"Sarajevo Is 'Liberal, Multi-Cultural and Tolerant', Insists Peace Official"

"Extremist voices" among both Christians and Muslims were receding, said the official, who vigorously rejected claims, including some from a church agency, that the country faced "Islamization."

The Roman Catholic charity, Aid to the Church in Need, claimed in a press release on March 29 that Bosnia-Herzegovina was "developing into an Islamic state," with Muslim teachings "increasingly dominating all spheres of life."

Chris Bird, spokesman for the Office of the High Representative (OHR), the international administration overseeing the region, whose headquarters are in Sarajevo, said he believed such allegations were "rubbish." Sarajevo, the capital city with 500,000 residents, was a "liberal, multi-cultural and tolerant place." He added that a small number of foreign Islamic mujahedin fighters had stayed on in rural villages after the war's end, but he denied that any movement existed to introduce Islamic laws or ban alcohol.

"I've seen more veiled people in London and met more fundamentalists in Bradford [in northern England], than I have in Sarajevo—the only way the hard-liners can stay in power is by frightening people, and propaganda about an Islamic menace is just part and parcel of that," Bird said.

"The international community has made great progress in instilling the idea that it's not your ethnic group which counts, but having rights as a citizen, backed by the rule of law. If we stay on the ground and finish the job, getting the economy back on its feet in a stable society, this will be the surest way of integrating this country into a peaceful Europe.

"Extremists espousing the nationalist cause still exist in some religious communities, and this isn't unique to Bosnia," Bird said. "But many positive things are happening too. Religious leaders bear enormous responsibility for seeking and achieving reconciliation. Given all the pressures, they're doing a very good job."

The OHR was set up by the Peace Implementation Council, consisting of 55 governments and agencies which oversee and fund the peace process.

The British official was speaking to ENI after an appeal to Western governments by the High Representative, Wolfgang Petritsch, not to scale down Balkan peace-keeping efforts in the wake of new conflicts in Macedonia and southern Serbia.

Referring to recent calls for a new ethnic division of Bosnia, Bird described them as "cynical in the extreme," and said they reflected a misjudgment by "poorly informed people."

"People forget we all come from multiethnic societies—the nearest example of a mono-ethnic state is Iceland, and even this is probably untrue," Bird said. "Whenever new problems appear, poorly informed people say the only option is to divide Bosnia and have done with it. If we did this, we'd merely be giving in to a minority of violent extremists."

Writing in the International Herald Tribune on March 26, Wolfgang Petritsch said he believed "real progress" was occurring in Bosnia. He rejected a call in March by former Balkans mediator, Lord (David) Owen, from Britain, for "a present-day equivalent of the 1878 Congress of Berlin, with pre-agreed boundary changes endorsed by the major powers."

Petritsch said in his article: "To pull out of the Balkans would risk another horrific round of ethnic cleansing. It would also be a gross injustice to the millions of ordinary citizens, not only in Bosnia, but across south-eastern Europe, who want nothing to do with a nationalism that leaves them poor, frightened and isolated."

Asked about the current contribution of religious communities to stability, Bird said the OHR had established close ties with Bosnia's Inter-Religious Council, which was founded in 1997 by Muslim, Jewish, Orthodox and Roman Catholic leaders.

Among recent positive moves, he said authorities in Banja Luka had issued a permit for rebuilding the historic Ferhadija mosque, one of 17 destroyed in the north-western city during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.

He added that the heads of Bosnia's Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches, Archbishop Nikolai Mrdja and Cardinal Vinko Puljic, had attended the reopening of another mosque last October in Bosnia's Serb-controlled Republika Srpska.

"All the religious groups contain hard-liners who've been extremely critical of our Council and the role of the international community," the 33-year-old spokesman said. "But a broad church position also exists in each community, and there are extremely co-operative people too. It would be quite wrong to attempt a league table apportioning merits and faults."

Mostly Sunni Muslims made up 44 percent of Bosnia-Herzegovina's population of 4.3 million before the war, with Orthodox Christians comprising 35 percent and Roman Catholics 18 percent. About 270,000 people died in the Bosnian war.

Although interfaith relations have been tense throughout the Balkans since Yugoslavia's break-up in 1990-91 over rival identifications with Croatian, Serb and Bosnian interests, inter-religious committees are now also operating in Croatia and Kosovo.

Among recent events, Muslim, Orthodox and Roman Catholics said they planned a joint peace appeal in Macedonia, while Roman Catholic leaders agreed at a mid-March meeting in Vienna with representatives of the European Union's Stability Pact for South-eastern Europe that all future "initiatives for peace and development" should be ecumenical and inter-faith.

However, Roman Catholic and Orthodox leaders have complained about the slow return of an estimated 1.4 million refugees to Bosnia, as well as about alleged attempts to "Islamize" the country.

In an interview with Italy's Famiglia Cristiana Roman Catholic weekly last November, Cardinal Puljic said 49 mosques were being built in the Sarajevo area, out of 156 nationwide. Meanwhile, a senior Catholic official in the Sarajevo archdiocese said that pork could only be bought secretly at certain shops in the city and that efforts were continuing to convince Muslims that alcohol should be forbidden.

In an open letter in February, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Banja Luka, Franjo Komarica, said that only 1,300 ethnic Croats had returned to his region since the November 1995 Dayton accord, out of 70,000 who fled during the 1992-95 war.

But Chris Bird told ENI that the return of refugees and displaced people would be assisted by Bosnia's "clear and strict new property laws," adding that Wolfgang Petritsch had "sent a clear signal" by sacking 39 officials for attempting to impede the new laws.

"A total of 67,000 returned last year to areas where they are in the minority, including Croats to Republika Srpska and Serbs to Herzegovina—almost double the figure for 1999," Bird said. "The talk now is no longer about obstructive officials, but about finding money and resources. Although we are only at the start of the process, the logjam has now been broken."

A new law on religious associations, due for enactment in late 2001, is expected to enshrine full religious freedom in Bosnia-Herzegovina, as well as legal equality for all faiths.

Wolfgang Petritsch's office is the chief civilian peace implementation agency in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement designated the High Representative to oversee the implementation of the civilian aspects of the peace agreement in Bosnia and Herzegovina on behalf of the international community, with the approval of the UN Security Council. He also co-ordinates the activities of the civilian organizations and agencies operating in the country.

Copyright © 2001 ENI.

Related Elsewhere

Wolfgang Petritsch's March 26 and March 31 articles The International Herald-Tribune are available online. (The former originally appeared in The New York Times.)

The Office of the High Representative site has more of Petritsch's articles.