Bosnia: reopening old wounds

Two Bosnian Muslim generals appear in court at The Hague next week, which marks the 12th anniversary of the notorious Srebrenica massacre.

Rasim Delic's trial opens on Monday.  In 1993, foreign Muslim volunteers -- 'mujahedin' -- killed Croats and Serbs out of hand in central Bosnia.  Delic led the Bosnian Republic's army at the time, fighting for an integrated, multi ethnic state.  Courts will have to decide if Delic knew what the mujahedin were up to, but turned a blind eye. They are still there, a thorn in Sarajevo's side, living in separate fundamentalist communities and embarrassing the pro-US government, particularly since the al-Qaida attacks of 2001.

Sefer Halilovic's appeal starts the next day.  In November 2005, the Hague court decided the prosecution failed to tie Halilovic to an operation in September 1993, during which mujahedin murdered, raped and abused captives.  The prosecution has appealed against that verdict.  Croats in particular were furious that Halilovic had got off.

There is the extra resonance of Wednesday's bloody anniversary. Bosnians remember Srebrenica, where Ratko Mladic's Bosnian Serbs slaughtered up to 8,000 men and boys who surrendered after the fall of the so-called 'safe haven' in 1995.

A new international viceroy, Slovak diplomat Miroslav Lajcak, has also just taken over in Sarajevo.  On his first day in office, Lajcak told Bosnians it did not take a political analyst to spot the prevailing atmosphere of malice, intolerance and suspicion.  Lajcak is right:  Bosnia's politicians like saying 'no', and consequently the country is right at the back of the queue to get into the European Union. 

For political compromise is not the Bosnian way.  Despite the Dayton ceasefire, a still deeply divided country constantly refreshes its memories of the bitter 1992-95 war.  In Bosnia, politics is war by other means, and looks set to stay that way.