Balkan Region Is Slowly Rebuilding

August 22, 2004

Country: Bosnia and Herzegovina

Topics: Economic Development, Emergencies, Peaceful Change

Question: When did you first become involved in Bosnia?

Answer: I first became involved in Bosnia in the late winter and spring of 1945 when I was a war correspondent in World War II. I was with Tito's Partisan fighters during that time and was present for the liberation of Sarajevo from the Germans. I visited the former Yugoslavia several times in the postwar years.

My longest, deepest involvement with Bosnia began in December 1995, only a few weeks after the completion of the Dayton Peace Accord that brought to a formal end the civil war. After a short visit as part of a Mercy Corps assessment team, I helped to prepare plans for Mercy Corps to undertake humanitarian relief and reconstruction projects in northern Bosnia, financed primarily by USAID. Beginning in February 1996, I lived in Sarajevo and spent three years working with Mercy Corps on a variety of projects in various parts of Bosnia.

Q: What was the role of Mercy Corps in rebuilding Bosnia?

A: Mercy Corps was one of the dozen major international relief and development agencies working in Bosnia during those years and is still seriously involved. Much of our work was concerned with the rebuilding of the basic infrastructure in and around the principal city in northern Bosnia, Tuzla. Our engineers (practically all of whom were local people) played very significant roles in the re-establishment of water supply systems of various sizes and degrees of complexity for many towns and villages. (Most people don't realize -- I certainly didn't -- that just about the most urgent need of desperate people after their communities have been wrecked by war or natural disasters is for safe drinking water. If they don't have that, a lot of people get sick and die.)

Mercy Corps also was engaged in the rebuilding of a number of damaged schools and clinics. Also we assisted in the repair and reconstruction of several thousand houses and helped to get their owners back in their homes. We had a rule that we would help with such rebuilding efforts if the house was at least 25 percent destroyed, but not more than 75 percent destroyed. In the houses with the lesser destruction the owners could be expected to do the needed repairs over time on their own, though even there we might help with providing some supplies. If a house was more than 75 percent destroyed, it was considered wiser simply to finish tearing it down and start over. But we were not in the business of building new homes.

Perhaps the most significant, long-term help we provided was in the areas of "micro-enterprise" and "civil society" development. The best way to help people to become self-supporting was through small loans (usually up to about $3,000) they could use to start small businesses -- raising chickens, operating a car repair shop, making and mending clothes, etc., etc. The success of these projects was astonishing. The people who received these loans used the money responsibly, for the most part got their businesses going satisfactorily -- and repaid their debts fully and on time. The repayments made possible further loans to other people, so we were able to establish a revolving loan fund that made a real contribution to the improvement of the local economy.

The "civil society" projects were concerned with helping communities and groups of people organize themselves as volunteers to tackle a great variety of local problems and deal constructively with suspicions, fears and disagreements that were a carry-over from the period of civil warfare. In these matters and many different projects, we were able within a couple of years to turn over these activities to local groups which would carry them on on their own.

From the beginning, we were determined to help where we could and get out as soon as we could "work ourselves out of a job." I personally was involved for more than a year in helping the religious leaders -- Roman Catholic, Serb Orthodox, Muslim and Jewish -- to develop the Inter-Religious Council of Bosnia and Herzegovina through which they could undertake various ways of working together and overcoming mutual suspicions and hostilities.

Q: Tell us about how Bosnia has changed over the past 10 years?

A: One of the biggest and most obvious changes in Bosnia over the past 10 years has been the completion of so many physical reconstruction projects -- blown bridges replaced, damaged or destroyed houses put in order, new public buildings erected, roads repaired, debris carted away.

Clearly, there are more goods in the shops, people are better dressed, there are more and better and newer cars on the roads. However, many of the bigger factories destroyed by the war have not been rebuilt and probably never will be. Economic recovery takes a long time. There is still much unemployment and under-employment.

The dream of developing efficient, honest, open democratic government is still far from being fully realized. Politics is still a somewhat dirty game, with parties in power manipulating the government offices and the media (particularly radio and television) to maintain themselves in power. The dominant parties (and memberships in all parties) are tied to religious/ethnic identity. Independent, issue-oriented parties have not fared well. Corruption is widespread and largely taken for granted.

Still, the family and friendship circles are intact and much enjoyed and appreciated. Life, though on a lower level of comfort and luxury than in America, is less hectic, less frantic, less tense than in America. Quite honestly, many Bosnian families I know seem to enjoy their daily lives more than many American families I know. The have more time, they take more time for relaxed socializing in family groups.

People are crazy about movies and about sports -- particularly about soccer (which they call football) and basketball. And the young people are into rock 'n' roll and all the other forms of pop music as much as any other young people. And they are able to buy current hit CDs at bargain prices, due to pirated copies made in China and elsewhere that are widely on sale.

Q: What role have the peacekeepers played in Bosnia?

A: The role of peacekeepers in Bosnia, as in other troubled or once-troubled areas of the world, is to keep people who hate each other from killing each other. It's as simple as that. That hasn't been too difficult or too dangerous an assignment for American troops -- right from the beginning of their arrival in Bosnia. People were fed up with the warfare they had lived through. They truly wanted peace and quiet and order. They weren't exactly wild about having all those foreign NATO troops around -- but they liked having Russian troops even less. In any case, none of the foreign troops could be seen as occupiers: they really were peacekeepers.

Q: Has NATO fulfilled its mission?

A: Without having to fire a shot at anybody -- and few such shots have been fired by U.S. troops in the whole past eight years that we have had a military presence in Bosnia -- our presence as a military force has undoubtedly prevented a good deal of violence that might well have occurred.

It is known that we are there, mostly staying in our camps or making necessary supply trips about the country, but we are not an oppressive factor in their lives. We never had to fight our way in, and, unlike Iraq, we don't take casualties for being there.

Insofar as the NATO mission was to provide a period of quiet and safety and order during which normal life could return after bloody years of civil warfare, it can be said that NATO has indeed succeeded. If anybody saw that mission for the Americans and other NATO powers as some how being concerned with establishing democracy and eliminating religious and ethnic rivalries, our self-congratulation should be cautious and restrained. To be sure, we and the European community were deeply involved in promoting early free elections. They were not really ready for completely free, open, honest elections between truly genuinely competitive political parties on a level playing field, but we helped them hold elections that were almost certainly more democratic than any they ever experienced before.

As they gain experience and distance from their time of troubles and mutual killings, their governmental processes will almost certainly become more fair, more responsible and more democratic. But for that to happen and the good effects to last, the initiative and driving force must come from within the minds, spirits, and willing determination of the local people and their leaders. Democracy is not something an outside power, not even the United States, can impose on another people.

Q: Tell us about your most recent trip to Bosnia?

A: My love affair with the various peoples of differing nationalities and religions in the former Yugoslavia has lasted a long time. I always enjoy going there. They are warm-hearted, friendly, unpretentious, generous, energetic, simple (in the good sense), and talented. And they occupy one of the most beautiful lands in all the world. I was there most recently a couple of years ago, primarily to see the progress on some of the micro-enterprise (small-loan programs Mercy Corps has developed). I was thrilled and delighted to see how, now almost entirely on their own, they have made a resounding success of this effort to improve their economy from the ground up. It's working. What more could I ask?

Q: What does the future hold for Bosnia?

A: The future of Bosnia, I believe, is promising. But that, I realize, is about as meaningless as saying, in that old political cliche, "our future is ahead of us!" What facts on the ground give reason for hope?

One, a vigorous, energetic and educated people.

Two, considerable natural resources: timber, minerals, a lot of good productive agricultural land, abundant energy in both coal and hydroelectric power.

Three, a lot of the most beautiful scenery you can find anywhere. The tourism possibilities for that region are enormous. (Remember that in 1986 Sarajevo, with its downtown only a 30-minute drive to mountain ski slopes, put on one of the most successful Winter Olympics ever.).

What are my concerns about Bosnia's future?

The slow pace of developing genuinely responsible, honest democratic government.

Lingering prejudices and hostilities among the several religions. However, up until Milosovic stirred up those religious/ethnic hatred, the Bosnian society, with its near- majority of Muslims, its substantial segments of Roman Catholic and Serb Orthodox and a lively, talented and respected Jewish minority, Bosnia was one of the most tolerant multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-religious societies on Earth. They had something very special, something that had grown naturally over several centuries.

That tradition is not dead. I believe it is already beginning to live vigorously again.

[Editor's note: this article originally appeared in The Richmond Palladium-Item]