The choice of peace, 30 years after the genocide

Here are the victims of the massacre of Srebrenica, the last genocide suffered by Europe, recognized as such by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. On July 11, 1995, the Army of Bosnia Serbs, commanded by General Ratko Mladic, entered Srebrenica, a Muslim enclave then under the protection of Dutch peacekeepers. These, helpless or outdated, do not intervene. In eleven days, more than 8,000 Bosnian men and adolescents are executed in warehouses, fields or surrounding forests.

Thirty years later, Bosnia is preparing to commemorate the tragedy. Foreign heads of state, representatives of the European Union, as well as tens of thousands of people are expected in Srebrenica CE11 July 2025. The cemetery, which welcomes some 150,000 visitors per year, has become a symbol in spite of itself. We especially see Bosnians and Europeans there. The Croats are very interested in it. The Serbs do not come.

Miniature Yugoslavia

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, war is over. But peace, in this country of 3.4 million inhabitants where citizens are called all Bosnians, resembles cohabitation. There are 50 % of Bosnians (Muslims), 30 % of Serbs (Orthodox), 15 % of Croats (Catholics), which rarely mix. We are talking about miniature Yugoslavia: a concentrate of religious diversity, political complexity and contained tensions.

Bosnia was born from the Dayton agreements, signed in December 1995 to arrest war. Since then, the country has been shared in two major entities. On the one hand, the Croato-Muslim Federation; On the other, the Serbian Republic of Bosnia (Republika Srpska), with a Serbian majority. Each manages its schools, its flags, its heroes. An autonomous district, BRCKO, is added to the whole.

At the top, a rotating presidential trio, supposed to represent the three “constitutive peoples”, struggles to operate a frozen state and a sclerotic economy. Since the end of the conflict, almost a quarter of the population has left the country, for Germany, Austria or Switzerland. But the country is shaking up at regular intervals. In recent months, Milorad Dodik, President of the Serbian Republic of Bosnia, has revived the secessionist threat, raised a “return to Serbian sovereignty”. In Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia, there is a switch. In Brussels, we strive not to think too much about it.

Mustafa Meskovic Box is the first thing we notice. War, necessarily. “A grenade projected me fifteen meters in the air in 1995, I fell on the side of the trench, it broke my back,” says this Bosnian farmer, strawberry producer and manager of a cooperative. He was 25 years old.

Mustafa lives and works in Celic, a border town on the separation line with the Republika Srpska. The Serbs opposite, he knows them well, he went to school with it, he also fought them. When his assistant Hajrudin Karamovic reaches out, it is impossible not to notice that a ball has pierced the left forearm to him. Engaged in the army at 17, Hajrudin finished decorated with gold lily, the highest Bosnian military distinction. With Mustafa, they fought in the vicinity of Celic.

By selling their products there, they meet Serbs, who remained their neighbors. How to live with his former enemies? “We never talk about war, not time to think about it. We live together now, and our children will do the same, ”says Mustafa. One day, during a barbecue at the end of the harvest, a Serb remembers having crossed them on the battlefield. They too remember it. No one had pulled. “We often lowered arms, on both sides. We grew up together, ”explains Mustafa with gravity. Can war resume? No one believes it here. “The past is the past. But you can never predict the future, especially in the Balkans. »»

Possible cohabitation

Celic is part of an unprecedented intercommunality in Bosnia. Five Bosnian and Serbs cities have been cooperating since 2019 around the Majevica, a mountain known for its spectacular views and spring water. Objective: develop tourism. It was necessary to clear: 70 people jumped on a mine since 1996. On May 16, 2025, the big day arrived: the area was officially declared cleaned.

“This is the project that I am most proud of. Peace has convinced patrons. The German Parliament has released eight million euros, ”explains Admir Hrustanovic, mayor of Celic for four years. He too has waged war. Volunteer “at 16 and a half”, he finished commander of a section.

Like strawberry producers, he does not believe in the return of hostilities. “Young people do not talk about it. They just want to start a family, have professional opportunities, live … ”, assures the councilor. Today, he sometimes hunts with Serbs. He has just hanged up with his Lopare counterpart, the neighboring Serbian city, on the other side of the administrative border.

This is where Branko Stankovic, dentist, writer, activist. In Lopare, we are still fighting for the land, but this time against a Swiss firm, which wants to open a lithium mine on Mount Majvica (916 m), with the discreet support of the authorities of the Republika Srpska. “A disaster for everyone,” says Branko. The mountain would be ripped off, the sources poisoned. In Lopare, green tourism would sink; In Celic, the strawberry business would disappear.

His fight is also memorial. If the mine passes, the reconciliation project for the five mountain municipalities collapses. Branko loves this link between the former enemy brothers, he who studied in Sarajevo to the outbreak of war. “In 1992, the atmosphere was heavy, we knew that something was going to happen. Today, this is not the case. He marks a break. “With the distance, it seems surreal. But it’s over. Hatred is gone. »»

Go by

Zepce, Central Bosnia, 1993. The worst battles of the conflict. In this Croato-Bosnian area, both camps, after repelling the Serbs, turn against each other. A war in the war which also includes its batch of ethnic cleaning.

In Zepce, the agreement took a long time to settle. Until 2005, segregation divided the city. Croats and Bosnians each have their administration, their schools, their police, their hospital. Doctors respect the Hippocratic oath but the blocking comes from patients. “They did not trust the doctors on the other side. The elderly stayed at home and died, ”explains Ilija Baresic, deputy mayor in charge of social affairs for twenty-one years.

The 63 -year -old man waged war in the Croatian forces of Bosnia, the HVO. He fought some of his current citizens. He prefers to silence the past and focus on what has changed, because in Zepce, it’s getting better. The ethnic division has disappeared. “People were fed up, that rotted life,” he explains.

What Ilija Baresic is the most proud of: the end of the “two schools, a roof” system. This model, inherited from the post-war period, educated Bosnian and Croats in the same building, but with rooms, schedules, different teachers, sometimes even a fence in the courtyard. A contactless coexistence, born of distrust. In Zepce, it was removed in the 2010s, even if history and geography are still taught according to ethnic groups. “The law authorizes 25 % differences, we try to do less,” admits Ilija Baresic, a little embarrassed.

Leaving his office, the deputy mayor takes a tour of Zepce to show the harmony that reigns there. At the local coffee, he spreads his arms: “Look at this. The Bosnians drink coffee, beer Croats, people coexist. To the fateful question of the return of war, he answers: “Never of life. My God ! »»

But when we talk about politics in Bosnia, it changes frequency without realizing it. “The Croatian minority must have more rights. The Serbs have their entity, the Bosnians dominate ours, we have nothing. Suddenly, the facade of the unit is cracking.

In this country that has experienced ethnic purification, trauma is quickly revealed. If in the 1990s, the law of the strongest prevailed, henceforth, it is a question of not being in a position of weakness, political and demographic. Earlier in the day, Ilija Baresic launched: “I survived a genocide. His pain, still present, had prevented him from going further.

A nationalism of loyalty

In Banja Luka, capital of the Bosnian Serbs, another paradox is obvious. His reputation is scary, we imagine paramilitar parades and graffiti to the glory of war criminals. In reality, the city is soft, neat and it is quickly understood that war will not come back, because no one wants to die. However, the vote is nationalist. By conviction, but also by loyalty. The identity serves as a shield. And in this suradminized country where unemployment is around 30 %, to vote for the dominant party is to hope for hiring in administration, promotion and support. “I know lots of people who would vote for their whole family for President Dodik if it guaranteed their daughter a job,” says Véronika, Banja Serbian Luka, mother of two.

Added to the influence of the diaspora, several million people left in the 1990s, which remain frozen in war patterns. Their vote is often more radical than that of their compatriots who remained in the country. Result: each ballot becomes an ethnic vote, not a choice of society.

Dayton agreements have froze the cleavages: thirty years later, peace can no longer be the only political project. “We need an additional new generation,” explains Marijan Jevic, a young Serbian theologian, moved as a child by the conflict. Véronika, she says she is “open and cosmopolitan”. However, she refuses to speak of genocide in Srebrenica. “I will say it when we talk about ours. A feeling of injustice flowing in the veins of Bosnian Serbs.

At a time when peace sounds hollow in Ukraine not so distant or in the Middle East, this country recalls that it does not fall from heaven. She is soaring and training herself day after day between neighbors, former enemies, displaced families. It is a process, slow, imperfect, but possible.