Bosnia and Herzegovina
Twenty years ago marked the end of the siege of Sarajevo. It was the longest in modern history, which lasted as many as 1425 days. Despite internal wounds, which are still open, Bosnia and Herzegovina, a country created after the Dayton Peace Accords (1995) and divided along ethnic and religious grounds, now turns its gaze to Europe in an attempt to leave that tragic past behind. Two weeks ago the Country filed a “formal application to join the EU.” The words of Pope Francis, pronounced in Sarajevo on June 6 last year, gain increasing topical relevance: “Bosnia and Herzegovina is indeed an integral part of Europe, the successes and tragic experiences of the former are integrated fully into the latter’s history of successes and tragedies. They constitute, too, a clear call to pursue every avenue of peace, in order that processes already underway can be yet more resilient and binding.” It is time that Sarajevo goes back to being the Jerusalem of Europe.
Twenty years have passed since the end of the siege of Sarajevo, (April 5 1992 – February 29 1996), the longest in modern history. It lasted 1.425 days, during which the city was daily hit by 329 grenades, with a death tool of 11,541 civilians, 1,601 of whom were children. Several tens of thousands were wounded. Long days without water, electricity and food. Serb tanks and guns to the orders of Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic – currently on trial at The Hague Criminal Court on charges of genocide and war crimes and crimes against humanity – surrounded the Bosnian capital. The front lines were marked by the river of Sarajevo, the Miljacka River, and by the city’s main avenue, Ulica Zmaja od Bosne, which later became sadly known as Snajperska Aleja, the Avenue of Snipers. It took the NATO bombing of Serbia in November 1995 to reach the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement, which froze the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, sanctioning its division along ethnic and religious grounds, with the deployment in the country of a multinational NATO-led peacekeeping force. The siege finally came to an end on February 29 1996: the Bosnian police managed to liberate the neighbourhoods of the capital, Vogosca e Rajlovac, followed by Ilijas, some 20 km north-west of Sarajevo, connecting the major roads with the rest of Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, the Country’s reunification was completed only on March 19, with the restitution of the city’s quarter of Gbravica to Sarajevo’s government.
Memories difficult to forget even today, twenty years since those tragic events, also because the scars of the war are still visible: on the walls of the buildings riddled with bullets, in the many cemeteries created throughout the city bearing white tombstones – during the siege the dead were buried wherever possible – that blend the past with the present.
There still are many open wounds in the heart of Sarajevo, which appears to have lost its picture postcard image with the synagogue, mosque and cathedral standing a few steps away from each other. The war shattered a centuries-long coexistence between Muslims, Catholics, Orthodox and Jews.
After twenty years, on the banks of the Miljacka River the three peoples of post-war Bosnia – Muslim Bosnians, Orthodox Serbians, and Catholic Croatians – are still marked by deep division.
Something is on the move. Also thanks to the efforts of the international community and local political authorities, two weeks ago Bosnia and Herzegovina submitted a “formal request to join the EU” in the hope of undertaking the process leading to full European integration.
“Sarajevo is the Jerusalem of Europe – Cardinal Vinko Puljic, archbishop of Vrhbosna-Sarajevo, has repeated on several occasions – The city is a symbol and a martyr of fratricidal warfare that caused the death of over eleven thousand people, which today stands as a paradigm of coexistence between peoples for Europe.”
Those words were echoed by Pope Francis during his visit to Sarajevo on June 6 2015. During the visit Francis said that to craft peace “is a skilled work: it requires passion, patience, experience and tenacity.” However, we should not become complacent “with what has been achieved so far, but rather seek to make further efforts towards reinforcing trust and creating opportunities for growth in mutual knowledge and respect.” Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Pope said, “is indeed an integral part of Europe, the successes and tragic experiences of the former are integrated fully into the latter’s history of successes and tragedies. They constitute, too, a clear call to pursue every avenue of peace, in order that processes already underway can be yet more resilient and binding.”
Europe needs her “Jerusalem.”
