WITH ITS two scripts (Latin and Cyrillic), three religions (Catholic, Orthodox and Muslim), four main languages used at the University (as well as a dozen other languages taught in primary and secondary schools), five nations (and more nationalities), and six Federal republics, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro and Macedonia (plus the two autonomous provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina) - Yugoslavia is (or was) a (good and bad) example of multi-ethnic cohabitation.
The most concentrated form of this cohabitation is to be found in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and, as the push for a Greater Serbia continues, it seems inevitable that this republic will be drawn in. SLAVKO MIHALJCEK
F THE SERB population in Croatia has been considered by the present
Croat leadership as a "minority people", both on account of their numbers and their relatively recent settlement in Croatia (18th and 19th centuries), the same cannot be said of the Bosnian Serbs. Whether dominant or dominators, according to the historical circumstances, the Serbs have been in Bosnia as long as its other peoples — the local Croats, the Muslims, the Jews who arrived after their expulsion from Spain and Rusins of more recent vintage
"Bosnia does not belong either to the Muslims, the Serbs or the Croats but to all those who live there and who like it as it is" as its president Alia Izetbegovic likes to say.
The question now is, will this cohabitation - more than a quarter of marriages in urban districts are mixed, above all among intellectuals and people with higher education — survive the present crisis? Under pressure from am income baa 19 rage of propaganda coming from Serbia,
International Viewpoint #216 • November 11, 1991
YUGOSLAVIA which cleverly mixes up the anti-Serb massacres of the last world war and a belligerent mythology, a whole range of well-armed para-military formations have arisen among the Bosnian Serbs — often equipped from federal army supplies.
In the majority Serb areas in western Bosnia, abutting on the Croatian Krajina, and in eastern Herzegovina, near to Montenegro, power is no longer in the hands of the Republic's legal government. The nationalist groups there have already pro-
"free and autonomous Serb
SLOVENIA
Lubyana
Zagreb
CROATIA
BOSNIA-
VOJVODINA
Now Sed
Blig claimed regions". In September the most powerful radio and TV station in Bosnia was occupied by an "unidentified" armed group,
YUGOSLAVIA who forced the technicians to cut the radio mast of Bosnia's sturdily pluralist Channel 2. The station - which is located right next to important army garrisons -remains occupied by these "unknown" persons, who broadcast nothing but the version of the truth coming out of Belgrade.
However, judging by the numerous visits by Bosnian deputies, the main threat to social peace is found in the east of Bosnia, on the border with Serbia, where the Serb population is in the minority compared to the Muslims.
Access to Serb villages blocked
All access to the Serb villages has for several months been blocked by barricades and armed men. Radio Sarajevo, as well as the Belgrade newspapers?, have reported increasingly frequent incidents. Although they have not been attacked, the Serb militia patrols the surrounding Muslim areas. Some of these expeditions have ended in clashes including fatalities in September.
Even more disturbing is the crumbling of local institutions. In its September 13 issue, the pro-nationalist Belgrade journal NIN spelt out the scenario for taking power. Since the collapse of the single party system the Muslim votes have been divided between several parties, some with an ethnic basis (Democratic Action Union
— a homogeneously Muslim party) while others remain secular and inter-ethnic (the Communist Party, and the Democratic Reform Party of former Federal Prime
Minister Ante Markovic).
On the other hand, on the Serb side there is a clear tendency towards unity around one party, the Serb Democratic
Union. According to NIN, the "political genius of the Serbs" has allowed them to take the majority in the councils of all the main towns in eastern Bosnia. Thus towns such as Bratounats (34% Serbs), Vlassenitsa (Serbs 42%, Muslims 55%), Zvornik and so on are all run by Serbs.
Another Belgrade weekly, the liberal and democratic inclined Vreme, considers that this political dominance is changing into 20 and education. an intolerable control over the economy
HERCEGOVINA Sarajevo Adriatic Sea HALY
In Zvornik, the main town in the region, whose population is majority Muslim, there are 65 Muslim and 465 Serb teachers — the latter originating mainly from Serbia. And, in fact, the first bitter intercommunal political clash arose over the issue of the nomination of school directors. The Muslim party is demanding the nomination of a certain number of Muslim teachers to correct the imbalance. The Serbs rejected this request and the Muslims replied by giving political support to parties based on "Bosnian and Muslim
The trend towards ethnic and religious homogenization is strengthened by the increased activity of the Serbian Orthodox church in Bosnia. The very militant speeches of Bosnia's Serbian Orthodox bishop, Vassili, who has declared that the historical frontier beteen Serbia and Bosnia, is the "vertebral column of the Serb people" are seen as an ideological preparation for the future annexation of the region into a
Inter-ethnic cohabitation only remains satisfactory in towns with a strong working class tradition, such as Touzla, where the Communist Party has retained its influence after having succeeded in preventing inter-ethnic massacres in the last world war. The question is, will the relatively calm atmosphere in the towns, which counter-balance the tensions in the rural areas, survive the recent "strategic coup" by the Serbian regime and the Federal army?
In reply to the refusal of the Bosnian
SERBIA MONTENEGRO
Pristin Titograd
KOSOVO I skopy MACEDONIA authorities to mobilize reservists for the anti-Croatian front, the governments of Serbia and Montenegro have mobilized their citizens, sent on manoeuvres in Bosnia. At the start of October, with the complicity of the army, tens of thousands of reservists, without any structure or supervision, often driving poured into towns and villages in eastern Herzegovina. Here they engaged in pillage or perhaps simply seized supplies in the total absence of any organization, which has infuriated Bosnian Muslims.®
It is thus no surprise that Eioup Ganic, a member of the collective presidency of the Bosnian republic, has denounced "a foreign occupation of Bosnia, following on a military putsch [in Serbia] and has announced that "Bosnia will be able to defend itself according to the principles of civil disobedience." › 1. The station at Kozara, in the Bosnian Krajina, occupied on August 1 by 200 armed men wearing the characteristic unifors of the Serb militia from Knin (the Croat Krajina), covers a third of Bosnia and a signifi cant proportion of Croatia. See the analysis in Vreme September 16, 1991. 2. See NIN (Serb nationalist, supports Milosevic regime) and Vreme (liberal opposition, pacifist) in September 1991. 3. These figures are from NIN, September 13 1991. 4. Radio Sarajevo, August 15, 1991, NIN, September 13, 1991. 5. Sunday October 13, 1991, 22h30. Radio Belgrade announced in its information flash a communiqué from the army commander strictly forbidding reservists to move around in private cars in the zone of manoeuvres in easter Herzegovina. 6. Broadcasts by Radio Sarajevo at the end of September. Reports Danas, liberal opposition weekly. Zagreb, October 1, 1991. 7. Interview in Danas, October 1, 1991.