Political report - August 2000


Alija Delimustafic arrested

The Sarajevo Canton police arrested Alija Delimustafia. By vocation: war minister of Bosnian police, pre(c)war and post(c)war successful businessman (said in a successful businessman's language), and even more successful criminal (said in the language of truth). Judging from everything, the BH authorities, with which Delimustafic worked successfully over the years, could not resist requests from the international community, demanding the arrest of criminal bosses in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Someone had to be sacrifised, so the BH government itself would not be a victim.

And so Delimustafic was sacrifised. Allegedly, because of the malverstaions of his BH Bank which owes almost 20 million marks to its clients. Other sins of the ex-police minister, who was honourably discharged from the service back in 1993, were not taken as serious. The question is whether any of this would have happened if his bank had not lost 8,4 million marks that belong to foreign embassies and international organizations stationed in BiH. So everything is supposed to be alright now. While the country is being ruined. And while the already mentioned international community warns how BiH has become an economic and political Titanic.
Republic of Srpska. Does the quote taken from the intro of the Banja Luka magazine REPORTER (http://www.reportermagazin.com) say enough? "Potential Delimustafices from the Republik of Srpska do not believe that the arrest of the former Federal police officer and businessman will get its Serbian version. Because, everything is clean.... Maybe prime-minister Dodik, since he manages to trace every manager in RS who is not a member of any party in power. And he has a justification for this chase: firing of the unfit is followed by rewarding of the fit. And of the loyal, like Marko Asanin, the new director of the Electro power company. After the close encounter with the technology, the first man of the SNSD for Srpsko Sarajevo could modernize his methods of fighting with reporters, so instead of the crude beating he might use electric cores... The unwilling visitors of the Ramici depot have the best alibi. It is so good that after it, it becomes clear why the Delimustafic sindrome is of more significance to the international community than it is to the RS residents. Explaining why they are going through the garbage, offended and humiliated, they answer: "You get used to the stench after some time." We are in the same "stench". Unfortunately.

To be a refugee 5 years after the war

Garbage in destroyed housesThe summer of 2000, from the refugee's perspective, went by in attempts (bitter attempts most of the time) to return to their pre-war places of residence or near them, attacks on those who returned, the making of tent settlements with a view to the former places of living, rage because of the impotence of making even the tent settlements with a view to the former places of living...
There was a protest meeting in Tuzla in which many Bosnian refugees, regardless of their nationality, took part. Fadil Banjanovic - Bracika, one of the greatest speakers in favour of the return to Eastern Bosnia, fainted at the end of his speech. Banjanovic fainted and probably none of those in BH government, responsible for returning these people to their homes, stopped to think about why it happened. The protest ended and there is still no progress in the return. Or no big progress at least.
There were a couple of incidents in Republic of Srpska, when the tent settlements in which the Bosniak refugees live, were attacked. Even in Janja (Eastern Bosnia), several homes of the returnees were burnt. In Srebrenica also. There was nobody responsible. The Union of the expelled persons from Banja Luka, desperate because of a: impotence or b: infinite slowliness of the process of returning to the city in which they lived before the war, decided to build a tent settlement in the center of Banja Luka where the expelled Bosniaks will live until they are able to return to their pre-war homes. Many consider this decision very risky, but it is evident that if they should wait on a decision from the RS government, there will never be any return at all. It would be closer to the truth to say that this is a highly desperate move, rather than anything else. There are no words to describe the hypocrisy of Milorad Dodik, the self-proclaimed life-long RS prime minister, when he comments on the possible tent settlement. According to him, if the refugees decide to make the tent settlement, the inspections will react and unable the making of the camp on green surfaces (he is equally hypocritical every time he speaks of the rebuilding of Ferhadija mosque in Banja Luka. As he claims, special permits are necessary for the building of the mosque. Permits that were not, what a coincidence, necessary for those who demolished Ferhadija during the war years in BiH.) With authorities like this, the refugees will be the biggest nation in the new BH millenium.