1. Case-study No. & Title
168. The Democratic Initiative of Sarajevo Serbs, an organization working to educate displaced Serbs about their right to return to Sarajevo (1996-indefinite future).

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:
23 December, 2000

3. Good Practice Information Sheet
3.1 Local Level Good Practice:
The Democratic Initiative of Sarajevo Serbs (DISS) works to inform Serbs who have been displaced from Sarajevo and its suburbs as to their right to return. DISS travels to out-of-the-way parts of Bosnia where there are concentrations of displaced Serbs and explains to them the legal possibilities for reclaiming their apartments, houses, and land. The organization encourages two-way return, that is, of Muslims and Croats to the Republika Srpska, as well as of Serbs to Sarajevo. It advocates protection of human rights and equal legal status for all three of the main ethnicities in Bosnia.

3.2 Location:
The Democratic Initiative of Sarajevo Serbs is based in Sarajevo, Bosnia.

3.3 Minority/Target Groups:
The Democratic Initiative of Sarajevo Serbs targets Serbs who were displaced from Sarajevo during or shortly after the 1992-1995 war. Most of these people now live in the Republika Srpska, one of the two entities that make up Bosnia and Herzegovina. If they were to return home to Sarajevo, as many of them want to do, they would be an ethnic minority.

3.4 Major Actors Involved:

3.5 Budget allocated by local government authorities and/or by other actors:
The Democratic Initiative of Sarajevo Serbs operates on approximately 100,000 DM a year. DISS activists describe this as ‘half of what we need’.

3.6 Timeframe:
The Democratic Initiative of Sarajevo Serbs was formed immediately after the reintegration of Sarajevo that took place upon the signing of the Dayton peace agreement in December 1995. The organization was registered in April, 1996. DISS hopes to continue its programs indefinitely.

3.7 Local level good practice relation to national level ethnic policy:
DISS is purely a non-governmental initiative that arose out of local needs. It initially met with opposition from the local government but recently, as a result of international pressure, this opposition has decreased and in some instances turned into mild support.

4. Good Practice Description
Background: Displacement of the Sarajevo Serbs
If outsiders know anything at all about the 1992–1995 war in Bosnia, they know that Sarajevo was besieged – surrounded by Serbs. But chances are they do not know what happened to the Serbs of Sarajevo during and after the war. Thousands of Serb families were displaced. While much attention has been focused on the fate of the Muslims, it is a little-known fact that at least 100,000 Serbs were displaced from Sarajevo, and the larger part of this movement took place after the war.

Before the war, Sarajevo’s population of 500,000 was around half Muslim, with the remainder split among Serbs, Croats, Yugoslavs, and ‘others’. The siege of Sarajevo formed a front line that divided the city’s inner neighbourhoods from its outer ones. Muslims fled inward from such areas as Ilidza, Ilijas, Hadzici, Grbavica, and Vogosca, leaving these neighbourhoods almost 100 per cent Serb-populated. Many, though not all, Serbs in the inner sections of Sarajevo left for Serb-controlled territory.

The Dayton agreement that ended the war in late 1995 arranged for Sarajevo’s urban outer neighbourhoods to be reunified with the inner core of the city, to come under the administration of the Bosnian Federation. At this time a mass exodus took place, of some 60,000 Serbs from these neighbourhoods. Officials of the Republika Srpska directed whole neighbourhoods of displaced Serbs to specific municipalities such as Brcko, Srebrenica, and Bratunac, mainly in the eastern half of the Serb entity, in an effort to create Serb populations in these areas large enough to reinforce the Serb conquest of that territory.

The nature of the Serb exodus from Sarajevo is controversial, but overwhelming evidence shows that it was for the most part compulsion from Serb military and para-military forces that caused Serbs to leave their homes, in keeping with the strategy of concentrating Serb population elsewhere. This strategy was carried so far that Serbs who wished to stay in their homes were on some occasions terrorized into leaving.

‘Rada’ - a displaced Serb living in Bratunac, eastern Bosnia, gave me the following description of the exodus:

Thus, since Dayton tens of thousands of Serbs from Sarajevo have been living in the Republika Srpska (one of the two entities that, together with the Croat-Muslim Federation, make up Bosnia), neighbouring Yugoslavia, or third countries further abroad. Most of these displaced Serbs are living in homes that were owned by Muslims or Croats before the war or, in some cases, collective centres. In early 1996 the Democratic Initiative of Sarajevo Serbs (DISS) was formed to address the problems of these people. The organization works for two-way return, educating displaced Serbs as to their right to return to their pre-war homes.

Post-war Problems of the Displaced
Serbs who were displaced from Sarajevo, for whatever reason, are victims of the same ills that afflict most other displaced persons. Unemployed, denied complete information about their rights, and living in substandard conditions, they are at the mercy of their own leaders who manipulate them to remain in their ‘temporary’ post-war homes.

In the post-war years manipulative Serb politicians have passed around a falsified ‘survey’ that ‘proved’ that 99 per cent of displaced Serbs of the Republika Srpska wanted to remain in their post-war locations. However, activists struggling for refugee return have noted on numerous occasions that displaced Serbs who are too intimidated by their local leaders to speak publicly, would in many instances prefer to return home. This is especially true of Serbs from Sarajevo who are living in the remote towns of eastern Bosnia. Culturally, these people have much less in common with their new Serb neighbours who are native to those areas, than they do with their old Muslim neighbours, fellow native Sarajevans.

Serbs who owned houses in Sarajevo often return to find these houses partially or completely destroyed. And if they were tenants of ‘socially-owned’ apartments, in most cases these apartments, if not destroyed, are now occupied by displaced Muslims. When these Serbs try to return to their Sarajevo homes, often they are met with hostility or, at best, bureaucratic obstruction. It is not unusual for a would-be returnee to receive a positive resolution to a property claim, only to find that a displaced Muslim, or even a Muslim immigrant from Serbia, is firmly ensconced in his or her apartment. The eviction proceedings can then drag on interminably.

The array of property rights laws is obscure to most displaced persons, and laws in the two entities were only reconciled in 1999. Deadlines for submission of claims to socially-owned property passed in 2000. Hundreds of thousands of displaced persons submitted claims, and are now waiting for resolutions. If they have received resolutions, chances are they are waiting for an eviction. And beyond the essential need for a roof over one’s head, there is a myriad of other basic necessities that must be fulfilled in order for sustainable return to take place. Returnees also need employment, health insurance, pensions, security, veterans’ rights, appropriate school curricula, and multi-ethnic police forces and court systems. Only community-based organisations such as the Democratic Initiative of Sarajevo Serbs are fighting for a comprehensive answer to these problems.

Democratic Initiative of Sarajevo Serbs (DISS)
The Democratic Initiative of Sarajevo Serbs was formed in the Sarajevo suburb of Ilidza, in February of 1996. DISS was founded by a small number of Serbs who had remained in Sarajevo after the reunification, with the goal of advocating two-way return and respect for human rights. The main target of DISS’s programs are the displaced Sarajevo Serbs living in the eastern part of the Republika Srpska.

In the isolated towns in this region, displaced persons are often cut off from reliable information regarding their prospects for return. DISS believes that if these people can be encouraged to return, it will free up residences for the Muslims now occupying Serb-owned homes in Sarajevo to return to their pre-war homes in the Serb entity, thus setting an increasing cycle of two-way return in motion.

DISS staff member Goran Kapor noted, ‘We are advocating the return of people of all ethnicities to Sarajevo, because if the capital city cannot be multi-ethnic, then there is no Bosnia and Herzegovina. Return is proceeding with difficulty, equally for Serbs, Croats, and Bosniaks. Property laws are not being respected, for many reasons.

‘For example, there are still many illegal double occupants who should immediately be evicted from apartments. This is manipulated because there are many politicians who are living in others’ apartments. If these apartments were freed up, it would increase the housing supply considerably’.

DISS collaborates with local citizens’ organizations, encouraging communities of displaced people, Serbs and Muslims, to work together, to refrain from attacking each other, in the interest of confronting the real obstructions to return. As Mr Kapor told me, ‘Displaced persons are occupying each other’s property. People should cooperate with the goal of each returning to his own. We are striving to return multi-ethnic life to Bosnia, as we feel that it is our destiny to live together’.

DISS programs
The Democratic Initiative of Sarajevo Serbs implements a number of programs and services that are available to people of all ethnicities. These include Radio DISS, which operates 24 hours a day, and a clinic. But DISS’s primary programs are informative, with the purpose of encouraging displaced persons to realise their right to return to their pre-war homes, and to enjoy the full rights of citizens in those homes. To this end DISS conducts dozens of informative panel discussions each year. These discussions are held in remote parts of Bosnia, mostly in the Serb entity, where Serbs who were displaced from Sarajevo are presently located.

Besides DISS’s Ilidza base, it also has offices in five other municipalities of Sarajevo: Ilidza, Ilijas, Vogosca, Novi Grad, Novo Sarajevo, and Hadzici. These are parts of Sarajevo to which many Serbs would like to return, and these offices are set up to handle the needs of returnees and would-be returnees on location.

In the first half of 2000, DISS held panel discussions in 15 communities. Staff member Goran Kapor showed me a two-inch-thick scrapbook containing photographs and clippings of meetings in Doboj, Pale, Trnovo, and other towns in the eastern part of the Republika Srpska, all the way down to Trebinje. This part of the Serb entity is more isolated and receives less attention from the international community or from similar domestic organisations than do other areas.

Both Muslims and Serbs attend the panel discussions, which cover property law and other legal aspects of the right to return. Other topics covered include the protection of human rights; security for returnees; the right to go to school; protection for minorities from harassment; reconciliation; and the right to health care. Displaced people ask what happens to a disabled veteran of the Federation army who returns to the Republika Srpska, or vice versa.

Mr Kapor estimates that that around 8,000 Serbs have returned to Sarajevo, although it is difficult to tell. Some people return, only to exchange or sell their property and acquire a home in the area where they spent the post-war period. It is legal to sell one’s home, but this solidification of the war-time demographic map is not encouraged by the staff of DISS. A prominent sign on the office wall reads, ‘We do not help citizens who wish to sell their property’.

Problems
There is a daunting list of obstacles faced by displaced Serbs who wish to return to Sarajevo. These are problems that prevent sustainable return. Here are some of the biggest problems confronting returnees, as described by Mr Kapor and Dusan Sehovac, head of DISS’s human rights division:

Pensions: Mr Kapor pointed out that if a retiree moves to the other entity, he still has to collect a pension in the entity from where he came. At present there is no mechanism for transferring one’s pension to the other entity.

Employment: Returnees must be assured of the right to employment. In the Muslim controlled neighbourhoods of Sarajevo to which Serbs want to return, there is strong discrimination in employment. In state-owned companies, preference is given to demobilised Muslim veterans and the families of fallen soldiers. There is not discrimination in employment among the various institutions of the international community, but this does not provide enough employment to solve the problem.

Semi-private companies are rented to individuals by the state, and so there is still discrimination. For example, there are 38 such companies in the municipality of Ilidza that have been rented to individuals. Of these, 37 went to Muslims, and one to a Croat. The situation is similar, to the disadvantage of Muslims, in the Republika Srpska.

State and privately-operated companies do not cover all the employment in Bosnia. Many people sell goods at the public markets. In Ilidza there are 200 stalls at the market, and preference for all of them is given to disabled Muslim veterans and families of fallen Muslim soldiers. The situation is the same in Zvornik, in the Republika Srpska, again to the disadvantage of returning Muslims. Mr Kapor says, ‘There, it wouldn’t even occur to people there to give a market stall to a Muslim. So we are struggling to fix this, or else no one is going to return. The more return there is, the easier it will be for people to struggle for their rights. More return will lead to an improvement of returnees’ conditions’.

Illegal construction: According to Mr Kapor, illegal construction of businesses and residences in both entities works to change the ethnic structure of Bosnia, by cementing the geographic division of ethnicities. For example, several thousand housing units have been built for Serbs in Zvornik. In Ilidza, around 1700 units were built illegally, and in all of Sarajevo, around 9000 have been built. Ninety-nine per cent of these units were built for Muslims. The Democratic Initiative of Sarajevo Serbs has conducted a detailed study of the extent and nature of illegal construction, and has presented an explanation of the causes of this construction, together with a proposal for prevention of such construction, to the municipal councils of Sarajevo.

Military service: Another discouragement to refugee return is the prospect of a returnee having to serve in the army controlled by the other ethnicity. After the signing of the Dayton peace agreement, the High Representative to Bosnia established a five-year moratorium on this kind of service, which expires in April of 2001. But Mr Kapor notes, ‘No one is going to want to serve in the army in which he is a minority. The international community is pressuring Bosnia to unite the armies, but it will be a long time before that happens. So we are proposing that people be allowed to serve in the army controlled by their ethnicity, for the time being’.

Destruction of property: Upon the reunification of Sarajevo, displaced Muslims moved into many apartments that had been occupied by Serbs who left. In 1999 and 2000, evictions of these people increased in order to make way for the return of the original inhabitants. It is a common occurrence that the departing Muslims will strip or deface the apartment out of spite, or to make it harder for the Serbs to return. Mr Sehovac gave an example of this activity:

‘Just yesterday four homes were destroyed. The doors, windows, water heaters, and even the wiring are torn out. (He shows me a photograph of a wall with motor oil splattered all over it, other photos of floors with the parquet torn up, built-in cabinets removed.) In the last two months 23 houses and 54 apartments have been damaged in this way. This is preventable. We are pressuring the IPTF, the UNHCR, and the OHR to take measures against this practice. For example, before serving an eviction order, they should inspect the home and take notes on its condition. This kind of destruction is not only a waste of donations from the international community, it is also another way of preventing the reconstruction of the pre-war ethnic structure of Bosnia’.

The Democratic Initiative of Sarajevo Serbs is compiling a database on this kind of destruction. When it is notified of vandalism, DISS activists go to the scene and photograph and record the damage with a video camera. The data is entered into a computer and presented to local authorities.

DISS Meets the Displaced People
It is worthwhile here to cite some of the encounters that DISS has had with displaced persons in need of information throughout the eastern part of the Serb entity.

Srebrenica: People told Mr Kapor, ‘If Sarajevo were not under the government of the Muslim nationalists we would return’. Mr Kapor noted, ‘We told them to use their right return to Sarajevo and help us change the situation. But I have gotten the impression from this and other panel discussions that displaced Sarajevo Serbs have changed their thinking. The majority of them are for return. No one mentions anymore how we can’t live together with the Muslims. People clearly expressed their wish to return to Sarajevo, the city in which they were born and spent their whole lives until the war’.

Mr Kapor added, ‘In Srebrenica there is a true media blockade. At the meeting a woman stood up and asked, ‘Do I really have to submit a request for the return of my apartment?’ No one had explained to her that there was a deadline in which one had to submit a request for socially-owned apartment, and because of this lack of information, she lost her tenancy rights’.

In a similar vein, in Jahorina (30 kilometers from Sarajevo), Serbs asked DISS, ‘Can you really walk around Sarajevo?’ Mr Kapor: ‘I said that we can walk and take the tram, and the person completely seriously asked, Do the trams really work in Sarajevo?’

Displaced Serbs with whom DISS met who called for the establishment of multi-ethnic police, transfer of their pensions to the Federation, free transportation of belongings upon return to Sarajevo, and the minimum return of groups of 50. They would like to have children educated on the RS curriculum, and a free choice of military service.

Mr Kapor said, ‘The displaced people understand that they can’t stay in other people’s homes, and that they can’t solve their problems by selling or trading their property. It seems that they don’t want to stay in Srebrenica. Milos Jeftic said he wouldn’t trade the hallway of his Sarajevo apartment for a house in Srebrenica.

At a meeting in Visegrad Bogdan Kuljanin, a displaced person from Konjic, said, ‘Half of us are in collective centers, and half in other’s property and we are in limbo. It is too bad that these meetings did not take place earlier so that we could have started solving our problems earlier. I wonder what I can do about fair compensation for destroyed property, because most of our property in Konjic is totally destroyed. Everything has been razed to the ground there, and a mosque was built on our land in Bradina’.

Another displaced Serb in Visegrad noted that when he went to Dobrinja (a Sarajevo neighborhood controlled by the Muslims) to submit a property returns claim, he saw that the record books listed him as being dead. Now he has to prove that he is alive, and he is having difficulty determining the correct procedure to do this.

At the numerous informative meetings held by DISS in 2000, the organization offered information about the current situation in Sarajevo Canton. Mr Kapor: ‘In many meetings they said to us that we were the first to visit them and explain their property rights and to tell them the news from their old home. Usually political party representatives come and promote their political programs, not interested in their living conditions, keeping them in uncertainty or in false hopes that they will be able to remain in other people’s homes’.

Partners and Funders
The Democratic Initiative of Sarajevo Serbs’ NGO partner organizations include: The Coalition for Return; the Citizens Alternative Parliament in Tuzla; the Human Rights Network ‘Mreza 10’ led by Branka Rajner, representing around 15 NGOs; and the Bosnian Forum of NGOs. DISS has also worked with agencies of the local government including the Ministry for Social Policy, Labor, and Refugees, as well as the Local Community Administration (Mjesna Zajednica). Its work with these agencies consists of informing them about the problems of returning refugees. In return, the local government has provided legal assistance, reconstruction aid, and psycho-social assistance.

Organizations providing funding to DISS include: The Olaf Palme Foundation; the Westminster Foundation for Democracy; USAID/DemNet (Democracy Network); the European Union; the Canadian, British, Swiss, Swedish, Dutch, Austrian, German, and Norwegian embassies; Refugee Trust Ireland; the European Union; the Strasbourg Local Mission; the Barcelona Embassy for Local Democracy; and the Danish Refugee Council.

In the year 2000 the municipalities of Ilidza and Ilijas each gave DISS donations of 3,000 DM. Mr Kapor said, ‘This is more or less a symbolic donation. We function on approximately 100,000 DM a year, which is half of what we need. We have a staff of about 30 who come to work every day, but no one has a pension or insurance’.

Contact Information:
Democratic Initiative of Sarajevo Serbs
Krste Hegedusica 8
71000 Ilidza Sarajevo
Bosnia

Tel/Fax +387 33 452 907
E-mail: ug_diss@bih.net.ba