Mar 18th 2013
A day in Gorazde, whose population is mostly Bosniak Muslim, is enough to tell you everything that is wrong with Bosnia—and everything that is promising. Sitting on the river Drina surrounded by green hills, Gorazde was besieged by Serbian forces for the entire war of 1992-95. Yet unlike Srebrenica, it never fell. When the maps were drawn at the Dayton peace conference in 1995 Gorazde was connected to Sarajevo in a kind of peninsula. So, it is part of the Bosniak-Croat Federation half of Bosnia, but surrounded on three sides by the Serbian-dominated Republika Srpska (RS). The Federation is divided into ten cantons, each of which has a prime minister and government. Gorazde is part of Bosnian-Podrinje canton. The canton is home to some 32,000 people and the municipality of Gorazde is home to some 30,000. Unsurprisingly Mr Ramovic thinks the canton, “which steals our money”, should be “shut down” and if cantons cannot be abolished altogether, then the region should be joined to the Sarajevo canton. “It is too costly to have two administrations on the same territory.”
While Bosnia’s politicians always talk about big-picture issues such as constitutional reform, Mr Ramovic speaks for many mayors when he says “we feel neglected by the state and the Federation as do our neighbours in the RS.” Politicians on the national stage, he said, are constantly “exploiting the national card”. Those on the municipal level are left with pedestrian issues that affect everyday life. Gorazde was part of a project to create a new regional waste-disposal site with six municipalities from the RS and two others from the Federation. At the last minute a government minister from the RS, whose president Milorad Dodik insists that Bosnia as a state cannot work and should be abolished, told the RS mayors that they could not take part. After that, said Mr Ramovic, “I lost interest in pursuing this, though I will soon meet Mr Dodik”.
At the cantonal level officials talk about jobs. Officially the canton has an unemployment rate of 39%. If this were true people would be starving here, just as they would be in the rest of Bosnia, where apart from Sarajevo, the figure is even worse. In fact, says Demir Imamovic, the cantonal economy minister the real figure “is less than 18%”. The grey economy is one reason why official unemployment figures are so high, but also the numbers include those who, in other countries, would not be classed as unemployed such as the disabled. According to Mr Imamovic, of 3,700 unemployed only 2,000 are actually “employable”.
The canton is now moving to create incentives for companies to locate here. And Gorazde is already attracting business. ASA Prevent makes covers for car seats, Bekto Precisa makes parts for lamps for the likes of Audi, Porsche and BMW.
On the day of Ambassador Burton's visit a delegation arrived from the town of Prijepolje in neighbouring Serbia. It lies in the Sandzak region, which is inhabited by Serbs and Bosniaks. It is clear from the names of the officials that the Prijepolje delegation is made up equally of both. Emir Hasimbegovic, the mayor from Prijepolje, announces that the point of this first official post-war visit is “to renew cooperation…in the commercial sphere as well. The turbulent past is history and it should remain at that level because we don’t want to repeat it”. It seemed odd that it has taken the Sandzakers so long to visit. But as one Gorazde official explains, this is because they have been very much consumed with their own affairs, a hint at the snake pit that is Sandzak local politics. Moreover, lots of money might be at stake. Soon municipalities that lie in border regions will be able to apply for large amounts of fresh European Union funding targeted at encouraging cross-border cooperation in the western Balkans.
Across town at Bekto Precisa the Sandzakers looked approvingly at the state-of-the-art machines popping out brake lamps and the like. Ambassador Burton was impressed by a factory that is expanding, employing people and exporting to Germany, Austria and Sweden. This place is “very resilient” he said. “The fundamentals are sound. People are talented. It is just a matter of time.” Such optimism is still rare in Bosnia.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/easterna ... 03/gorazde