June 08, 2013

Bosnian Spring

Suzana Vukic is Columnist in the Hudson/St.Lazare Gazette and a Member of the International Expert Team of the Institute for Research of Genocide, Canada

It’s hard to believe that a three month-old Bosnian girl is at the root of the current protests in Sarajevo and elsewhere in this country - dubbed by some a Bosnian Spring.

This story starts off with the usual and expected anecdotes of corrupt Bosnian politicians working within a dysfunctional system that puts the needs of the Bosnian electorate last, while maintaining a climate of fear and ethnic hate-mongering.

In mid-February of this year, a law governing the designation of personal I.D. numbers - known in Bosnia as the JMBG (Jedinstvenog matičnog broja građana) was abolished, precisely because of bickering among politicians - namely Bosnian Serb politicians seeking to create more ethnic tension and strife. This means that babies born since February have not been assigned a JMBG, making it impossible for them to travel outside of the country and also jeopardizing their civil rights.

This is a story that could have ended like so many others in Bosnia, with a passive, indifferent population unable and unwilling to react to these political manipulations. But amazingly, Bosnians of all ethnic backgrounds - Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim), Bosnian Serb and Bosnian Croat - are out on the streets of Sarajevo protesting, with babies in strollers in tow.

Why the change from apathy to activism? Days ago, it was reported that three month-old Belmina Ibrisevic, who is sick and must travel outside of Bosnia for a bone-marrow transplant, cannot do so because she hasn’t been issued a JMBG.

This news struck terror in the hearts of parents throughout Bosnia-Herzegovina, who realized that what’s happening to this baby could happen to their own child. But more importantly, this news has broken down the usual ethnic barriers. People have grasped that the plight faced by this child could become a reality for any child in this country, regardless of ethnic background.

These two crucial factors have given people the decisive impetus to snap out of their typical inertia. Since Wednesday, protesters - including mothers with baby carriages and parents with young children - have protested in front of the Bosnian Parliament building in Sarajevo, forming a ring around the building and preventing politicians and employees from leaving the premises, and ordering those who try to leave to go back inside and “do their jobs”. Their have also been mini-protests in other Bosnian cities as well, in support of this one.

Babies and toddlers have been carrying signs that echo this message: “You’re not leaving until I get my number”. And another sign that prevailed among the crowds was this: “We don’t want entities, we want identities.” This reflects a growing dissatisfaction with the ethnic divisions - namely the two entities that divide Bosnia and its people between the Bosnian Serb Republic (Republika Srpska) and the Muslim Croat Federation - that keep this country dysfunctional and unable to get past the ethnic strife of the 1990’s.

One Bosnian Serb politician, parliamentarian Aleksandra Pandurevic from the Serbian SDS party, complained to media that these protests are a Bosniak political ploy to create chaos and has nothing to do with problems surrounding the JMBG. She also claimed that Bosnian Serb politicians were being targeted and treated unfairly. Pandurevic asked that all protesters be identified, located and arrested.

In response, an online petition has been circulating calling for the immediate dismissal of Aleksandra Pandurevic for the spreading of hatred, lies, her own petty nationalistic interests, for inciting revolt and other actions not worthy of her role. In just a few short days, the petition has accumulated over 17,000 signatures. As well, Bosnian Serb protesters in Banja Luka, the capitol of the Serb Republic, have shown support for Sarajevo protesters along with their derision of their own politicians: a protester’s sign in Serbian Cyrillic read: Stop sh_tting and go back to work.”

There’s a diabolical irony in Aleksandra Pandurevic’s request that might escape some Bosnians. This politician, who is asking that protesters be made to face justice, is an alleged war criminal. She, along with members of her family (both of her parents, as well as her grandmother) have been accused of war crimes - including rape and plunder. Has she ever been made to face these charges? No. She has not only been able to get away with these crimes (in spite of ample evidence to implicate her), but Pandurevic sits in the Bosnian Parliament.

She is brazen, and understandably so. After all, Pandurevic has not only been able to avoid facing charges of war crimes. She also gets to lord it over the very people that she and members of her family tried to exterminate. Her call for justice for protesters may seem foolish, on top of being outrageously shameless. But Pandurevic has become so accustomed to personal impunity and entitlement in the current system that she most likely never expected anything from the Bosnian masses other than the catatonic inertia that she has always experienced from them.

The protests taking place in Sarajevo are way overdue. Baby Belmina has been issued a passport; she will be able to go abroad and get the life-saving procedure that could give her a chance for survival. Sarajevans have vowed to continue protesting until a permanent solution is found for the JMBG dilemma.

But whether these demonstrations continue into the future or vanish after a few days, one thing is certain. The era when Bosnians willingly turned a blind eye to corruption and injustice is over. At long last.