Sarajevo spring

Pressure from below and political will from above – this could be the solution to squaring the Bosnian circle. The citizens protest movement, which has recently spread throughout Bosnia-Herzegovina, combined with a positive shift in the region's overall situation, could give rise to decisive changes in the most complex of the countries of the former Yugoslavia. [Bosnia-Herzegovina is partitioned along ethnic lines – Bosnian, Serbian and Croatian – and is composed of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republika Srpska.]

In early June, several hundred Sarajevo citizens took to the streets to express their discontent over an aberration produced by the Dayton Accords [the 1995 agreement that ended the war but endorsed the ethnic partition of Bosnia-Herzegovina]. The case of a sick baby was the straw that broke the camel's back. Tiny Belmina Ibrisević was unable to obtain care in Germany because the country's politicians would not agree to attribute her a personal identification number. Without this number, she was not eligible for a passport.

No new-borns have been able to get personal identification numbers since February 12 when the old law expired and was not replaced. In protest, people gathered in front of the building of the central parliament, which was in session that day, then encircled it. They forced the MPs to adopt emergency measures in order to deliver a passport to the sick baby. That prompted talk of a Sarajevo "Babolution" (a melding of baby and revolution). Since June 11, tens of thousands of protesters have blocked traffic in Sarajevo to demand a resolution to the personal identification numbers issue and, more generally for the Europeanisation of the country.

Birth of a citizens’ movement

In Banja Luka [the capital of Republika Srpska], although their demonstration was banned, students came out in the streets to defend their rights. Students also protested in Mostar. In a country that is deeply divided ethnically, a citizen's movement is being born.

At the same time, we are living through historic changes made by Bosnia-Herzegovina's neighbours. Croatia is about to enter the European Union [on July 1, 2013] and Serbia has abandoned its Greater Serbia project. The nationalist government of Belgrade made a huge step forward by signing the historic agreement to normalise relations with Kosovo.

In the 1990s, Serbian President Tomislav Nikolić was the right-hand man of Vojslav Seselj (a leader of the nationalist Serbian Radical Party, currently on trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, in The Hague). He is today leading Serbia towards entry into Europe. This is undoubtedly the most significant political change in the former Yugoslavia in the past 20 years and provides a glimmer of hope for Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Carrot and stick

If the passport delivered to Belmina, who died on June 16, gives Bosnians the impression that there is a way to make things move and if civic pressure continues, the country's politicians may understand that it is in their interest to work together rather than to act in a way that leads the country towards disintegration. Yet, the main Serbian and Croatian parties, the Union of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) and the Democratic Croatian Community of Bosnia-Herzegovina (HDZ-BiH) did not hesitate to undermine the country's common institutions by announcing that they refuse to attend [parliamentary] sessions "because of the danger caused by the demonstrators in Sarajevo".

But if Nikolić is successful in convincing Milorad Dodik [the prime minister of the Republika Srpska] that entry into Europe can only be achieved under the banner of Bosnia-Herzegovina – after Kosovo, that should be the condition imposed on Serbia for entry into the EU – this could thwart the Republika Srpska anti-Bosnian policies.

Croatia also must become seriously implicated in this task of persuasion. All the more so because the leaders of HDZ-BiH, by announcing that they will not attend sessions in Sarajevo either, are following the lead of Bosnian Serb MPs. Zagreb must not relieve the pressure on the HDZ-BiH. As the new member of the European Union, Croatia must depict how to move Europe forward, not how to stand by passively as its neighbours throw spanners in the works.

View from Sarajevo

International community backs protesters

For Bosnian daily Dnevni Avaz, the representatives of the international community, who "are the rain-makers in Bosnia-Herzegovina," deliberately chose "not to settle the ridiculous imbroglio through which local politicians put in danger the lives of new-born babies by depriving them of personal identification numbers".

In fact, according to the paper, the Office of the High Representative in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Peace Implementation Council (PIC) "decided to wager in favour of the citizen protest against the indifference and the impunity of the politicians spreading throughout Sarajevo as well as on the student protest movement in Banja Luka (the capital of the Republika Srpska) because they "saw in these citizens movements a force capable of putting pressure on the powers that be". The paper adds that,

The High Representative in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Valentin Inzko, was the first to support those protesting against the government. [...] The British ambassador in Sarajevo also expressed support for the protesters. Then it was the turn of the ambassador of the United States, who posted on the Internet the US call to Bosnians to take a more critical look at their leaders. [...] As for our politicians, to the electorate, they only inspire contempt, disgust, anger and despair.