Croat moderates under fire

The war left festering ethnic resentment

By William Horsley in western Bosnia

The graffiti have been sprayed on roadside advertisements for many miles around the Ivankovic's village in western Bosnia-Hercegovina.

"Lijan the traitor", they read, "Lijan you Judas" and "Lijan is not a Croat".

Such is the venom of some in the breakaway movement of the Bosnian Croats that they have turned thugs and hooligans loose to terrorise one of the community's most respected and successful families.

Lijan is a sturdy old man with a cheerful laugh, the head of the village that is named after him. He delights in having four sons and 14 grandchildren.

Here we make sausages, not armies

Jerko Ivankovic

In communist times he founded a food business that has grown to be one of the biggest employers in Bosnia.

These days it is run by his sons, while the old man concentrates on producing very drinkable wines from his vineyards on the fertile hills around.

I met the youngest son, Jerko, at the large, modern factory where they produce meat for sale not just to the local population but also to some of the international peacekeeping troops who are trying to stop Bosnia slipping back into anarchy.

Jerko is the company's finance director. He told me that even during the war they had tried to live as normal a life as possible.

"Here we make sausages, not armies," he said.

But in March, hardline Croat leaders of the main nationalist party, the Croatian Democratic Union, declared self-rule in this part of Bosnia, and obliged all prominent Croats to decide if they were for them or against them.

I have always been respected in this community and I could not bear to think that some of them had turned against me

Lijan Ivankovic

They exploited the fact that many Bosnian Croats resent having to work alongside the Muslims in a joint federation, whereas the Bosnian Serbs have won a separate entity of their own, the Republika Srpska.

But Jerko calls the move a dangerous adventure by people who want to turn this region into their private fiefdom.

When the separatists started demanding an unofficial 4% tax on the Ivankovic's business, to fund their attempt to partition Bosnia again, the family decided to build up their business in another part of the federation.

Jerko and one of his brothers are now in politics. They are moderates who want to see Bosnia enjoy the fruits of peace, and to see their Croat community live in harmony with the Muslims.

That has made them targets for the separatists. When I called at the Ivankovic's ancestral home, high up above the town of Shiroki Brijeg, the sun shone and they were generous in sharing a feast of roast lamb and Lijan's fine wines.

Car bombed

But just two weeks earlier, Lijan's car, parked outside the main family home down in the valley, had been wrecked by a bomb that exploded in the middle of the night.

Lijan told me, in the stentorian voice of a man with still powerful lungs but not very good hearing, that after the explosion the house seemed to be covered in broken glass.

He rushed to the door in his nightwear, but one of his daughters-in-law told him to put on a coat and trousers.

Croat supporters demonstrate for self-rule

"My first thought", he said, "was to wish that I myself had been killed in the explosion.

"I have always been respected in this community and I could not bear to think that some of them had turned against me. But soon I changed my mind.

"I want to go on working for the well-being of my community, and I hope the bandits who did this to us end up in jail."

Resentment and wounds from the war in Bosnia make this one of the hardest places in the world to build a stable peace between the ethnic communities.

Bosnia as protectorate

All the main authorities of the international community - including the UN, Nato, the EU - are present, trying to put together a jigsaw of a Western-style civil society, when many of the key pieces are missing.

The world still treats Bosnia as a protectorate, and the so-called Office of the High Representative is all-powerful.

But it recently inflamed the feelings of ordinary Croats, by using Nato-led troops in a commando-style raid to forcibly close a major bank, the Hercegovacka Banka, on the grounds that it was being used to fund the illegal separatist movement.

Thousands of Croats have been left without salaries, savings or, in some cases, their jobs, and it may be a year before the bank re-opens.

The strategy of the international administrators is to dismiss all Croat ministers and senior officials who back the self-rule movement, and to promote moderates who are ready to work with the Muslims.

That has brought people like the Ivankovic brothers to centre stage. But it is touch and go, and the post-war settlement is in real danger of unravelling.

Love thy neighbour

As he plied me with more homemade ham and wine, Jerko told me a parable about politics in his part of the Balkans.

A man wants to borrow his neighbour's bicycle, but he suspects that the neighbour will find an excuse to refuse. The man thinks, he will say the light is missing, so he takes a spare light with him.

Then he thinks, the neighbour will say one wheel is broken, so he takes a spare wheel too. Or he will claim the chain is loose, so he takes a spare chain as well. When he arrives at the neighbour's front door he is laden with spare parts and bursting with rage.

So when the neighbour opens the door the man shouts at him: "All right, well I don't need you or your damned bicycle." And he storms off, confirmed in his view that his neighbour is his enemy.