János Kôbányai
Bosnia, Choices and Elections
[...]
It turned out that our energetic late-night host was
Jerome, an economist from Dijon who, as our Core Supervisor (CSPV), was
also responsible for the next phase of the induction. The ball room of
the hotel was turned into a temporary seminar room, where from nine in
the morning until eight at night, with hardly a breather in between, we
came under a relentless barrage of information. We were given details on
the political and sociological situation in general, and on how to deal
with the population and the local participants. We were also given a hefty
Xeroxed binder, Welcome to Prnjavor Election Office, which included, among
other things, a short English-Serb and Serb-English dictionary, an article
on hunting down war criminals, taken from The Economist, information on
Serb culture, a short history of Yugoslavia, radio codes, plus everything
you always wanted to know about the region; there was also an emergency
scenario in case of evacuation, and the itinerary, broken down by the hour,
for the next two weeks of our stay. Then came a slew of soldiers, all likable,
and good lecturers too. A Norwegian lieutenant and a Danish air force captain
lectured on the role and problems of the 35,000-man strong SFOR outfits,
with special emphasis on those things that would help guarantee our work
and personal safety. (For example, they mentioned five ways of asking for
help from the local police, who eyed us with something less than good will,
to the helicopter that could be called in from the SFOR base at Banja Luka.)
A mustachioed Indonesian from IPTF (International Police Task Force) lectured
on the unarmed police and their function in conflict resolution (i.e.,
they act as mediators between the local forces and the foreign military),
and assured us that on election day their men would show up at all the
electoral districts at least once. Finnish soldiers instructed us on giving
first aid and map reading, the British on sighting mines and other sundry
work, as well as on how to use the radio. Concurrently with our "security"
training, we were also introduced to our ITRN (International Trainer),
Alberto Navarro, a friendly attorney from Barcelona, who spoke much too
quickly for me to always comprehend and who, after a short introduction
on public administration and constitutional law, set out to elaborate for
our benefit the intricate story of the registration proceedings, from the
pre-election Dayton accord to the present. After that, we were given our
concrete assignments for the elections. He handed out a huge election manual
which included the method of counting the ballot. With this, the detailed
study of the electoral proceedings was begun, as well as the memorizing
of and practice in the roles we would have to play, since--and this was
repeatedly emphasized during our orientation course--though our role was
to supervise the election proceedings, we would have the final say in any
disputed matters and were to become intimately familiar with every aspect
of the elections and their context. The idea of "sensitive material"
was also illuminated for our benefit, to wit, any and all material that
was called upon to prevent possible cheating or served as guidelines for
recording the election results, and how they took shape. This "sensitive
material" was also something that we would have to deal with, personally,
if need be.
[...]
In another small town we found a Catholic church--a
rarity. Its tower reaches for the sky across from the partisan memorial,
on its wall the graffiti, "Jebo voss papa!" (Fuck the Pope!),
and "Celite!" (Move out!). There is a quaint presbitery behind
the church, with laundry drying on its porch. "When the war broke
out, I had two nuns who saw to the housekeeping. They also helped me with
religious instruction. Since they fled, I must do everything myself,"
says the priest, in his fifties, with a sad sigh. He has me and my supervisor
partner from the Vojvodina sit down out on the porch, then extracts a solemn
promise from us that we would not reveal his name, and should the Hungarian
Catholic priest, who disappeared from this Serb part of Bosnia and has
not been heard from for five years, be found, we should still not write
to him. He is even afraid of talking to us. They have broken down his door
more than once, and he has even found primed hand granades at the side
of his house. They have even broken into his church and placed 200 kilos
of explosives inside. At the time, the authorities protected him. Even
though his position may seem privileged, until the end of 1995 his life
was in constant danger. Six priests were killed in the vicinity and one
disappeared, and besides his church, only one other escaped destruction.
His church had been renovated just before the outbreak of the war, to celebrate
its centennial. The stained glass windows celebrate the ten Catholic communities
of the region, three of which originated from before Turkish times. Most
of the people from his native village of Derventa moved to Karlovac and
its vicinity. Some members of his family were killed, the others dispersed.
A Serb neighbour of theirs sent him a message to come and pick up what
furnishings had remained in their house, and take them back with him, along
with the cow that he was keeping in his stable. He went with a nephew,
and most of the family's belongings were gone by then, but they found some
of the furniture, some dishes and other mementoes--and of course, the cow.
However, he needed to find a truck for his belongings, so he left, but
when he was ready to go back for his things, a message came, warning him,
"Don't come back, it is not safe!... If you take as much as a nail,
you are playing with your lives. Don't try to enter the village. When our
Serb brothers, forced to flee, have nothing to eat and no roof over their
heads, when they are living like beggars, it's best if no stranger shows
up here, because everything belongs to the Serbs!" This is the message
that was sent by the inhabitants of the village who, during their first
short visit, looked on from behind their fences with disapproving eyes.
Only half of the Catholics of the area are Croats, the remainder are
Italian, Polish, Czech and Hungarian. According to the 1991 census, of
1,700 Catholics 500 were Italian, 206 were Czech. In 1939 there were 15,000
Catholics living in the district, and by 1941, 16,000. There were six Polish
parishes. The Italians had come from South Tyrol, the Poles from Galicia.
The original homes of the Hungarians could also be traced. Many of them
were Calvinists. Their names are in stone in the abandoned cemeteries.
The last of the Hungarians, an old lady of eighty, died a few months before
we got there.
People came here from poor regions, since during the time of the Empire,
they were given land. The first Catholic church was set on fire in 1942.
During the Second World War, 450 Catholics were killed for their faith.
In 1945, 6,000 Poles went back to Poland. The Italians struck deeper roots
here. Yet they have kept their language, their eating habits, and keep
in touch with relatives. In 1960 they counted 2,200 Catholics; of these
600 were Italian, living in a nearby town. Today the Catholic missions
are providing aid to 800 people. Many have turned their backs on religion,
have left the Church officially, and have even changed their names. They
changed sides, too. Or perhaps they fled. Those who stayed have turned
in upon themselves. It doesn't matter who will be in power, just as long
as they can come back. This is what they pray for. Of course, there is
no justification for hope. Generations will have to come and go before
the time of forgiveness will come. Before people's thinking will change.
And even then one can't be sure; after all, since the time of the first
Serbian uprising in 1804, 700,000 innocent people have been slaughtered
in these parts.
The priest preaches forgiveness, but one must be realistic, he explains.
He could not see eye to eye with the representatives of the Orthodox Church
even before the war, only with the hodja. In the 1980s, he visited Israel,
and even there, in that wonderful country, close to God, he saw hatred
and strife. One could not reasonably expect the Messiah to come here before
he came to Israel. The elections do not touch the soul, that garden where
peace will once dwell and where, in this godforsaken part of the world,
everyone is praying in his own way.
[...]
The voter turnout in my district was 92 per cent (even
the dead, it seemed, had shown up, because they were running against the
Muslims from the other side), and the Democrats won against the Radicals
by only eight votes. Practising self-criticism, Dragisha explained his
party's grievous loss by the fact that the local government's repeated
promise to fix the roads was just an election trick, they did nothing.
Then he threw his arms around the Serb Radical Party committee member.
"Never mind," he said, "we'll form a coalition."
Now there was nothing left but to pay the participants, 100 DM to the
committee members--more than two months' wages--and 150 DM to the chairman.
The rules stipulated that they be paid in advance "in order to boost
morale", but I thought it best to hold off until they had finished
putting the "sensitive material" into nine envelopes, then stuffing
these into two sacks, not to mention the ceremony of sealing them as proof
against tampering. It was time to open the bottle of rakija, which I had
a hell of a time keeping away from the polling station the last few hours
of balloting. Then came the "courteous, not arrogant" persuasion
practised upon the two gigantic local policeman, that instead of taking
us back to our headquarters in their car, they should be the third member
of our convoy, and we were off, at one in the morning, in a torrential
downpour, on nearly impassable roads that would be repaired by the coalition
now taking shape.
By then, though, the schnapps had brought a sense of contentment, warming
my innards.
Back at district headquarters, the situation was chaotic, to the eternal
shame of the international observers as well as the locals, who followed
their previous orders to the letter. There wasn't a single OSCE representative
on the premises, only confused rumours that were circulating about what
to do with the eight or nine types of envelopes we had brought back, and
the colour and codes of the pre-printed forms--an incredible amount of
red tape. The radios shrieked, the men cursed. The ballots were there for
the taking. There was a moment when I decided that since there was no one
to take the stuff from me, I would take it home as a souvenir. As we stood
around, our nerves on edge, Dragisha pulled a button with Karadzic's likeness
from his pocket, kissed it, and told me confidentially that Karadzic was
the only man who could save the Serb nation.
[...]
"I have never killed anyone!" protested Dragisha
(which nearly made me think the opposite), "but I fought for four
years, and it was good to fight, because we Serbs won't sit by, we protect
what is ours. I'd gladly pick up a rifle again tomorrow if called upon
to continue where we left off. And I wouldn't be surprised if this happened
real soon. We can't allow foreigners, the Americans and their associates,
to come and go in our country as if it were theirs. They ruin our roads
with their tanks, they forced my car into a ditch. Which free country would
put up with this sort of thing? Karadzic, as the real representative of
his people, wants what Milosevic, Tudjman and Izetbegovic want: to protect
his country and his people. He wants to make sure there won't be another
Jasenovac, where they tortured hundreds of thousands of Serbs to death.
He wants to prevent what the Germans did to us from happening again, and
before them the Austrians, who are no better than they should be, and then
what the Russians wanted, except they didn't succeed. Look at my arm!"
And Dragisha rolls up his shirt sleeve and points at the unsightly tattoo
on his forearm. "This red star belongs to Tito's army," he says,
"and I still say he had good intentions. I will not turn my back on
my past. Nobody wants Yugoslavia? Fine. Then they shouldn't take it. But
they shouldn't want to take our Serb homeland either. Why don't they let
the Serbs live in their own country at last, and not live like helpless
servants? In so-called peace time, too, they took everything away from
us, everything. Raw materials, manpower, our intellectuals. Then they made
us pay dearly for what was ours in the first place. For their superiority.
After Yugoslavia came apart, there wasn't any toilet paper, because it
was made by the Slovenes. Well, now they'll find out what it means to do
without us. We had to buy their fridges for thousands of marks. Now they're
available at the Italian and Austrian shopping centres for just a couple
of hundred, and nobody wants them. Fine. Let them go to Europe and lose
the shirt off their backs, the way they made us lose ours. We'll manage
without them just fine as long as the world leaves us alone. There are
a lot of Serbs in the world with capital. With their help we could build
up the nation. If we draw up clear-cut national borders, we could negotiate
who needs what. I do business with the Croats even now; I import stuff
for my café through them. I used to fight them, now we're business
partners. We're different sort of people, though, let's be honest about
this. At first, we, the Croats from Derventa and us, we fought the Muslims
hand in hand. The Croats played the devout. They went to church to pray
before battle. For us this is not that important, we went to a café
for a cigarette and a drink. The Muslims? The Croats took advantage of
them, but in the end, they turned against us anyway. They razed their own
cities, they massacred their own women, just so they could turn the world
against us. Don't be taken in by the bloody pictures of Sarajevo, it's
propaganda, just like the massacre at the outdoor market, which they committed
themselves. They lost the war, but the newspapers and television are winning
it for them. What sort of fighting is this? They brought the American bombers
on us, who killed women and babies. And now they bribed Biljana Plavsic
to betray her country, to betray all the blood shed for the country, for
the Serbs. The world doesn't know what it's doing when it gives the Arab
countries the green light to come here. And the Turks. We know, we've been
at war with them for 600 years. They cannot come back here! I will prevent
them coming back with my own two hands! Where are you going to put our
people? Where?! Where will they find a roof over their heads? Where will
they find bread, and work? My wife and I saved up, or we baked bread, I
employ refugees in my café, so they'll have something to eat. What
will become of us?" "What is the difference between the Serbs
and the others? What would you say if your daughter were to marry a non-Serb?"
"I'd throw her out of the house. I wouldn't accept her. But this can't
happen. A Croat, maybe. After all, he's a Christian. But I'd rather not
have him either. Our customs are incompatible, not to mention the holidays.
Ours are different from everybody else's, especially on Sv. Sava's Day.
If you could come here then, you'd know what it means to be a Serb. There's
everything, there's sausage, and kebab, and cakes that we eat only then.
We go to church, we sing, the priest blesses us. Anybody who doesn't understand
this is different. He can't feel what we feel. Our house is open to everybody,
they can join in the celebration. We hide the presents in the hay. When
I was young, everybody came, Croats and Muslims, to look for the honeycakes
and candy. If you come by then, you're my guest" "What if I'm
a Muslim? You did say that a Serb's home is open to everyone...."
"Don't ask stupid questions. Let him come if he dares..." and
patting my shoulder, he finishes his beer, and puts a congenial end to
the argument.
[...]
János Kõbányai
is editor of the Jewish cultural journal Múlt és
Jövõ and author of short stories, essays and reportage. His
recent volume of reportage on Bosnia is reviewed by Csaba Gy. Kiss on pp.
146-149 of this issue
