Meanwhile in Bosnia: War has hampered reconstruction
On the way to my office in Sarajevo I pass four European embassies, where every day for the past three months up to 100 people have gathered, pressing against the gates in the hopes of getting a visa. These people are refugees from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY), but most of them are not from Kosovo; rather, they are from the Sandzak, an area of Serbia lying between Kosovo, Montenegro and Bosnia-Herzegovina that is predominately Muslim.
No atrocities have been committed in the Sandzak, but people are fleeing anyway—fleeing in fear that they might be next, fleeing from the destruction and hopelessness that years of sanctions and weeks of NATO bombardment have brought upon the Serbian economy and society. Staying with friends and relatives in Sarajevo, or in camps, they have joined Kosovo Albanians, Serbs and Romas who have fled from the latest round of violence in the region.
It was the Western alliance's sense of failure during the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina that drove the major-powers Kosovo Contact Group and NATO to vow that they would stand up to Slobodan Milosevic in Kosovo. That determination led the alliance into military confrontation with Yugoslavia, but it has left Bosnia as the forgotten neighbor. Nothing dramatic has happened in Bosnia, but the war has had a significant impact on the reconstruction process. This impact can be seen most clearly in three areas: the influx of FRY refugees; the economic and political chaos in the Republika Srpska (the area of Bosnia-Herzegovina controlled by Serbs as designated by the Dayton Peace Accords); and the uncertainty about long-term donor commitments.
