Obstruction from the shadow

Is the common life in Mostar possible?

Serbs have Banja Luka, Muslims Sarajevo, and Croats should have Mostar

Hiroshima and Las Vegas

Epicentre of the Federation

Separated or unified town

Safet Oručević

Memorandum of Understanding signed in Brussels has been the foundation for uniting of Mostar and the BiH Federation. However, united Mostar has been apparently ťdangerousŤ model for a policy whose aim was dissolution of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Theoretically and practically speaking, Mostar could start the negation of the processes of ethnic divisions. In that very fact one should look for the causes of violent obstruction to the Memorandum of Understanding: it was enough to carry out the Memorandum in order to overcome the divisions. Then a crucial moment would come about: the model of Mostar uniting would be a prototype of the united BiH. In the first phase, result of uniting Mostar would entail extremely strong Federation whose strongest supports would be just Mostar and the mixed cantons (cantons with special regime).The basic principle of the policy of the Croatian political leadership in the first months of EU Adminsitration of Mostar has been based on the strategy which was supposed to convince the Europeans that the common life in Mostar is impossible as the political goal, and to prove that the united Mostar is a European utopia, and the Federation - preelectoral American trick.

Three days after the inauguration, local Croatian extremists have prepared a brutal welcome to the Mostar Administrator Hans Koschnick: Malik Alajbegovic, a Bosniac, 100% invalid, has been killed in a brutal way, and Marija Alajbegovic, his bride, exiled into the eastern town part. That was the eleventh citizen – Bosniac killed in western Mostar since the signing of the Washington Agreement.By means of this act has been sent a brutal message to the European Union, its Administration in Mostar and Administrator: you have come to try to unite Mostar, but in this town there are people who are ready to do anything in order to prevent you in that.
During the first months of the European Administration the political leadership of the west Mostar part bases its policy on the method which was named ťcautious ethnic cleansingť by Tadeusz Mazowiecki in this report in 1994. ťMethod of cautious ethnic cleansingŤ, says Mazowiecki, ťhas been structured on the contiunation of disturbance of the Bosniacs in western town part, ranging from various psychological pressures up to the attacks and expulsions.Ť Mazowiecki concludes that the ťpurpose of such acting is to make the Bosniacs from the Croat-controlled town part move of their own accord from the western town part into eastern town part.Ť In the course of the first two months of European Administration more than two hundred remained Bosniacs from the western town part have asked for the permission to complete oving from the western into eastern Mostar part. Koschnick and his administration have not yet taken any iniative. Already then the first symptoms of the disease the EU to suffer during the most of its mandate have been visible: sluggishness and indecisiveness will render it unefficient and a creation of unsufficient authority to take the steps which could influence more decisively the future of the whole process.
It was only when he on the 21.10.1994 faced with citizen Samija Šehovic, who several days ago was expelled from the western town part and when he was confronted with her questions in front of the journalists, Koschnick has passed the Decree on the prohibiton of expulsion from the apartments. So Administration, instead of starting the process of the return of the expelled people to their apartments, has begun by its moves to react to the ones made from the western town. part. Initiative, unfortunately, has not been the strong point of the European administration, which later on often lead to the paralisation of the process. By way of Decree on the prohibition of expulsion from the apartments, Koschnick has in fact acknowledged the impotence of the EU Administration as to the obstructions which came from the western town part; instead of asking for an efficient and severe action of the local Croatian police and judiciary in such cases, EU Administration has definitively accorded to Croatian politicians so that they can, on the one hand, maake their moves without any consequences, and on the other hand, continue their further collaboration with the European Union and receive economic help which has even strenthened their position in the authority, confirming the economic success with the political obstructions.
As the mayor of the eastern town part, I have found myself in a very difficult situation, which lasts even today: daily I have been receiving dozens of letters of citizens non-Croats from the western town part who have requested of me to enable the moving into the eastern town part. I have found myself in a dilemma: if I permit the moving of non-Croats into eastern town part, I practically participate and legalize what Mazowiecki called ťcautious ethnic cleansingŤ. Even more: I take part in the defining of the separation of the town and I automatically help the process of tripartite division of the BiH and the Federation demolition. Not to permit for the people to move, means practically to be co-responsible partly for every maltreatment and murder which may take place in Mostar. I have decided nevertheless not to permit the moving of the non-Croats from the western into the eastern town part; if I had done differently, Koschnick would have had for a month two ethnically clean ghettos. Everything I had was the Koschnick's decision on the prohibition of expulsion from the expulsion from the apartments, but it was absurd: not a single decision which has been passed since the beginning of his mandated has not been accomplished, not even the last ones passed in Rome (Rome Agreement) after the evident concession to the Croatian side both of the BiH diplomacy and of the international community.

I have a strong impression that on my meetings I do not work with people who make decisions, and that particularly applies to the police negotiations. In these four months I have not yet met on the Croatian side a person which could say that he is in charge for the police in the western Mostar part, a man who could issue orders. Perhaps such a person exists on the Croatian side, although I have asked for him many times. I still do not know who he is. But it is completely clear that there are certain persons on the Croatian side who run the policy, and not in conformity with the agreed things, namely not in accordance with the Memorandum of Understanding which has been signed by both parties.

Sir Martin Garrod, EU Administration Chief of Staff
(November 1994)

In the middle of the autumn of 1994, EU Administration has got into the acute crisis: Croatian side has not consented to the establishing of the joint police forces, and all the negotiations about the freedom of movement have been literally mined by the political leadership of western Mostar. While budget inspecting for 1995, finally the EU Administration has spoken: Klaus Metscher, EU ambassador in the Koschnick's Administration, made it clear publicly that it is unreal to expect of the EU to invest money in the projects which are supposed to be the common ones for the whole Mostar (hospital, schooling, infrastructure or joint police forces) as long as there are obstructions from Croatian side. However, there has already been an intention of the Administration to get into the bianco investment of the projects which carried with themselves the danger of the difinitive separation. EU Administration of Mostar had at its disposal the means mightier of all: money. But, every wapon carries with itself the danger of its misuse. EU Administration, partly because of creating illusion on development in the town, partly because of the image of successfulness of the restoration in the international public and the overall picture of EU in Mostar, has taken over the risk and has got into the financing of the projects and in the buying of small concessions of the Croatian leadership at a high price, which has been used later on in the promotion of ťsuccessfulnessŤ of the Administration. I can say with certainty that the Administration has not succeeded in finding of the concept of financing of the united Mostar, but it has financed status quo and it seems to me, and I think that I am not wrong, its bare existence in Mostar. With the big capital which it had at its disposal, EU Administration was supposed to have an ice-breaker role in the sea of divisions in BiH. In 1995, that mighty ice-breaker became just a ship switched off motors and the frozen captain, kept in custody in the waiting for the freeze-off. Assassins were named, but, to make the cynicism bigger, they have been delivered to the Court Martial in Split. Several months later, Hans Koschnick's assassins were at large and they would walk the western town part. It was, unfortunately, too humiliating fact to be put in the close-up by EU.
Koschnick was, undoubtedly, the star of the European politics, but remained undefined the issue of the European policy in relation to Koschnick, which frequently looked let down and defenceless at the tender mercies of to the extremists of the western Mostar, often condemned to proclaim the small steps ahead the big and important ones in order to turn atterntion from the Mostar uniting to the civil construction and less important part of the EU mission. The issue of reconstruction had to succeed – the real problem was whether to renew one or two Mostars. The shadow of the invisible wall has covered the town, but the EU as well: the process was paralysed or insufficiently imposed to the responsible persons in the EU. On the eastern side of the wall lived people who wanted to break the wall. On the other side of the wall lived people who did not want to get out of someone else's apartments and the people who maintained that the common life was impossible so, accordingly, the return to the apartments was impossible too. Some people would evidently feel insecure without the wall.
After that followed too the agreements which western town part mayor Mijo – Mišo Brajkovic and I signed yet in September 1994 regarding the removal of obstacles from the town streets, EU seat free access and joint participation of the police forces in the EU seat. However, it turned out that Brajkovic even dared to sign some of the agreements, but certainly did not have the authority to implement them in practice. The threads of the west town part policy have been moved from the shadow, and in the close-up have been put the people who had almost no authorities except to delay the negotiations even as regards the smallest advances on end. Politics set in such a way has driven the EU Administration members crazy, who have often been thoroughly confused and depressed. I think that even today it is not clear to them who is the one who makes decisions in the western Mostar town part.
The problems with the establishing of the joint police forces will denude completely the conception of the political obstruction. Koschnick has had rougly hundred European policemen, but they could be of no avail to him but as the information sources The establishing of the joint police forces was not only one of the segments of the implementing of the Memorandum of Understanding - but one of the crucial ones for the town unification. Why the Croatian police has been so persistent in refusing to establish the joint police forces? The answer is simple: by creating of the joint police forces would be created a lever for the elimination of the double power effect. the power would be transferred largely in the Administration hands which would in that case have the efficient control over the town. The joint police force factor would as well eliminate the division of the town on the ethnical basis, it would start the process of effacing of the ethnical cleansing and it would enable the complete freedom of movement in the whole town and security to every citizen. Only the joint police forces could successfully carry out the job of destroying of the Mostar wall and that is why the obstructions in the field of the police segment have beeen the most intensive ones: every time when the police issue Croatian side representative reached the agreement with the Bosniac side, and when the step ahead was made, that representative would be dismissed, and in his position would come a man who would cancel everything which has been signed. Practically we had a clear course of events: every step ahead was followed with three steps backward.
I have found myself in a strange situation: I was talking to Koschnick: All right, if we can not make steps ahead, let us prevet not to go backwardsŤ. At the beginning of 1995 French ambassador in BiH, Henri Jakolin, has notified me that the European Union has presented a demarche to the BiH Federation President Krešimir Zubak and to the western town part ayor Mijo Brajkovic because of the nonsigning of the documents about the already agreed procedures for the forming of the joint police forces. The mentioned procedure has been granted and requested from the Western European Union (WEU) ministers. It was just the beginning in the series of pressures which would follow to the western Mostar leadership. Another futile hope.

Is the common life in Mostar possible?

If you asked the adversaries of the Mostar unification, then their answer would be that “after all, common life is not possible”. Even some of the EU representatives were protectors of such theories. In fact, whether, after all, is common life of nations possible – is a wrong question. The real question runs: is; after all, possible the existence of those who have committed crimes and who have been driving people out of their apartments, accomplished ethnic cleansing and closing into the concentration camp? Or, putting it more simply: It is possible for the perpetrator of a crime and its victim to live together? The absurd has taken place the moment when the protectors of the ethnic separation found out that they could take advantage of the EU Administration in order to legalize the state after the realized ethnic cleansing.
There remains a question what would happen if EU decided to bring in the “sanctions” for the non-cooperative side in Mostar; Administration sometimes was very close to such steps, but there was never enough decisiveness to take the risk and go the whole hog. The Administration chiefs often were saying that the EU did not come as colonizer to impose the solutions. That was said to me by the French ambassador Georges-Marie Chenu (“Europe will not impose any solutions because we are not colonizers nor we are in the colonial relations. You make agreements with your partners … We are here, therefore, to help if you are looking for advice. By means of investments we create a peaceful climate in order for you to consider the political solution which will be a long-term solution.
Such an attitude towards Mostar has legalized equally the ones to whose a half of the Mostar has been the war prey and the ones who have been asking for the rights to get back into their apartments. Investments in the peaceful climate has had a consequence that the freedom of movement has been stopped in duration of one year for 250 persons daily with a trespassing right form one town part to another; the ones who have been requesting the ethnical separation such messages have taken as giving the signal so that they can continue with realizing of their job and hold out in their intentions. They have understood it rightly: it is enough to be persistent. The creator of the camps, the destroyers of Mostar – have come out of it, at least for the time being, as winners.
Karadzic has, after the February attack (1996) on Koschnick and the EU Administration, namely after the agreement in Rome, on the Pale TV stated the “admiration” to the local Croatian leadership (“Croats in Mostar”, as he has said it) because of the success (the diminishing of the Koschnick district) which is the result of their resistance. According to his opinion, Serbs should have been persistent as well when the Sarajevo has been in question. Reflecting on the state in Mostar, Karadzic made fun of the international community. Why the international community has not reacted identically, namely why it had different criteria for disrespecting the agreement related to Mostar and Sarajevo? Why the sanctions have not been identical for all the obstructions? These are the questions to which many people will look for an answer.

Mijo – Mišo Brajkovic

The logic of selecting the Mostar for a Croatian capital in BiH is in its basis a fascist one: it disregards, namely deems unimportant the fact that Mostar is the Bosniac majority town, as well as the fact that Mostar is a town of three peoples (Serbs have according to the 1991 census made up about 19% of the population). But, the fact that one wishes to promote Mostar in the capital for Croats in BiH is a signal for the other nations to say that they are unwanted and that they have less rights to Mostar than Croats. Karadzic was evenly saying that Sarajevo is a Serbian town: “Either it will be Serbian or it will be no more”. Mostar is a Croatian town, but no more or no less than it is Bosnian. I think and I have always been thinking that to all peoples, hence to the Croats as well, should be enabled and guaranteed the full rights of protection of religious, cultural, educational and political identity, but – not at the expense of the other nations so that they will be unwanted or less valuable in the town part which has simply been “proclaimed” Croatian on the basis of results of the ethnical cleansing. Can Mostar nevertheless return the authority to EU is a question to which in the remaining part of the mandate EU itself and its Administration for Mostar will have to be answered. Mostar is of course impossible to be drawn out of the context of the overall events in the Federation: it is its touchstone, and all this time which has been fateful for Mostar is an issue of Federation. The global policy towards the Federation has been corrected in this town. Brajkovic stated in the beginning of February that he only listened to the orders from Zagreb. It is no news. Local Croatian officials have persistently, in spite of the Federation project, signalized the tripartite division of the BiH, even openly, on the meetings with the European diplomats. On the occasion of the delegation of the presiding of the Western European Union (WEU), headed by the Portuguese diplomat Moraes Cabral, Brajkovic has openly said that “Serbs have Banja Luka, Muslims Sarajevo, and that Mostar should belong to Croats.” Such a supposition did not have any common points with the agreement of Federation but spoke about the striving of the western town part local officials to set impediments to the Federation and traps in streets of the town which was crucial for its success.
All the time up to the Dayton Agreement, the freedom of movement was the most difficult question in the town. The excuse of the local Croatian authorities that it is impossible because of the heavy combats which have taken place in the town in 1993, Sir Martin Garrod, the head of the EU headquarters in the Administration, thus commented: “Equally difficult clashes occurred in the central Bosnia as well, in Gornji Vakuf and Busovaca, but there are no problems as far as the freedom of movement is concerned. When the freedom of movement is in question, we are moving with the speed of a running snail.”
During the sixth month of 1995I have offered an initiative with four points, which, if it had been accepted, would have started the process which has fallen into apathy. The outlines of the two towns have already been emerging in the everyday life under the auspices of EU which by way of financing has permitted for Mostar to get the national enterprises for municipal transport, so that the town buses have run its lines in the ethnic zones only. The same thing applied with the communal enterprises. In the first point of the initiative I have requested of the western town part leadership to accept as soon as possible the proposal of the UN special representative for human rights Tadeusz Mazowiecki regarding the freedom of movement for 500 persons on each side which could with simplified procedure get over from one part to the other. From the EU I have requested to establish the department which could guarantee and monitor the return of the citizens of Mostar into their homes and to implement finally agreement signed on the 7^th September 1994 according to which all the obstacles should be removed. At the end, I have requested to make additional checkpoints in order to decentralize the circulation between the two town parts. The western town part leadership has accepted not a single proposal of this initiative.
The attitude of local (and not only of local) officials of HDZ has been very clear: not to permit any steps ahead until their request for the separation of the town is fulfilled. The very moment when the illusion of the separation of the town was achieved, and that happened in Rome, one got the illusion of the freedom of movement in the town. However, to single out one segment in the process, and not to take parallel account about the other one, is leading to cul-de-sac: people move around even with fear their homes and apartments, but they can not return to them. The return of the exiled people has not been progressively defined by the Rome Agreement except for the central zone: the freedom of movement with imminent freedoms and rights could set an example of a cynical step ahead and could face serious difficulties.

Often I could not help feeling that the EU was content with its bare existence in Mostar, aware of the fact that it is hard to do something more than “cooling of the barrels with money”. It is for sure that it will remain a secret for a long time whether ever existed a consensus of the Fifteen on the unification of Mostar. Numerous diplomats of the EU have been marching through Mostar, but in their eyes I could never find anything more than a blind stare which was telling me that Mostar would not be easy to solve and confirmation that they knew that the Croatian side was the cause of failure. Perhaps I am wrong, but I had the impression that the paralisation had fitted to some countries of the EU. There existed almost masochistic by certain diplomats of European countries when they have been hearing me as I was telling them that in Mostar no steps ahead were made and that the Mostar was the only town in the Federation in which there was no freedom of movement, that people could not, in spite of the month-long existence of the EU, be buried according to the religious practices, that not a single family has returned to their apartment…
If you asked Mostar citizens in the western town part what was the first association when the EU was mentioned, then certainly it would be the THW organization which has distributed the construction material for the restoration of the damaged and torn down houses. After almost two years of mandate, EU behind itself still had thousands of people in the containers and cellars, whereas in the western Mostar there was more than a thousand apartments in which people could not return. Town by means of war and ethnical cleansing separated into ethnical zones has been built; the traces of war have been removing from the streets and buildings, but in essence has not changed the state attained by the war. Nothing has been done to disqualify the culprits of the obstructions of the processes.
One foreign magazine has compared the eastern town part with Hiroshima, and its western part with Las Vegas. After Koschnick had left Mostar, I received the EU report on the investments to the restoration; in the restoration of “Hiroshima” the EU has invested 60% of the means, and in the “Las Vegas” 40%. So the eastern town part, which more looked like an area of archaeological excavations, with its tragedy has secured to its demolition men a huge capital and material profit. The means for the restoration has allocated “fairly and orderly” on the equal basis. Just owing to this principle of investment into restoration, the demolition men who in the clash have not experienced breaking of glasses on their windows have been strengthening their position by the means of EU; such restoration principle has contributed that EU means are invested into the obstruction of the process which it has been leading. To Mostar citizens, who feel the western town part as theirs as well, have not been sorry about the investments in that town part, but they have been sorry because the politics who has derided European principles, which has beaten and spitted Europe in front of whole world, has been awarded with millions of German marks and still strengthened its positions.
To all the people, from the very beginning of the negotiations on Mostar, has been clear that it is impossible in full to cancel the war results and in that context that it is impossible to achieve the level of “unification” and the demographic composition from 1991. I have had that always on my mind when I have been talking at the meetings of principal advisors and the Advisory council on the set-up of Mostar. But I have always been convinced that with a political set-up it is unprohibited to “dress” the war results. To Koschnick and to the members of his administration I have been telling that here it is less the question of unification or separation of Mostar, but more about the fact whether the EU as a matter of fact acknowledge the results of war and ethnical cleansing: in that case Mostar would be the model of the legalization of the war prey. I have been receiving the answer in the form of the phrase: one should be persistent and make agreements. But how can you make agreements with someone who has expelled you from your apartment and who knows that everyone, even the minimal aberration, means that he should have to pack up his cases and return to you your right to live in your apartment. That was, in fact, a bad sign: in other words: “Make arrangements about the separation” – that was the quintessence of it which has been called the unification process. By the middle of 1995 Koschnick will have a lot in common with Eagleton in Sarajevo, and EU with United Nations in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In conversations with him I have got the impression that it is impossible to change anything in essence.
Sometimes it seemed that in the air there were enough reasons for war as well as for the new peace: such an impression you could get if you talked with ordinary people. EU has not taken all the steps in order to appease the political differences on the global plan of the Bosniac-Croatian relations, and certainly it could and should have taken, at least after the report about the first year of the EU mandate in Mostar. Koschnick in that report has graded the local Croatian leaders as “special nationalistic sort who is closely related to the local military commanders and even with some leaders of the gangs. Although it could be questionable” says Koschnick, “whether they can count on the majority of normal Croatian citizens in Mostar, their financial means, their commandment over the police and their relations to he organized criminal, as well as their access to the local media, makes them terrifying “masters of war”.
Whether EU could influence the “masters of war” except for the investing of 40% of the capital dedicated to the restoration of the town part which they controlled? If it could, why it did not? If it could not, why it has not declared that it can not continue the process in Mostar? Would it not in that case more logical to hand it over to someone else? Not to do anything after the Koschnick’s report in August 1995 meant to continue the process of the town separation and of the complete failure of the EU mission. Press conferences held every week have been remaining the citizens of Mostar that the demarcation line is still very alive and that the steps ahead are impossible. Rhetorically speaking, Administration members knew to direct a load of criticisms to the local Croatian politicians because of the obstructions. Practically speaking, that meant nothing except one more broadcasted criticism. After the conference all of them have been sleeping soundly convinced that nothing is changed, nor will be changed. In the crisis situations, in the eastern town part you could hear: “Give us the guns to get back to our apartments.” From the western side you could hear the similar thing: “Give us arms to drive the balijas (balija is a derogatory term for Muslim) from the Croatian capital town.”
Western Mostar mayor Mijo-Mišo Brajkovic indefatigably kept on repeating: “Well, the war has been going on in here, blood has been spilt, there has been a violent clash; it is not possible for the people to live again as if nothing had happened.” It was a sad example of fear: Brajkovic was not against the multiethnic society, he was not even against the common life in Mostar. He was before the war a respectable director and a respectable citizen completely concordant with the character of Mostar. He was a Mostar citizen and he loved the Mostar as it was before the war. But, he was a representative of the interests of the people who have brought the Bosniacs of Mostar to the concentration camps. He was speaking the truth: we can not live together, because we are afraid of you Muslims who we brought to the concentration camps, expelled from their apartments, driven into the eastern town part and made them refugees throughout Europe! He was really sincere in his message. To separate the town, it would be the logical consequence of the war and a logical wish after that war: it would be insincere and illogical to expect that, for example, Serbs plead for unified Sarajevo after they had launched hundreds thousand grenades. It is logical that they have insisted on the sharp division of Sarajevo. Exodus of the Serbs from Sarajevo has been a product of Karadzic’s propaganda, but of his fear of the common life in Sarajevo as well, namely the Karadzic’s method of waging war in Sarajevo. Karadzic would not have achieved such a high exodus level if that exodus had not been prepared during the four years of complete siege, militarily absurd shellings of the civilian targets and everyday sniper massacre. Slobodan Miloševic has told to one high BiH delegation member at the negotiations in Dayton: “Karadzic has lost the moral right to Sarajevo. Because of the military failure, he has been massacring the innocent civilians.”
That was the method of creating of the collective responsibility and of guilt of one people. However, certainly do not exist neither the collective responsibility nor guilt: the individuals do not have the right to put all the blame to one nation and then to manipulate with its fear from the common living. Croatian people can not feel responsible for the tearing down of the Old Bridge, but by condemning (and that has not yet happened) of the one who has caused the tearing down of the Old Bridge can prevent the manipulation with the whole people in one town. Everything that would take place in the negotiations on the set-up of Mostar since 1994 up to now has been prejudiced with a waging war method that has been selected by the Croatian army, namely HVO in 1993. Camps, ethnic cleansing, pointless shellings of the civilian targets on end, sniper people who have been covering even every small street – that was a way to define psychologically the future separation of the town, namely to make the common life impossible. If the HVO had directed all those thousands of grenades instead of the civilian to the military targets, BiH Army defense line would have looked like an immense crater. But, in addition to conquering, the aim was evidently to create a crater, which would represent an abyss between the nations in Mostar.

The global reason of the Croatian policy for the separation of Mostar on the ethnical basis has been in striving of preservation of Herzeg-Bosnia and the tripartite ethnical division of BiH. By keeping of the demarcation line in Mostar one as a matter of fact wanted to define the internal division of the Federation on the ethnical basis. The powers that have been working on the Federation ethnical division have seen the foundation and the key of their success in ethnically marked Mostar. Here, in front of the cameras of CNN and ZDF, has been demonstrated the fragility of the Federation and the Croatian point of view that it is not possible the way it was meant to be: as the federation of the cantons. Mostar has been less of a centre, but more of an epicentre of the Federation: all the tremblings of the federal soil have had their start from the banks of the Neretva river, from where have broadened the concentric circles. The hypothesis was more than clear: if one succeeds in proving the inefficiency of the Federation, and if the process is stopped in the modelling phase, it is very likely that the sponsors of the Federation understand the futility of the work and give up the whole project. Whereas on the one hand one tried to make Mostar a model for the future alliance, on the other hand one worked intensively on the creating of a particular anti-model for Federation.
It is usually deep-rooted point of view that the Europe has put Mostar in the focus of events in BiH and in the spaces of ex-Yugoslavia. In fact completely different attitude is true to a large part: Mostar has again put the Europe in the focus, and the constancy of the nonfulfilment of the Mostar problem has promoted the EU as a mighty alliance whose power is unusable. This invisible wall on the Mostar Boulevard would become visible only when it was placed in the context of the (NON)united Europe. The role of Mostar is perhaps important because it succeeded in placing Europe against the Mostar wall.
Mostar, namely the Administration zone (“blue zone”) will pass a verdict to the project of the ethnical cleansing in the spaces of the whole ex-Yugoslavia. Just in this small space, which represents a heart of the Bosniac multiethnicity, EU will say if they want to win or if they want to be defeated by the project of ethnical cleansing. In Mostar should return some thirty thousand people. All the attempts, even of the groups containing 50 people, have not succeeded. Why?! Two possible directions of the development would have the far-reaching effect on the overall situation in the area of the ex-Yugoslavia, and not only in BiH. There is the reason of the complexity of the Mostar problem: if the people in Mostar returned to their apartments, definitively would start the return of the people in the other Federation areas – in Bugojno, Stolac, Jajce, Vareš – whose exiled people make the majority of the present population of Mostar, but the process would start in the eastern Slavonia as well, where return of the Croats would start, and in the Croatian border area where the return of the Serbs would start. The movement of the exiled people towards their apartments in Mostar would be a start of the definitive defeat of the policy based on ethnical cleansing and its results. EU Administration of Mostar would be the motor of the project. On the other hand, accepting of the theory that the return of the exiled people is impossible, will mean, substantially as far as Mostar is concerned, impossibility of existence for several thousands of non-Croats who now live in the western town part and their moving into the eastern town part. That would be the final step in the ethnical division of the Federation, and the project of the ethnical cleansing in the whole area of the Federation would be very soon continued and completed.
Still remains as an unsolved question whether it will be tried to remove the causes of the division of the town. As long as it does not take place, every next agreement will not be a step ahead. To deal with the consequences and upon them to lay foundations of the solutions and the political moduses of the unification of the town is a deliberate setting aside in a drawer of “the Mostar case”. That has been done in Rome: on Mostar EU has closed its eyes in front of its shadow. But that has not solved anything: Mostar remains a shadow that follows EU closely.
Koschnick was more a symbol of the European Union past rather than its future. As the first leader of the EU outside of its borders, he had the opportunity to make a model of a European leader and fighter in the new processes. Unfortunately, European Union has not recognized the opportunity of the moment or else because of its paralisation could not help Koschnick to become a personification of its new role. Both Koschnick and his directors of the departments have with ill ease and fear accepted their roles, and with the precise political moves they could force the recoiling moves. Koschnick with special frustration has borne the burden of the German role in the WWII, and Austro-Hungarian presence in these areas has been one of the circumstances that made the situation more difficult. Local Croatian politicians have discovered this soft spot of the Administrator in the very start and every time when he confronted them or when they wanted to influence upon his decisions, they would come hard down on him and shouted: “You are the occupators and colonialists”. “We are not colonialists. We are here to help”; Koschnick was making his excuses. At the meetings of the Advisory Board local Croatian politicians would without any beating about the bush pose the question of leaving of the EU Administration: “When are you finally going to go away?” The departure of the EU would mean to be left to the tender mercies of the “fanatics of the separation”.

Separated or unified town

The big problem has happened when Koschnick published his decision on the set-up of Mostar: the central town zone (district) which Koschnick has drawn was the cause of the attack of the Croatian extremists to him and the Administration. Why Croatians came hard down on the Koschnick’s decision: it has offered the model of the complete restoration of the common life and if the size of the Koschnick’s district had not been diminished in Rome, it would have been, symbolically speaking, the first step towards the integration and restoration of the common life and return of the exiled people.
The model of the district offered by Koschnick was the core with six-seven thousand Bosniacs, Croatians and Serbs, who would incite the rest of the town to reaction and make the first steps regarding the return of the people to their apartments. Such a district would take away the opportunity of the town separation, namely remove the chance for Croatian officials to make the cohesion whole which can survive without the town rest, and the borders of the six municipalities drawn by Koschnick would take away to all the nation in Mostar the exclusivity to any part, as a matter of fact, indivisible town centre. If that plan had not been changed, Mostar would have renewed the possibility of common life and opened up the reconciliation process among the three peoples. The fact that Croatians, Bosniacs and Serbs could live together in one town is certainly for some people very disturbing.
However, here should be clarified one thing that has to do with the Mostar identity: Mostar is, willy-nilly, a town where three nations live. If you want to stop the war and respect rights of the private property and human rights, in Mostar reconciliation among Bosniacs, Croatians and Serbs will take place. The only way to prevent it is the building of the wall, legalization of the ethnical cleansing and, finally, the negating of the principles of respecting of human rights and rights to private property. In Mostar nobody wants to renew the communistic concept of the “brotherhood and unity” (that the least want the Bosniacs who have been the victims of such a concept) but it is absurd to defend the results attained by the ethnic cleansing with the hypothesis that in the opposite case Yugoslavia will be renewed.
On 7^th February 1996 to Koschnick’s administration will revenge the indecisiveness and the principles of investments according to which one financed evenly the demolition men of the process of the unification of Mostar as well as the co-operative side. Strengthened by the means of the EU, local Croatian extremists have decided to “beat up”the European Administrator when he has finally made the move which was not in conformity with their points of view. The EU money, of one, principally nondefined policy, so became the means of autodestruction. The mistakes committed EU has paid with the humiliation in front of the eyes of the whole world, and if we summarized the EU mandate in Mostar, the only logical thing would be to conclude: European Union has defeated itself. EU Administration of Mostar in principle has lead to the serious violating of the authority and respectability of the EU. Again it has proved to be true that it is foolish to plead for one principles for Brussels, and the other ones for Mostar. Of course, it is possible if you wish to work against your principles.
If the Koschnick’s district has been like a knife cut into the heart of the separated Mostar and Federation project along the demarcation lives, in the Rome diminished district has been a “fake” which should give up the belief of the ones who are against the separation of Mostar that Mostar is not separated, and to the ones who are for the separation to prove that Mostar is not united. Practically speaking, the diminishing of the Koschnick’s district has opened up the opportunity for development of the two ethnical wholes in the area of the present Mostar, which is de facto a continuation of separation which will with the passage of time and Federation obstruction live to exist in these areas.
During the estimation of the needs of the district size, Koschnick has wrongly estimated deciding on the less painful, minimal variant, which offered a possibility of uniting Mostar. The thing Koschnick failed to do is to take advantage of the opportunity of proclaiming the “blue zone” (part of the Mostar municipality under the EU Administration: it is only 8% of the overall area covered by pre-war Mostar municipality before the war and it was naturally multiethnic, namely ethnical inseparable. In such a way the basic condition for the unifying of the town would be fulfilled: the return of the exiled people to their apartments, the condition without which it is a utopia to talk about the unification of Mostar. The remaining part (92%) of the pre-war Mostar municipality area was naturally nationally arranged and on it national municipalities could be developed without violating the right to return, personal property and respect of the human rights. Such a proposal of the set-up we have been proposing before and after Dayton, but it has been refused both by the HDZ leadership and the EU Administration.
The question of Mostar is still open and it awaits the final answer. Rome Agreement is in a crisis, as, after all, all of the signed agreements regarding Mostar and Federation. Evidently the basic agreement from Washington is going through the hard, perhaps even the crucial temptations: unfortunately, I fear that it is going to be that way as long as somebody does not say: STOP! – It will not go on like this any longer. If the obstruction is stopped and if their culprits who are in fact the patrons of the tripartite separation of BiH, or its performers on the spot, are removed from the political scene, there is hope that Mostar nevertheless will be united and become a spot from which the restoration of the multiethnic society will start. United Mostar – which would be really best advertising for Dayton. And for such a thing it is necessary to make two moves: to destroy the political option of the Mostar separation (to implement the signed agreements) and to call to account the ones who represent a true danger to the unification of Mostar – the ones who have committed crimes (renew the possibility of common life in Mostar).