1. Case-study No. & Title:
165. The Coalition for Return of Sarajevo, Bosnia: legal counselling to displaced persons of all ethnicities wishing to return to or from Sarajevo (2000–2001)

Keywords

2. Author information
2.1 Author’s Name:
Peter Lippman

2.2 Institutional Affiliation and Contact Details:
Peter Lippman is a staff researcher for The Advocacy Project, based in Washington D.C. www.advocacynet.org. He can be contacted at peter@advocacynet.org

2.3 Date recorded:
20 November, 2000

3. Good Practice Information Sheet
3.1 Local Level Good Practice:
The Coalition for Return conducts outreach to groups of displaced persons within Sarajevo and in the surrounding region to distribute information on property law, and give legal counseling regarding submission of property claims and other problems regarding refugee return. It also provides information to relevant international organizations regarding problems of return.

3.2 Location:
The Coalition for Return is based in Sarajevo, Bosnia. It is preparing to open an office in nearby Pale, in the Republika Srpska (Serb entity).

3.3 Minority/Target Groups:
The target group is displaced persons who, if they were to return to their pre-war homes, would be in the ethnic minority. This includes displaced Serbs and Croats wishing to return to Sarajevo, as well as displaced Muslims and Croats wishing to return from Sarajevo to the Republika Srpska (or other parts of the Bosnian Federation).

3.4 Major Actors Involved:

3.5 Budget allocated by local government authorities and/or by other actors
The International Rescue Committee’s grant for the period from February 2000 to the end of the year is 70,000 DM.

3.6 Timeframe
The Coalition for Return was formed in 1997 as a loose non-governmental umbrella organization to coordinate return advocacy activities among local return organizations throughout Bosnia. In 1999 it reoriented its focus towards the region surrounding Sarajevo. In February of 2000 it received funding from the International Rescue Committee for this purpose. It will continue to receive this support throughout 2001.

3.7 Local level good practice relation to national level ethnic policy
The Coalition for Return’s program is a local non-governmental initiative that works without governmental support and often in spite of political opposition to its goals. Governmental support has not been forthcoming because most governmental bodies in Sarajevo and Bosnia have been controlled by mono-ethnic, nationalist political parties. In practice, if not in rhetoric, these agencies oppose reconstruction of the pre-war multi-cultural population.

Good Practice Description
Background
As a result of the 1992–1995 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, almost one half of the country’s population of four million was displaced or exiled. Five years after the signing of the Dayton peace agreement, well over 200,000 refugees remain abroad without a stable resolution to their status, and approximately 800,000 people are still internally displaced.

One of the main goals of those who prosecuted the war was to divide the country’s three ethnicities – Croats, Serbs, and Muslims – into separate geographical territories, through the notorious, bloody process known as ‘ethnic cleansing.’ This was largely accomplished. Dayton divided the country into two entities: the Republika Srpska, controlled Serbs, and the Federation, controlled by a joint government of Croats and Muslims. In the Federation, wartime conquests created de facto separate territories controlled by the Croats and Muslims, and to this day there remains a territorial division along ethnic lines.

To a great extent Serbs who before the war lived in what is now the Federation, today live in the Republika Srpska (RS); Muslims who lived in the RS or in Croat-controlled territory now live in Muslim-controlled areas; and Croats from all other parts of the country now live in the Croat-controlled territory.

This ethnic separation suits the needs of the nationalist leaders, as it supplies them with ethnically divided voting blocs that would otherwise not exist. But these leaders are unwilling or unable to solve the problems of their constituencies. Unemployment remains over 50 per cent, pensions are ridiculously low and arrive several months late, and economic productivity is but a fraction of its pre-war level.

For these reasons, it would benefit a large number of displaced persons to return to their pre-war residences. Furthermore, it is only natural that people wish to live in their ancestral homes. The horrors of the war were not able to erase most people’s attachment to their land. Given this, dozens of local grassroots non-governmental organizations have formed to advocate, in the face of strong obstruction, for their right to return.

However, a member of one ethnicity who wishes to return to a territory now controlled by another ethnicity is now termed a ‘minority.’ Muslims returning to Banja Luka (capital of the Serb entity) or West Mostar (controlled by Croats), and Serbs and Croats returning to Sarajevo or East Mostar, are faced with manifold obstacles ranging from low-intensity terrorism to a confounding bureaucratic blockage, known as ‘ethnic cleansing at the office desk’.

One of the most effective organizations that has formed to educate displaced persons of all ethnicities as to their right to return is the Sarajevo-based Coalition for Return. This multi-ethnic organization, concentrating on the region surrounding Sarajevo, reaches out to would-be returnees to provide information regarding property law, as well as free legal assistance to return both to and from Sarajevo.

The Program of the Coalition for Return
Coalition for Return staff attorney Edin Beca explained the work of his organization: ‘We provide complete, free legal advice regarding the return of property, the return of employment, and problems regarding pensions. If displaced people who are staying here in Sarajevo were to return to the Republika Srpska, that would free up space for displaced Sarajevans to return here. Displaced Muslims are now returning to places in eastern Bosnia like Foca, Visegrad, and Rogatica.’

The Coalition for Return was founded in 1997, with encouragement from the international community’s Office of the High Representative, as an umbrella organization for domestic non-governmental organizations that are involved with refugee return. From that time the Coalition received support from various international organizations such as the UNHCR, and OSCE, and the American Refugee Committee.

The Coalition provides free legal assistance, using the services of lawyers who meet with returnees to explain to them their rights. Members of the organization travel to refugee collective centers around Bosnia to hold educational sessions about return. They also work together with the CRPC (Commission for Real Property Claims) and the Sarajevo Housing Commission to coordinate return efforts. The Coalition is also in contact with similar groups composed of Bosnian refugees located in Croatia and Yugoslavia.

The organization publishes an informational magazine ‘Putokaz’ (‘signpost’), which provides news about activities of the international community, information on progress (or obstruction) in return, and legal advice about property claims issues. Two issues of Putokaz have been published in 2000, and one more is expected by the end of the year. In late 1999 the organization printed 10,000 copies of a special issue on property law. These were given out free of charge, and all copies have been distributed.

One of the most important functions of the Coalition for Return has been to make up-to-date information available throughout both entities on a regular basis. For example, the organization has sponsored informational visits by legal experts to many of the local return associations based in the eastern half of the Republika Srpska. This region has been notoriously isolated from the broader movement for return, and significant return, especially in the area around Zvornik, finally began to take place only in the year 2000.

The Coalition for Return’s Sarajevo office currently has a staff of four, including one Serb, two Croats, and one Muslim. Staff member Zeljka Sliskovic said, ‘We are multi-ethnic; we don’t ask what someone’s origin is, but what their problem is. We offer people help just as we would want to be helped ourselves.’ Some of the members were themselves displaced persons during the war.

According to Edin Beca, the Coalition for Return is the only domestic NGO attending the meetings of the Sarajevo Housing Commission. The Commission monitors problems related to refugee return and repossession of property in Sarajevo Canton, and to assist with the process of return. It is composed of the OSCE, the OHR (Office of the High Representative), SFOR (U.N. Stabilization Force), the UNHCR, the IPTF (U.N. Police Task Force) and the local government. The Coalition advises this body, for example, by providing lists of people who are occupying someone else’s home, who have the possibility of returning to their pre-war residence. These people are known as double occupants, and are the first and easiest target of eviction.

Some Problems with Refugee Return
Since the signing of the Dayton peace agreement, obstruction to return has been an ongoing problem at all levels throughout Bosnia. Various obstacles are placed in the way of displaced persons who are often not well informed of their rights. These obstacles can discourage all but the most determined refugees from seeking what is their due. The Coalition for Return’s primary task is to inform these people and encourage them to have faith in the rule of law in Bosnia.

The most obvious obstruction has been sporadic violence against returnees. To name just a few examples, houses that have been rebuilt for returning Muslims in Serb-controlled Srebrenica and Stolac, for returning Croats in Serb-controlled Derventa, and for returning Serbs in Croat-controlled Drvar have been mined or torched. Sanctions by the international community against local authorities have done little to discourage this violence. Returnees in many parts of the country have also been physically attacked and sometimes killed.

Other tactics include deliberately under-funding and understaffing housing offices to slow down returns procedures, or posting intimidating guards at entrances. People wishing to file property claims, both in Sarajevo and in surrounding Serb-controlled communities, have been faced with what can only be termed a bureaucratic run-around, where they are given contradictory directions by arrogant officials, and sent from one office to another interminably. These tactics are a direct reflection of nationalist policies determined at high levels and implemented locally.

In Sarajevo as in many other parts of Bosnia, the local governmental bodies have been unwilling to deliver timely resolutions to housing claims. This is especially true in the center of town, where there are many highly-placed people who are double occupants. Edin Beca said, ‘These are people who took over good property during the war. During the war they fought for property, not to protect Sarajevo.’

Furthermore, when would-be returnees receive property claims resolutions allowing them to return to their property in Sarajevo, there is not necessarily alternative living space for those who are now living in their homes. As of late 2000 approximately 60,000 people who were displaced from the Serb entity live in Sarajevo. The Sarajevo authorities are trying to resolve these cases in chronological order, according to when a returnee received a resolution to his claim. But there was much destruction of housing stock in Sarajevo during the war, and alternative residences for the displaced are in very short supply.

Sustainability of minority return is a serious problem throughout Bosnia. When people do succeed in returning, they often have insurmountable difficulties in supporting themselves. Older people who return to their pre-war homes in the other entity are at present unable to transfer their pensions. This problem reinforces ethnic division.

Mr. Beca recounted the story of one displaced woman who came back to Sarajevo from Serbia. She had no work and no way to pay her rent, so she eventually gave up and went back to Serbia.

‘There are also problems in schools,’ added Ms. Sliskovic. ‘For example, in the Federation there are two curricula, a Muslim one and a Croat one. This includes different history, language, and even geography programs. It’s unfathomable.’

I asked the Coalition staff whether the organization has support from any local governmental institutions. No such support has been made available. Edin Beca explained, ‘We did not want to seek aid from the mono-national parties, because if we functioned as an extension of their work, we would lose the point of our own goals. Of the three nationalist parties [Croat, Muslim, and Serb], none has said that it would struggle for the return of members of the other ethnicities. They are not democratically oriented.

‘If the non-nationalist parties such as the Social Democrat Party (SDP) were to come to power throughout Bosnia, things would change. In the April municipal elections the SDP won four of the central municipalities of Sarajevo. While Sarajevo is a Muslim-dominated city, since April there has been an SDP government in four of its central municipalities. One has a Serb mayor and another has a Croat mayor. After they came into power, deadlines were finally established for evictions of double occupants.

‘The international community should reward those parties that have good policies regarding return of refugees. Now, if the hard-liners return to power after these (November 2000) elections, who will make refugee return possible?’

Restructuring the Coalition for Return
In 2000 the Coalition for Return, in order to increase its effectiveness, narrowed its focus of attention to two-way return between Sarajevo and the surrounding region. In February it acquired assistance from the International Rescue Committee (IRC) covering the period to the end of the year, in the amount of 70,000 DM. Since then it has functioned as the IRC’s legal aid center for displaced persons living in Sarajevo who wish to return to their pre-war homes in other parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as for displaced persons in other parts of the country who wish to return to Sarajevo.

Sponsorship from the IRC is due to continue throughout the year 2001. The Coalition is planning to open a center in nearby Pale, in the Republika Srpska. In the upcoming phase of work the Sarajevo center will employ three lawyers and three assistants who will work to provide ongoing monitoring of problems faced by displaced persons.

The Coalition for Return now collaborates with legal counseling centers in several other cities in eastern Bosnia – notably Foca and Gorazde – where displaced Sarajevans who wish to return are now living. Mobile advisory teams based in Sarajevo and Pale will also visit smaller municipalities on a regular basis. The mobile teams will meet with and advise displaced persons who wish to return to Sarajevo. The Coalition additionally maintains contact with return advocacy organizations in Banja Luka, Bijeljina, and other main cities in the Republika Srpska.

The Coalition is also advising displaced persons living in other countries as to their right to return and their right to reclaim their property. This includes people as far afield as the United States and Australia, but the largest groups of concerned would-be returnees are located in Montenegro and Serbia. Recently, for example, the Coalition met with several dozen displaced people from Montenegro who visited Sarajevo to explore the possibilities for their return.

Progress/Prospects
Since the founding of the Coalition for Return, the movement for refugee return has made significant progress. Almost all areas of Bosnia and Herzegovina have opened up to at least a symbolic amount of return. The Coalition continues the struggle to cross the line between symbolic return and the healthy reconstruction of pre-war multi-ethnic communities.

Since the beginning of its relationship with the IRC, the Coalition has assisted 120 families, or approximately 600 people, to return to Sarajevo. Approximately 80 per cent of these returnees are Serbs, and the rest mostly Croats. In October of 2000, according to Edin Beca, 338 clients came to the Coalition for counseling.

Edin Beca evaluated his organization’s work: ‘We are working full time, 9:00 to 5:00 every work day, even though our program description only requires that we work two half-days a week. We are putting all we can into this project because we would like it to become a foundation for further similar projects in Bosnia and Herzegovina. We are working as the eyes and ears of the international community, because international organizations need to know how the local NGOs are thinking.’