Where are then more than 32,000 Serbs who, according to the last prewar census from 1991, lived in these two municipalities supposed to return?
The Croats, probably won't return. If they had an intention of living here, they wouldn't, although until the capture of Mrkonjic Grad and Sipovo its Croat inhabitants had lived peacefully in the Republic Srpska, left their houses and followed the Croatian troops to Herceg-Bosna.
The HVO and the Croatian Army have probably with the destruction of these places, also closed the door of return to their federal partners, muslims.
In view of these developments, the guarantee of return for all refugees and expelled individuals to their homes in the Dayton agreement, seems meaningless. Will the international community, besides the good will, show the readiness to financially aid the rebuilding of not only Mrkonjic Grad and Sipovo, but also of Grahovo, Mostar, Derventa, Sarajevo and other in this war destroyed places in the former Bosnia-Hercegovina?
Or, will the world, as when the Croatian troops destroyed and burned Mrkonjic Grad and Sipovo, only stand on the sidelines and observe the events while stating that the behavior of the Croatian soldiers cannot be justified.
If that is the case, than the return of the refugees and the expelled people will be a slow and difficult process which will never be completely finished. Since, the rebuilding of Bosnia-Hercegovina requires, according to the official estimates of the government in Sarajevo, $15 billion.
The economy of Bosnia-Hercegovina, even if it were capable of tomorrow returning to the prewar level, couldn't produce that amount of money even by the end of the first half of the next century. A good part of the homeless will not be among the living by then.
The living, probably, won't care about the return. The international community would practically condone ethnic cleansing, for which it has reserved the strongest condemnation, besides war crimes, during the Bosnian bloodbath.
As far as Mrkonjic Grad and Sipovo are concerned, the fire in which the fruits of labor of generations of their inhabitants had been destroyed had been started in peace, after the signing of the peace agreement in Dayton. No one has ever warmed himself on that sort of fire.
The war destruction of these places during the first ten days of September, 1995, was horrible. This can be seen from the fact that over 4,000 high caliber grenades were fired on Mrkonjic Grad during one day. The damage inflicted in such a way still hasn't discouraged the inhabitants of Mrkonjic Grad and Sipovo, who on Sunday morning, flooded back to see their destroyed homes. Their emotional reactions were reserved for that portion of damage which had been inflicted, prior to their withdrawal, by the soldiers from the HVO and the regular Croatian Army; at the time when they controlled this area, after the Dayton peace agreement had already been signed.
We'll use a story from Sipovo to illustrate the extent of destruction: It is Sunday, about 3p.m.; it is raining and we are standing at the Freedom Square in front of building number 5. It hasn't been burned down. A man is looking at us from the second floor, probably surprised to see journalists out here. We ask, "What is is like up there?" "Come and see for yourself," responds the stranger.
We approach the entrance in spite of warnings that it is dangerous to enter buildings because of mines. The house is flooded: the water comes almost to our knees. Carefully, we climb the stairs, which are covered with piles of plaster. The walls look as if someone tried to "dig" through them with a hoe or something like that.
Ostoja Antic, 36 years old officer of the VRS [Bosnian Serb Army], dressed in civilian clothing (uniforms and arms are banned in the separation zones) waits for us on the second floor; before the war Mr. Antic was a mechanical engineer; he is a father of two small children, who had fled with their mother, a physics teacher, to Serbia.
Ostoja helplessly surveys his apartment. The tiles in a narrow corridor had been pulled out; the only piece of furniture in the corridor is a small side cupboard. In a room on the left side, there is no furniture, only a huge pile of plaster in the middle. The windows had been pulled out, the walls are damp. In the other room, the parquet floor has risen so high because of the dampness that it is impossible to step over it to the other half of the room! In a corner of one of the rooms there are a few pieces of a chair and that is all that's left.
The bathtub is full of plaster. The kitchen is empty, the windows had been taken from there as well. We enter the last room: a couch had been ripped apart. Parquet floor has risen because of the dampness. On a small table, next to the "window" we find an empty photo album. "Did you take the photographs?" we ask. "No, not even a single one. They took everything and deliberately left the empty photo album. That's their message," Ostoja says quietly.
We are standing, there's nowhere to sit. Ostoja admits that he feels hopeless and humiliated, "it is my misery to have eyes and be forced to look at all this."
What are his expectations now? "I don't know," he says, "there's not a single square foot of livable space here..."
This Sunday, a lot of "Ostojas" from Mrkonjic Grad and Sipovo stared at the remnants of their hard earned property. A small number decided to stay and a substantial return cannot be expected before the Spring and the time to start the farm work. As far as the towns are concerned, the return can be expected when the hospital, the post office and other institutions receive the most basic equipment...
At this time, window panes, windows and doors are the most sought item.
At least to stop the draft for those who had returned.
Homes and Jobs Vital for Lasting Peace in Bosnia, The Electronic Telegraph, 3/18 1996.