How Sarajevo is still divided after forty years | Abroad

The Sarajevo Winter Olympics were extremely disappointing for the Netherlands, which started exactly forty years ago today/Thursday. Our athletes did not manage to win a single medal in the then Yugoslavia. And this despite the participation of some well-known names in skating, such as Hilbert van de Duim and Yep Kramer. The best result was achieved by Yvonne van Gennip, who was just 19 years old and who was making her debut: she finished fifth in the 3,000 meters. Perhaps it was due to the quality of the ice: the Dutch skaters complained a lot about the Yugoslav volunteers who cleared the skating rink free of snow with great enthusiasm, but also with a lot of brute force.

Yugoslavian skater Bibija Kerla (64) also defended her country’s honor at the time. Just like the Dutch, no medals for her, but she still looks back with a completely different feeling. “There was such solidarity. 55,000 people were waiting here during the opening ceremony, and finally I came through that gate,” she says, pointing from the stands of the Olympic stadium in central Sarajevo. The Games were a great success and a boost for Yugoslavia. President Tito, who had held the country and its many population groups together since the Second World War, had died four years earlier.

Economically, the country was in a terrible state, and the first cracks in the multi-ethnic state became visible. But no trace of this during the Games. Yugoslavia was communist, but at the height of the cold war it had good ties with both east and west. While the Moscow edition was boycotted four years earlier, and the Summer Games in Los Angeles a few months later, everyone participated in Sarajevo. That gave the Yugoslavs, of all population groups, self-confidence and pride. “We lived together, we were one, we had fun together,” Kerla summarizes the mood.

Less than eight years later, nothing was left of that brotherhood and unity, the country’s motto. Yugoslavia fell apart in a series of bloody wars. During the fighting in one of the new republics, Bosnia-Herzegovina, an estimated 100,000 people were killed. A large part of them in the capital Sarajevo, which was under siege for almost four years. In 1995, the Bosniaks (Muslims), Serbs and Croats signed the peace agreement: Bosnia became one country with two republics. But mutual problems were not resolved. And so the division continued.

Anyone who visits the Olympic facilities in the mountains around Sarajevo will first encounter traces of the painful war past. There was heavy fighting there: the front line moved several times, but was almost always right through the sports areas. The bobsleigh track has partly collapsed, the ski jump is full of gaping bullet holes, and the carcasses of destroyed hotels are scattered here and there.

But there is plenty of skiing again, in the two Olympic areas, about a 45-minute drive from Sarajevo. In Bjelasnica where the men’s descents took place at the time, and in Jahorina where the women competed for honors. In 1984 that was the only difference, but now the political division of Bosnia is visible here: the ski areas were also split. Just like Sarajevo, Bjelasnica ended up after the war in the sub-republic in which Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats are in charge, Jahorina now falls within the Bosnian-Serb republic of Republika Srpska. Just 25 kilometers apart, but a world of difference. They are celebrating the fortieth anniversary of the Games separately today.

“We have joint ski passes with all ski areas in Slovenia, Montenegro and North Macedonia, but not with our neighbors in Bjelasnica,” says Dejan Ljevnaic, director of the Jahorina ski area. ,,That’s a shame. I think we should work together better.” Another thing: Ljevnaic says he has been trying to get a bus connection with Sarajevo off the ground for years, but he cannot get it off the ground due to political and administrative hassles. “It is easier to transport skiers here from Beijing than from Sarajevo,” he sighs mockingly.

In the meantime, Bosnia is finding it difficult to make progress as a country: it is burdened by corruption and efficiency, and it also does not want to go smoothly with the EU accession talks. Politicians from the three population groups constantly make each other’s lives miserable. Recently, Republika Srpska has even been pushing for more independence, or even secession from Bosnia. The president, Milorad Dodik, is currently on trial in Sarajevo for having his republic no longer recognize the Supreme Court of Bosnia. No one knows whether he is bluffing or really going to play hard. What is certain is that no one wants a new conflict. “Staying together or independence, it doesn’t matter to me, as long as there is no war,” says skier Zeljko Radulovic, a resident of Republika Srpska, at the bottom of the lift in Jahorina. “Everything depends on what the residents of Republika Srpska decide,” says Marina from Serbia. “Whatever they decide, I support them.”

Opponents from other population groups warn that splitting off is not possible according to the Bosnian constitution, and certainly not in a peaceful manner. Very different sounds can be heard in the Bjelasnica ski area. “Republika Srpska cannot become independent. Their territory is an inseparable part of Bosnia and Herzegovina,” says Mehmed Karkelja from Sarajevo, as he tries to keep warm. The snow is pouring down from the sky. “An extremely bad idea,” says Sanjin Kovacevic. “Pushing borders has always had major, terrible consequences in the Balkans.”

Back in the Olympic stadium in Sarajevo, skater Kerla is convinced that the solidarity she thinks back on with nostalgia will one day return. “We won’t get Yugoslavia back anyway. But peace, tolerance, unity and love for each other… I hope that is still possible. I only think if the current generation of politicians stops. They are responsible for the situation we are in now.”