A Land Still Haunted

The new century seemed to usher in an era of good feelings in the Balkans. Having endured a decade of ethnic bloodshed and corrupt politics, people in the region this year replaced the bullet with the ballot. Croatian voters turned out the hard-line ruling party. Serbs voted with their feet and their fists to oust Slobodan Milosevic. Kosovar Albanians chose a party led by a pacifist over one led by a guerrilla. Sanity, if not quite serenity, has arrived.

But the outbreak of moderation remains far from pandemic. And nowhere are the strains of nationalism and mistrust more stubborn than in Bosnia. Voters last week dealt the latest setback to the prospects for reconciliation in that divided land, handing decisive victories to nationalists in the Muslim-Croat federation and the Serb Republic, the two semiautonomous entities that make up Bosnia. The results dampened any levity that might have accompanied the fifth anniversary of the Dayton peace agreement, which ended three and a half years of warfare among Muslims, Croats and Serbs. Leaders in the U.S. and Europe had hoped that gains by moderate parties would encourage moves toward economic liberalization, social stability and refugee repatriation all of which will have to take place before NATO can consider ending its 20,000-person Bosnia peacekeeping operation. That goal now appears even more distant. "We're moving forward, albeit in small steps," said Wolfgang Petritsch, the international High Representative. "Democracy never produces big breakthroughs."

There wasn't much to smile about last week. Western hopes rested mainly with the center-left Social Democratic Party (SDP), the only major Bosnian party that reaches across ethnic lines. The Muslim-led SDP targeted its campaign against the nationalist Muslim Party of Democratic Action (SDA), and pre-election polls showed a hefty lead among Muslim voters. But that advantage collapsed: at week's end the SDP and SDA appeared likely to win an equal number of seats in the Muslim-Croat federation's parliament, making it difficult for either party to form a stable government. The moderates in particular confront an uphill challenge: SDP leader Zlatko Lagumdzija is popular among U.S. and European diplomats for his progressive style, but his campaign pledges not to cooperate with Muslim or Croat nationalists antagonized other Bosnian leaders.

The unexpected strength of Muslim nationalists owed much to the renewed partisan vigor among Bosnia's two other ethnic groups. Nine out of 10 Bosnian Croats, who make up 13% of the population, voted for the hard-line Croatian Democratic Union, and 70% supported an HDZ-sponsored referendum on self-rule for districts where Croats form a majority which would violate the Dayton pact. When election observers responded by disqualifying 13 HDZ candidates, party leader Ante Jelavic said he would refuse to join in the formation of a new government. "The international mission in Bosnia is finished," he said. In the Serb half of the country, the outlook is similarly ominous: the Serbian Democratic Party (sds), founded by indicted war criminal Radovan Karadzic, has revived behind a group of younger leaders who renounce their party's ignoble past but still yearn for eventual absorption into Serbia proper. Last week the sds won more than 40% of the vote for Serb seats in the national parliament, making it the country's most powerful party. sds leader Mirko Sarovic said he will "work to reduce the number and influence of international elements in Bosnia."

But Bosnians need more help than ever. Despite an influx of $5 billion in aid in the last five years, 60% of the population live in poverty. But there's a silver lining. In a recent poll, 80% of Bosnians listed jobs and the economy, not fear of other ethnic groups, as their most pressing concern. Some of the country's tribal acrimony has subsided. Since January 40,000 displaced Bosnians have returned to towns in which they are in the minority, three times the rate in 1999.

Optimists note that nationalists retain less clout than they did five years ago. "I am certain their influence is waning," says U.S. Ambassador Thomas Miller. If nothing else, the continued volatility of Bosnia's politics, and the fragility of its social patchwork, will bolster those who believe it is far too early to ponder a withdrawal of foreign troops. "NATO presence is the guarantee of the project's security," says Petritsch. "I'm afraid they will have to stay for at least a couple more years." In the Balkans, as much as anyplace on earth, good feelings don't last forever.

Reported by Dejan Anastasijevic / Sarajevo