Bosnian Serb Republic (Republika Srpska): A gentle people at odds with the world

WeeCheng travels to the Serb Republic expecting to find some battlehard figures
but finds instead a gentle people with their own story to tell.

I left Serbia behind as the bus crossed the bridge across the River Sava. A
billboard greeted the bus, “The Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina”, the country
commonly abbreviated as BiH (“i” is “and” in Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian, whatever
you call that language spoken by the former Yugoslav nations). Three meters
behind, a much larger sign said, “Welcome to the Repblic of Srpska”. Srpska,
commonly known as Republika Srpska, Serb Republic, or simply RS. This is one of
the two “entities” making up the BiH, as a result of the Dayton Agreement which
ended the war in BiH from 1992 to 1995. RS has 49% of the territory of BiH and
is primarily Serb. The other entity is the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina
(“FbiH”) which accounts for 51% of the territory and is basically a federation
of Bosnian Muslims (now known as Bosniak) and Croats. Let’s take a step back and
have a look at what all these are all about.

Bosnia, the crossroads of the Western and Eastern Roman Empires, was settled by
Slavic tribes after the collapse of the Roman Empire. Its history has always
been subject to debate by its three constituent peoples, the Bosniaks, Serbs and
Croats, who account for 43%, 31% and 17% of its population respectively. To the
Bosniaks, they have always been the main inhabitants of this ancient land.
Caught in the conflicting demands of the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern
Orthodox Church of the Byzantine Empire, the Bosnian people set up their own
Bosnian Church, which some say are intertwined with the Bogomils, a dualist
aesthetic sect considered heretical by others and related to the Cathars in
southern France. Under the Bosnian king, Tvrtko Kotromanic, the Bosnian state
extended into huge territories in what is today Croatia and Serbia, but his
empire didn’t last for long. The existence of a rival sect infuriated the Pope
who raised a crusade against the Bosnians. Rivalries among the feudal lords
tore the country apart. The Ottoman Turks came soon after and took over this
land torn by strife. The locals welcomed the Turks as liberators and converted
to Islam en masse. This included the elite who were anxious to avoid paying
excessive taxes from land ownership. For a long time, the Muslims of BiH have a
confused identity, some calling themselves Muslim Serbs and others Muslim
Croats. Tito, leader of communist Yugoslavia, however, recognized them as a
separate nation in the 1960’s, and since the end of the Bosnian War, they have
renamed themselves Bosniaks, i.e., people of Bosnia.

Listen to a Serb and you will get this story: BiH has always been a Serbian
land. Tvrtko Kotromanic was actually king of the Western Serbs. The Roman
Catholic Church converted some of the Serbs who then called themselves Croats,
and the Turks forcibly converted others who then call themselves Bosniaks. But
all these were once Serbian lands and should always be. And it was Tito who
messed things up by giving them recognition as a separate people. To a Croat,
naturally, this was Croat land too, and Tvrtko Kotromanic – no prizes for
correct guesses – was actually a Croatian duke who broke away from the Croatian
state. So, which version do you believe in ? All sides have scholars and
tonnes of works to prove their theories.

The Yugoslav Federation began to fall apart when Slovenia and Croatia declared
independence in June 1991. By late 1991, the Bosnian Croats have convinced the
Bosniaks that independence was the way to go. This terrified the Serbs, who
suffered massacres by Croatian and Muslim Fascists known as Utashas during WWII,
particularly, in the notorious concentration camp Jasenovac. Firm on remaining
in the same state as fellow Serbs, the Bosnian Serbs declared their own
republic, RS, in April 1992. War broke out immediately and the Serbs laid siege
on Sarajevo. The whole country burned as atrocities and massive destruction
occurred everywhere. Ethnic cleansing, i.e., massive expulsion and elimination
of a specific ethnic group, became the famous by-product of this war. The Serbs
were the most well-armed and were initially successfully in capturing over 70%
of BiH. Lots of atrocities were committed, most of them by the Serbs, but war
crimes committed by the Bosnian and Croat armies had occurred too. Rivalries
between the Bosnian and Croats led to hostilities between the two supposed
allies. 250,000 died in this war, most of whom were civilians. By 1995,
infuriated by atrocities committed by RS, NATO launched air strikes against
them. Coupled with victories by the Croats on the field, all parties were
eventually forced to sign the Dayton Agreement, dividing BiH into two entities,
a strange state of affair that lasts till today.

The first town I passed through was Bijeljina, where in April 1992, the Serbian
warlord and gangster, Arkan, launched the first of the ethnic cleansing raids,
killed a few local Bosniaks and frightened the rest into flight. Next was
Brcko, in the so-called Posavina Corridor – a strip of RS controlled territory 3
km wide linking a wide swath of RS land around its largest city, Banja Luka,
with Serbia itself. During the war, this was the lifeline of RS, through which
supplies and reinforcements braved Bosniak and Croat bombardment to reach Banja
Luka. The control of Brcko was so contentious that it has been made a special
territory of the BiH not subject to either RS or FbiH. As the bus approached
Banja Luka, the landscape became a chaotic mixture of lush green farmlands and
rolling hills. Many houses look newly refurbished since the end of the war, but
one also passed by many ruined villages and burnt buildings, their previous
occupants perhaps victims of ethnic cleansing. I wonder if they were now
sitting in refugee camps abroad, or resting in unsettled peace under the rubble
of their own houses.

It was 6:30am when I arrived at the Bus Station of Banja Luka. The city center
was 3km away. I didn’t have any convertible mark (KM), the official currency of
the BiH, but could neither find any exchange office, or anyone willing to change
money with me – not even taxi drivers were willing to do that. Classic chicken
and egg story. I had no KM and so couldn’t take any bus or taxi. And because
no one was willing to take me to town, I will not have any KM. I could hardly
believe how unentrepreneurial these people were! In the end, I had to walk the
3km into town with my heavy backpack.

Due to frequent earthquakes in its history, Banja Luka has few historic
buildings. The local Serbs worsened the tourism scene by expelling all the
Bosniaks in town, and blowing up all 16 of their mosques, including Ferhadiya,
the famous architectural gem in the north of Bosnia, built in 1580 by a Bosnian
born grand vizier (senior minister) of the Ottoman Empire, whose clan had
persuaded the Turks to revive the Serbian Church following the conquest of
Bosnia and so helped revived Serbian culture during the period of Turkish rule.
So much for the repayment of deeds. I took some pictures of the empty site, now
fenced up with aluminum sheets and stone stools with the famous Serbian logo – 4
“S’s” – “Only Unity Will Save the Serbs”.

I checked into one of the three hotels in Banja Luka. There are hardly any
tourists in town. The locals, aware of their international pariah status, are
fairly open in expressing their views. My hotel receptionist, S., a burly man
in his late forties, soon spoke proudly of their struggle for freedom when we
started the conversation about road maps. S. spoke nostalgically about his
people taking to arms against the Mujahideen (that’s how they refer to the
nominally Muslim Bosnian Government forces) and the Utashas (the Croats, using
the name used by the hated Croatian fascists during WWII). “Yes, we heard the
Muslim fundamentalists shouting Allahu Akbar all the time in the jungle. They
cut off the heads of any Serbs caught. After Sept 11, why is the US still
supporting these Mujahideen ?” he asked. I have long heard the Serbs’ love for
describing the Bosniaks as fundamentalists. Well, if you go to Sarajevo, you
will see how Islamic they are – girls walking around half naked in the summer
heat. Well, S. warned me not to fall for Sarajevo’s pretense that it was
secular and multiracial. Even then, S. reckoned, the war years were hard, and
he love peace. But he and his countrymen, i.e., the people of RS, would readily
take up arms against if their rights were infringed. Well, issues like war
crimes and ethnic cleansing were considered by most Serbs to be enemy
propaganda, and hence not worth speaking about. Like many Serbs I have met, S.
was also an enthusiast in all sorts of grandiose geopolitical conspiracy
theories on why great powers did this or that. OK, it was not all talk about
war and death. S. also spoke about his younger days, when he backpacked across
Europe without the need for visas. His face glowed when he spoke about the
amorous Swedish girls he met in summer time while basking in Dubrovnik, now part
of Croatia.

I also met J. and his friend P., both talented locals about my age, with a lot
of knowledge and war stories to share. We had a great time chatting in a
riverside cafe along the beautiful Unas River, and then a great Serbian dinner
in Banja Luka Castle, with life music by BiH's candidate at Eurovision – she's
Serbian (of course, said J.). The war had forced them to arms and the conflict
had turned them into fierce supporters of their cause. I do not agree with all
their beliefs and theories, but I admire their courage and strong personal sense
of purpose in life. The Serbian people are passionate about their history and
heroes, as well as the land their ancestors had lived. I can appreciate why the
Serbs would like to see all their people live in a common land. Unfortunately
the Serbs often failed to appreciate the irrevocable changes of demographic
landscape and that the views of the current inhabitants of these lands do
matter. It is also highly regrettable that the struggle had led to such
atrocious loss of lives, something that most Serbs do not want to know about
even today. Even then, too often did the international press portray the Serbs
as the sole villains and others victims. The reality was a lot grayer than
that.

Banja Luka was a town where few tourists ventured and any stranger aroused
immediate attention. I received an invitation to meet Mr D., owner of my hotel
and one of RS’s largest conglomerates, with interests in banks and all sorts of
enterprises. I was surprised as to why an important man like him wanted to meet
a Singaporean backpacker. I popped by his office at the top of his group
complex overlooking the City, and there he was with his team of advisors and
interpreters. Not many tourists passed through town, he explained, and most
either worked for UN, EU or NATO. He was curious what was a Singaporean doing
in town. Since Singapore was an international financial center, his guess was
that I might be a banker of sorts, and he wanted to know my impression of Srpska
and investment opportunities there. And so we went into a two hour
conversation. I hated to bust any notion that Banja Luka might be a future
Singapore or Hong Kong of the Balkans, any short term hot money, fly-by-night
type is probably fine if you are using private capital and have the risk
appetite. For longer term ventures, apart from the usual emerging market risks,
I don’t think anyone wanted to sink long term money into a smallish state of 1.4
million people, whose unstable relationship with its neighbours were tainted
with a recent and rather bloody war. RS is forever bickering with FbiH and the
EU High Representative. In addition, do you put money into companies that might
own land taken over in an ethnic cleansing exercise, whose real ownership was
highly uncertain, and who knows, might even had been involved in slave labour
and concentration camps of the sort shown on CNN during those war years. Just
look at how German and Swiss companies get sued for class actions relating to
the Holocaust after all these years.

RS is a statelet built on the ruins of Yugoslavia. It is the symbol of Serbian
desire for the unity of their lands. Unfortunately its more noble objectives
had been tainted by an unsavory process. The problem with the Dayton Agreement
was that the Serbs pretended that it was full international recognition of their
state and a step closer towards unity with Serbia; the Bosniaks see it as a
first step to full reintegration of all parts of BiH into a centralized country;
the Croats believe that they might just agitate for their own constituent state.
The result of the struggle of the Serbian people – one which was neither wholly
successful nor a complete failure – had resulted in the creation of a strange
BiH whose state structure is inherently unstable and almost guaranteed to
generate more future threats to peace and economic development.

With a lot of mixed feelings, I hopped onto a train for Sarajevo.


Best Regards,

Wee-Cheng
Ulcinj, Montenegro