Bosnian Spring?

[Magda Hassan]

Don't expect to see McCain or Frau Nuland handing out cookies at these protests. This is a genuine people's uprising. A consequence of destroyed lives and no future for people ruled over by corrupt NATO puppets. Interestingly the violent protests have not manifested in the breakaway Serbian enclave Republika Srpska. Though not ideal it has had a higher standard of living then the rest of Bosnia and there has been migration from other areas to there by Bosniaks and Croatians tired of the gross government abuses and fearmongering in their home regions.

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[TD="class: articleTitle"]Who is behind Bosnia's riots?
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[TD] Dissatisfaction with the economic and political system in the country has pushed diverse groups to unite in protest.


Last updated: 10 Feb 2014 08:53

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[TD] Lana Pasic


Lana Pasic is an independent writer and analyst from Bosnia and Herzegovina.
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[TD] Protesters have demanded government resignations and salary reductions for state officials [EPA]

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On February 7, Sarajevo was preparing to mark 30 years of the Winter Olympic Games, which it hosted in 1984. However, instead of celebrating the Olympic flame, Bosnians cheered to the flames that engulfed government buildings.

Citizens in Sarajevo gathered in front of the cantonal government building to show support to the workers, youth and citizens in Tuzla, who have been protesting against corrupt privatisation processes and dismissals of employees from former state companies. Throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina[Ba], in Bugojno, Visoko, Velika Kladusa, Bosanska Krupa, Cazin, Sanski Most, Banja Luka, Kljucu, Tesanj, Gracanica, Travnik, Maglaj, Brcko, and Gora, citizens gathered in front of government offices, demanding changes.
Who is protesting and why?
The protests began in Tuzla, organised by the workers of former state companies, who protested against not only the closure of companies, but also corrupt privatisation processes. These groups voiced their grievances as early as January, demanding resignations and broader changes within the economic and social system. However, the protests gained momentum on February 4 when other societal groups joined them. Workers, citizen's associations, youth, pensioners and war veterans came out on the streets of Sarajevo, Mostar, Zenica and other cities, to express their grievances.
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[TD="class: caption"]Al Jazeera World - Sarajevo My Love[/TD]
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The events that many refer to as "Bosnian spring" involve many different groups of people, and are not centrally organised. Additionally, even though some peaceful protests in Banja Luka took place on February 7, the entity of Republika Srpska has not experienced the same level of citizen activism, or demands for resignations. The protests are largely taking place within the Bosniak-Croat Federation, and are aimed at, not only federal, but also cantonal structures. The Bosniak-Croat Federation consists of 10 cantons, producing a bloated, inefficient and expensive public administration.
The groups in each of the cities that witnessed protests are organised differently, led by the informal groups, citizen associations, labour movements or youth. Yet, their demands are very similar: government resignations, reduction of salaries for high-ranking government officials, free and good quality health services, and others.
In Tuzla, informal citizens' groups "Revolt" and "Udar" ("coup d'etat") have been the most vocal supporters behind the protests. The leader of "Udar"[Ba] and informal leader of the protests, Aldin Siranovic, was arrested and beaten, which sparked more outrage among citizens and brought some 6,000 citizens on the streets the next day. Both associations have a strong social media presence and use it to inform, invite and organise their supporters.
In Sarajevo and other cities, on the other hand, citizens have not yet organised around any associations or labour unions.
Hijacking the protest movement
Although the protests are led by the non-political groups, political parties in Bosnia and Herzegovina have in the first days attempted to hijack the protests by blaming "others" for the country's social and economic ills. Fahrudin Radoncic, leader of the Party for the Better Future, stated [Sr] that protests are a result of years of bad governance. Similarly, Zlatko Lagumdzija, of the Social Democratic Party, added that the accumulated frustrations and anger have brought citizens on the streets. Bakir Izetbegovic, a member of the Bosnian three-person presidency insisted [Sr] that he does not feel responsible for the protests, and that the system needs to change.Yet, all of these political parties are part of the same government. They themselves have, if not created, at least supported, perpetuated, and had benefitted from the current system.
Protesters throughout the Federation insist that no political party [Sr] was behind the riots and that they do not want any political involvement in the protest movement.
As the destruction of public property and acts of violence escalated during the protests, the focus of the media moved from the reasons behind the riots to the "hooligans" involved in the rampage. Yet, these young people are also the citizens, who have come out in the streets demanding changes and voicing their grievances. Facing an unemployment rate of 58 percent, Bosnian youth have been brought up in a state of chaos, corruption, hate speech, constitutional and institutional disarray and hopelessness, which have certainly left psychological consequences on them and on society at large.
Since the 1990s, all levels of government have shown utmost insensitivity to the social and economic destitution of citizens, youth, and particularly marginalised social categories. This kind of systemic institutional violence, political abuse of power, incompetence and neglect has planted seeds of anger and frustration. And in the context where 20 years of transition have brought nothing more than poverty, corruption and neglect, these repressed frustrations among young people have exploded, targeting the symbols of political power.
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[TD="class: caption"]Talk to Al Jazeera - Is another conflict looming in the Balkans?[/TD]
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Although there might be small groups who have come out to burn and loot, as is the case with every large gathering anywhere in the world, the majority of young people called "hooligans" are just angry and frustrated youth, wanting broader structural changes.
Demands and motivations
The workers, citizen's associations and youth joined by the pensioners, war veterans and rapidly disappearing members of the middle class, employed and unemployed, have the same grievances against the corrupt, bloated public administration system. While the average salary in the country is 400 euros[Ba], the government officials receive more than 3,000 euros[Ba]. Citizens are motivated by these political and social injustices, unbearable poverty, growing inequality and unsustainable constitutional order.
Although initiated by the workers' protests against privatisation and corruption, protesters' demands have evolved over the past few days. In each canton, a list of demands has been presented. In Sarajevo [Ba/Sr/Hr], citizens' groups have demanded resignation of both, federal and cantonal governments. Among the Most organised protests was that of Tuzla, where protesters produced a "Manifesto for New Bosnia and Herzegovina"[Ba], which contains 37 demands and points.
The Manifesto calls for the reduction of politicians' salaries, revision of budget, independent anti-corruption committee, free health care and commitment to youth employment, among other points. It invites state-level politicians to resign and insists that nationalist and religious-based political parties should be banned. High on the agenda is also the restructuring of the country, and abolition of cantons and entities, in order to reduce the enormous costs of public administration. In 2010, 500 million euros were spent on maintaining country's bureaucracy - that's 150 euros per second!
So far, governments of three cantons within the Federation have resigned: Tuzla, Zenica and Sarajevo[Ba/Sr/Hr]. The Prime Minster of the Federation, Nermin Niksic, stated[Sr] that if he is asked to resign, he will do so. Yet, this is not the end, but only the beginning.
Although it was expected that after the January 7 riots, protests would calm down during the weekend, protesters across the country continue to gather in front of government buildings. The organised and unorganised, formal and informal groups continue to assemble, demanding more resignations and tangible changes.
Lana Pasic is an independent writer and analyst from Bosnia and Herzegovina. [/TD]
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http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion...15905.html

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[TD="class: articleTitle"]It's spring at last in Bosnia and Herzegovina
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[TD] An anti-privatisation protest in the city of Tuzla has exploded into general social insurrection.


Last updated: 11 Feb 2014 06:42

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[TD] Jasmin Mujanovic


Jasmin Mujanovic is a PhD candidate at York University and currently a Visiting Scholar at the Harriman Institute at Columbia University.
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[TD] Protests erupted in the town of Tuzla over high unemployment and corrupt privatisation practices [AFP/Getty Images]

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[TD="class: DetailedSummary"] Whatever little semblance of legitimacy the constitutional order in Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) may have enjoyed at the beginning of this week went up in flames on Friday night. BiH's three Presidents, two entities, one special district, ten cantons and internationally appointed High Representative - the entirety of its bloated bureaucracy - witnessed the storming of their government offices in the cities of Tuzla, Sarajevo, Zenica, Bihac and Mostar.
As a result, at least two regional governments have collapsed, in the Tuzla and Zenica-Doboj cantons. What began as a local, anti-privatisation protest on Wednesday in Tuzla had grown by Friday into a general social insurrection.
Two years ago, I wrote that a "Bosnian Spring" was this country's only hope for a brighter future. Now, the spring has come, and with it, the storms.
For nearly twenty years, Bosnians and Herzegovinians have suffered under the administration of a vicious cabal of political oligarchs who have used ethno-nationalist rhetoric to obscure the plunder of BiH's public coffers. The official unemployment rate has remained frozen for years at around 40 percent, while the number is above 57 percent among youth. Shady privatisation schemes have dismantled what were once flourishing industries in Tuzla and Zenica, sold them off for parts, and left thousands of workers destitute, with many still owed thousands of dollars in back-pay. Pensions are miserly too; the sight of seniors digging through waste bins[Ba] is a regular one in every part of the country, while the wages of BiH's armies of bureaucrats and elected officials have only grown[Sr].
Pervasive corruption
After the general elections in 2010, it took sixteen months for a state government to be formed, one which collapsed almost immediately thereafter. Since then, on the rare occasion that Parliamentary sessions have actually been held, the members of this body have mostly concerned themselves with calling for the ouster of their political opponents. ZivkoBudimir, for instance, the president of the Federation entity, was arrested in April of last year on suspicions of corruption and bribery. He was released shortly thereafter for "lack of evidence" and has since returned to his post. As Sarajevo burnt on Friday, Budimir declared[Sr/Ba/Hr] that he would resign if the people insisted - apparently refusing to look out his window as he spoke.
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Several major elected official in BiH have been under investigation for corruption. In the Federation, the squabbling of Bosniak and Croat nationalists has immobilised government institutions. In the Republika Srpska(RS) entity, President Milorad Dodik has attempted to make himself synonymous with the Serb nation itself - hounding the few independent journalists and activists who dared challenge him.
But the ethno-nationalist rhetoric of these elites betrays the realities of BiH's true political economy: accumulation through dispossession. The graffiti on the walls of the burnt out husk of the Tuzla canton government now offers a stark rebuke to these policies: "You must all resign! Death to nationalism!"
The international community has, meanwhile, allowed this sordid state of affairs to fester since the signing of the Dayton Peace Accords in 1995. An initial period of reform between 1996 and 2006 has all but completely ceased and since then the country has jerked from one constitutional crisis to the next. All the while, seething public anger has repeatedly threatened to boil over, as it did this past summer during the so-called "Baby Revolution".
The reasons for this rage are simple: At no point have the international architects of peace in BiH expended any serious energy to include ordinary citizens, students, workers or pensioners in the reforms which European and American diplomats insist the country requires. Instead, by engaging exclusively with members of BiH's obstructionist and recalcitrant political establishment, they have only cemented the oligarchs in their posts while the pleas and demands of ordinary citizens, students, workers and civil rights activists have been ignored.
A transformed society
Now, the entire structure of the Dayton system, precisely because of the arrogant and ignorant practices of its local and international representatives, has all but collapsed in a single night. Attempts to shore up this system will be made, of course, but the psychological transformation we have witnessed in the people of BiH is now irreversible.
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[TD="class: caption"]Talk to Al Jazeera - Is another conflict looming in the Balkans?[/TD]
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A substantive parliamentary democracy fundamentally requires the autonomy of the citizenry and the expectation on the part of the ruling establishment that, unless they fulfil the needs and demands of their electors, they will be toppled - at the polls or in the streets. For twenty years this expectation has been absent in BiH. And for twenty years the ruling establishment has plundered freely. They have wrought so much misery that the speed with which the entire structure appeared to collapse on Friday left many citizens in utter disbelief.
In this mayhem, no small degree of confusion and fear will prevail. Many have already expressed anger towards the militants who torched the government buildings, claiming that the costs of the repairs will once again come out of the pockets of ordinary citizens. Such analysis, however, ignores the far more massive debts already incurred by all levels of government in BiH.
The Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PAIC), noted that the public sector debt with commercial banks doubled in the past four years and that: "A big part of corrupted activities stem from relations of government officials and commercial banks." The PAIC report suggested that the billions that have been borrowed have mostly ended up lining the pockets of individual politicians,they are, nonetheless, being paid back through the further gutting of BiH's few remaining social services. This popular uprising, however, has the potential to reverse this course.
There is also news of damage to part of the National Archives, rightfully eliciting anger in some quarters. Yet the National Museum of BiH has sat closed since October of 2012 and the country's other main cultural institutions are also struggling, to the dismay of a global network of activists and artists. Despite the existence of four separate levels of government, not one of them considers the preservation and financing of BiH's cultural monuments a priority. An institution that has survived three wars and has been operated continuously for a hundred and twenty four years is on the brink of collapse, not because of these protests, but because of these governments.
In the next few days, BiH will find itself a society transformed. Genuine change will require that those who have previously been excluded from power now have an opportunity to reshape their communities. The key organisers in Tuzla - more effective and popular than the current leaders, if this week's events are any indication - already form the basis for an interim government[Ba], one composed of the representatives of students and workers. Elsewhere, the situation is still evolving, but all foreseeable solutions include the same first step: The existing authorities must step down.
More broadly, there seems to be widespread support for the abolition or, at least, the reorganisation of the cantons: in short, a rationalisation of the state apparatus. The protestors realise that the country's dire economic situation is not merely the result of corrupt officials, but rather of the constitutional order itself. The changes they demand likewise address the system directly.
The fury on display in the streets of BiH over the past few days was an ugly sight. But what is still more hideous has been the past twenty years of corruption, thieving and manipulating on the part of the entirety of the BiH political establishment. Already, they have attempted to deny any personal responsibility and to offer duplicitous temporary solutions. It is much too late for them.
For the people of BiH, however, this is merely the beginning. Tumultuous days are no doubt ahead, but as long as the citizens of this little land do not forget the fear they inspired in their rulers tonight and continue to press their demands, together, they may yet usher in a truly democratic Spring. [/TD]
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http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion...98443.html