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Rampant Nationalism in Mostar Elections May Deepen Division
By Zoran Radosavlijevic
Mostar, southern Bosnia's biggest city, was devastated by Croat-Muslim war in 1993-94. The elections will effectively bring to a climax a postwar EU transitional administration (EUAM) in Mostar and presage countrywide voting in September.
The Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), the party of nationalist Croats ruling west Mostar as the ``capital'' of a self-styled ethnic republic in the region, comprised one of three lists submitted to the EUAM. EUAM officials said a second list was made up of the Muslim nationalist Party of Democratic Action (SDA), which controls east Mostar, and the Serb Civic Council -- Serbs loyal to Bosnia's Muslim-led central government in Sarajevo. The third list grouped broadly non-ethnic, centrist parties including formerly communist Social Democrats, the Croatian Peasants Party and Republicans led by a Bosnian Croat moderate.
"The course of (pre-election) events is normal. Election committees are meeting frequently and our efforts to facilitate voting (by refugees) abroad are getting on quite well," said Ricardo Perez Casado, Spanish chief of the EU mission. Casado said Croatia, patron of nationalist Bosnian Croats, had guaranteed free transit through its territory to Mostar for war refugees, mainly Muslim, who want to vote.
EUAM will be paying for election logistics, including bus fares for returning refugees and security at polling stations to ensure people can vote in secret and safety. Troops in NATO's peace Implementation Force (IFOR) in Bosnia "will be visible to everyone" on Election Day, IFOR spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Salvatore Iacono said. Thousands of refugees now living abroad will vote at polling stations set up in Switzerland, Germany, Norway and Sweden.
International observers will be on hand to watch for any irregularities when the city of some 100,000 people in the mountainous Herzegovina region goes to the polls. There will be 77 polling stations in over 50 locations.
East Mostar is carpeted with SDA campaign flyers promising reunification after the elections. But diplomats say the SDA's increasingly Muslim nationalist tilt promotes division instead.
In Croat west Mostar there are few signs of a pending vote. Ordinary Croats say it will make no difference to their agenda of separation although their leaders are formally committed to federation with Muslims under the Dayton peace treaty.
Despite this, the Croats reaffirmed their breakaway state by naming a new cabinet last week. EU governments denounced the Croats' move as inimical to Mostar's elections and efforts to bolster the largely ineffective federation.
Of Mostar's pre-war population, 34 percent were Muslim, 28 percent Croat and 18 percent Serb. Virtually all Serbs fled during 1992 fighting between separatist Serb forces and the Bosnian government army before the Muslim-Croat war. Serb refugees from Mostar, most now in Serbia, now want to vote but international authorities are making no provisions for them do so aside from offering a few buses to Mostar, a Serb representative said angrily this week. He said four Serb candidates would run for office.
A typewritten leaflet circulating in Croat-held west Mostar says Serbs are no longer welcome in the city. "Chetniks (Serbs), you who spent the war at the seaside or in Mother Serbia and are now claiming rights to flats, pensions
and co-existence -- go back to Serbia," it says. It then gives the names of three Serb women and adds: "The
list of unwanted Serbs is to be continued."
This kind of ethnic intimidation, pervasive in postwar Bosnia, will complicate voting, analysts say. |
MOSTAR, Bosnia, June 21 (Reuters) - Ethnic nationalist parties look set to dominate elections in bitterly divided Mostar, raising fears that instead of helping reunify the Bosnian city the polls will entrench its partition. Political parties, with Croat and Muslim nationalists predominant, have registered in three candidate lists for the June 30 European Union-sponsored elections for a single city council, officials said on Friday.
Berserkistan, June 17 · Muslims Stone Catholic Monastery in Mostar
Berserkistan, June 12 · Mostar Administrator Gives Approval to September Vote
Berserkistan, May 30 · EU Administrator Sets Mostar Elections for June 30
Berserkistan, May 25 · Final Agreement Reached on Mostar Elections
Berserkistan, May 23 · Mediators Head Off Muslim Boycott of Mostar Elections
Berserkistan, May 22 · Mostar Elections Focus of Casado-Izetbegovic Meet
Berserkistan, May 1 · Mostar to Hold Elections May 31
Mostar, A Tale of Two Cities by Berserkistan's Jim Bartlett
For Peace in Mostar, Follow the Money Trail to Croatia
New Administrator Begins Tough Task of Making Mostar Functional
Mostar: Before and After its Devastation A site by Dubravko Kakarigi
Benvenuti in Guerra Gavino Paddeu chronicles Mostar's fall
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