Difficult reconciliation in Bosnia-Herzegovina

Sarajevo-Rome, April 19, 1998 (IKA/SIR) – In a special supplement, the Italian Catholic news agency SIR published an interview with Auxiliary Bishop Pero Sudar of Sarajevo. The main topics of conversation were the Dayton agreement and the prospects for reconciliation and co-existence in Bosnia-Herzegovina:

“After everything that happened, the Dayton agreement cannot function perceptibly in daily life because someone who has been wounded – and we are deeply wounded in every sense – cannot get up right away and walk but must stand in place for a long time. This does not mean that the treatments are not effective. Even if the Dayton diagnosis is wrong …” “In what sense is it wrong?” asked the journalist.
Bishop Sudar replied, “First of all, it is positive that the war has stopped. However, Dayton intervened as a judge between two warring parties and separated them. This is not sufficient for them to live together again. Dayton stopped the war, that is its positive aspect.
However, it divided us in what was perhaps an irreversible manner. Dayton is the image of our time, our present culture. There are those who do not dare tell the patient the truth, out of interest or fear. Dayton did not tell the truth about Bosnia-Herzegovina; it was not in a position to make the accurate diagnosis that Bosnia must survive as a country in which those who fought have to learn to live with one another again. I am convinced that without such a perspective, peace cannot be built, and we have all wagered on peace. Without reconciliation, without forgiveness, there is no peace. However, it is necessary to renew the truth. Did Dayton express or conceal the truth? In other words, do those who have taken the goods of others have to return them? According to Dayton, 49% of Bosnia-Herzegovina belongs to only one nation, those who caused this misfortune.”
The journalist asked Bishop Sudar, “Weren#!t Tudjman#!s speeches from 1991 alarming to the Croatian Serbs?”
Bishop Sudar responded, “Now we are speaking about Bosnia-Herzegovina. If we want to speak about Croatia, I shall do so gladly. However, now we are speaking about Bosnia. Here, before war broke out, a referendum was held in which 64% of the population freely voted for independence, i.e. for coexistence, for a transition without war. One nation announced that it did not want this and began the war.
If the Serbs in Croatia feared Tudjman, what were Serbs afraid of here or, at the beginning, in Slovenia?” asked Bishop Sudar. “Dayton has two aspects: one positive, because it stopped the war; the second, negative, because it makes peace impossible. The war has ended but the peace is postponed. People are afraid and instead of returning, they are leaving. Our youngest families are leaving, educated people. The country is assaulted by diplomacy that attempts to protect some interests with strategy that the majority do not understand. This is the problem of our war and our situation, in the global sense. When returning to daily life, only interest seems to be important, only force, power. Poor people are the most ill used. The evil sown by a lack of moral principles grows, bearing fruits that make life impossible for all the small and the weak.
Under communism, I could survive, although I was forsaken. However, i kept within myself a concept of justice. I was convinced that I had to sacrifice and many people were similarly prepared. The war destroyed houses and people. Since someone was able without reason to destroy the house in which I was born and where my ancestors lived, without even receiving moral condemnation, who guarantees to me that I will be able to rebuild my house under safe conditions? This is why Dayton is untenable.
It has negated the rights of 2,600,000 people to return to their own homes. We are very grateful to those who stopped the war but, to our sorrow, they have not taken a single step further,” concluded Bishop Sudar in his interview.