war continues in its more surreptitious and insidious manner, by breaking down the opportunities for individuals to be friends, neighbors, and basic human beings again.

Copyright © 1997 – Rachel Peterson

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