Elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Mostar, a city cut in two
Since 2012, the Mostar Street Arts Festival has invited artists from all over the world to come and paint the facades of the city to give it a new face.
© RFI/Simon Rico
Text by: Simon Rico Follow
5 mins
In Mostar, Croats and Bosnians each live on a bank of the Neretva, the river that crosses the city, looking at each other like a faience dog.
Sunday, October 2, the ethno-nationalist formations should still largely prevail, those who constantly stir up fears to keep power.
Advertising
Read more
Most of the buildings along the Bulevar have been renovated.
But some ruins still bear witness to the violence of the fighting that took place on this front line, in the heart of the city, during the 1992-95 war.
Thirty years later, this axis continues to mark the division of Mostar in two: the Croats live on the west side and the Bosnians on the east side.
During the Yugoslav era, the large conurbation in the south of Bosnia and Herzegovina was nevertheless renowned throughout the Socialist Federation for its multicultural identity and its gentle way of life, lulled by a Mediterranean climate.
But here, the clashes were very hard, especially after the Croatian Defense Council (HVO) wanted to impose its project of "Croatian Republic of Herceg Bosna", with Mostar as its capital, in the summer of 1993.
Ethnic cleansing, mainly carried out against non-Croat populations, caused more than 2,000 deaths and more than 30,000 refugees.
On November 9, the Croatian army even dynamited the old Ottoman bridge over the turquoise waters of Neretva.
A symbol, finally rebuilt eleven years later under the aegis of Unesco.
A city that sees double
Today, the approximately 105,000 inhabitants of Mostar (48% Croats, 44% Bosnians) are seeing double.
Each community has its post office, its electricity and water supplier, its hospital, its fire unit, its national theatre... Not to mention the two football clubs, whose supporters have a fierce hatred for each other.
“
Divisions persist in Mostar because they suit the ethno-nationalist leaders, who share power and duplicate positions to redistribute to those under their
command,” laments analyst Amna Popovac.
For these general elections, the elegant fifties does not expect any change.
“
On Fridays and Sundays, even imams and priests remind people who to vote for.
»
Amna Popovac was born into a Bosnian family, established on the west side, and is confident to still reside there.
“
Our Croatian neighbors prevented the HVO soldiers from coming to kill us, I will never forget that
,” she underlines.
During the war, most of the Bosnians on the west bank preferred to migrate to the other side, while the Croats took the opposite route, brutally homogenizing the population.
The fear of others
“
People vote for us because they are afraid of external threats
,” recognizes Amir Šelo, 35, who is running under the banner of Bosnian nationalists to join the parliament of the canton of Mostar.
His own father spent 200 days in an HVO concentration camp during the war.
For their part, the local Croatian representatives insist on the need to reform the electoral law to
“better guarantee” the representation of their community
.
According to Mario Mikulić, MP since 2018 and candidate for re-election, we must "
look ahead and think about employment more than history
".
This did not prevent him from attending, on April 9, the big ceremony organized for the 30th anniversary of the HVO, in the presence of Zoran Milanović, the president of neighboring Croatia.
Not a word has been said about the war crimes, of which several of its leaders have nevertheless been found guilty by international justice.
In the center of Mostar, near the old front line, ruins still bear witness to the violence of the fighting.
© RFI/Simon Rico
Overcome divisions
Despite this leaden atmosphere, a few initiatives have emerged in recent years to facilitate diversity.
Opened in 2003 close to the demarcation line, the Abrašević Center is a pioneer.
"
We chose this location to recreate the link between two worlds that no longer see each other
", underlines Husein Oručević, one of the founders.
For him, one of the priorities should be to rethink the urban planning of the city to promote exchanges.
“
There is no pedestrian crossing that allows you to cross the Bulevar, even though it has been widened to become a four
-lane,” he notes.
Before becoming annoyed by the ethnic vision of the decision-makers: “
On the Bosnian side, we are renovating the Ottoman buildings, but we are abandoning the Austro-Hungarian heritage.
On the Croatian side, we despise everything that dates from socialism
”.
Born at the Abrašević Centre, Marina Đapić drew inspiration there to found the Mostar Street Festival ten years ago, with a mixed and female team.
Every year, dozens of artists from all over the world come to paint the facades and walls of the city.
“
The objective is to give it a new face, less gray and more open, to overcome the divisions
”, advances the thirty-year-old, very connected.
Orhan Maslo opened his Rock School almost at the same time, rue du Maréchal Tito.
“
Nothing worked, everything was divided at the time
”, recalls this colossus, alluding to the fact that Mostar did not have a mayor between 2012 and 2020, for lack of agreement on the holding of elections.
No question for him of speaking of reconciliation – “
a word for the old
” – but of the need to “
rebuild trust
”, especially between the youngest.
“
At first, people looked at us with scepticism;
this year, we have 200 registrants and 80 on the waiting list
,” he enthuses.
"
Only the elites circulate on both sides
", nuances an international representative stationed here.
Even if he still wants to see “
a glimmer of hope
” there.
In the meantime, young people continue to study different school programs, in different establishments.
But whether they are Croats or Bosnians, almost all of them share the same dream: to go abroad, far from the divisions that plague Mostar and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
►
To read also:
Elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina: voters tired of nationalist political blockages
Bosnia and Herzegovina: a complicated electoral system that legitimizes ethnic division
Newsletter
Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox
I subscribe
Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application
Bosnia and Herzegovina