Five years in Bosnia

By Ron Jensen
Stars and Stripes

Ivana Avramovic / Stars and Stripes Elementary school students wait for the second shift of classes to start at the school in Modrica, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Due to a lack of moneythe town is not able to complete construction of another school that would ease the overcrowding.

The search was for progress, evidence that the peacekeeping mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina has not been for naught five years after the country ended the war against itself.

This was a scouting mission for economic progress and for jobs, for if this mission is to end, it will come only when Bosnians are back to work, pocketing paychecks and building for themselves the safe and secure environment now being provided by the armed troops of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and its partners.

A man with a job, a wife at home and children in school is unlikely to be swayed by talk of further war.

But everyone knows jobs are hard to find in Bosnia. The unemployment rate hovers in the stratosphere. Most of the factories remain idle, awaiting the money it will take for them to rumble to life. Farmers who once sold their goods in the marketplace now lack the machinery to do more than till enough land for their own tables.

Two cities — Modrica and Gradacac — were chosen for this search. The first, which had a prewar population of about 36,000, is in the Republic of Srpska. The other, home to more than 50,000 people in 1992, is only 10 miles away, but across the interentity boundary line and in the Muslim-Croat Federation.

Both were once towns of ethnically-mixed populations. Now, Modrica is overwhelmingly a Bosnian-Serb town, and Gradacac is almost exclusively a Bosnian-Muslim town.

Each town received extensive physical damage in the war, being just a stone’s throw — or a mortar shell’s arc — from the front lines. They have repaired the cosmetic damage, but the economies are still war victims, limping along from combat wounds.

Novak Jovic sighs and taps ash from the end of his cigarette.

"I’m not happy," he says. "We expected more support from the international community."

He is head of the economic department of Modrica, a position he has held since spring.

"There are a great number of people looking for a job," he says. "It is a big problem."

Jovic says about 3,600 people are working in the town. He says about that many are looking for work.

But he doesn’t believe his own figures. He says the number of job seekers is greater than the number he mentioned.

Most of his day is spent working on a five-year plan for the city. It will tell potential investors of the city’s potential. He hopes it will help loosen their wallets. The biggest need now for Modrica is investment, he says, investment from the international community and from foreign businessmen.

"When we finish this plan, we will know how much money we need," he says. "It’s hard to talk about money because you never have enough."

But if Jovic were a foreign investor, would he put money in Modrica or anywhere in Bosnia?

"Yes," he says instantly. "I don’t see a reason for them not to invest."

Jovic would ask them to invest in the town’s factories, still broken and battered from the war. "We’re talking about millions of marks," he says.

Down the street, Mihajlo Milosevic says the region also needs money for agriculture. He operates an agriculture supply store for the local cooperative.

This was an exporting region before the war. Now it imports chickens from Holland.

"The economy is renewing, but not as fast as it should," Milosevic says. "It all depends, at the moment, on the international community, in my opinion."

The farmers lost their machinery during the war. They have no money to buy new machinery. On the land where they once produced food to feed many, they are barely able to provide for their own families.

"We have land here that is as fertile as the good land in California," says Milosevic. "Farming was very developed here before the war."

If the farmers could work, they would sell their produce and use the money to buy in the shops. If the farmers could work, the entire region would benefit, he says.

"Nobody works now," Milosevic says.

That’s not entirely true. Near the edge of town in a factory as clean and well lit as any found anywhere, about 120 workers — mostly women — lean into their sewing machines and produce shoes that are exported to Germany, about 14,000 a month. For this, they are paid about $120 a month.

Ilija Jevtic, owner of the shoe factory called Alfa, employs people from all ethnic groups.

"I never liked nationalist parties," says Jevtic. "I am a Serb and I will remain a Serb, but I love all people."

He makes that point often as he talks: "Muslims, Croats and Serbs will say ‘hi’ to me."

Jevtic owns this place. It is his. The other industries in Modrica — the oil refinery, the larger shoe factory, the manufacturer of building supplies and others — are all still state-owned, awaiting buyers.

Ivana Avramovic / Stars and Stripes More than 100 workers make shoes for export at the Alfa factory in Modrica, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

His production is slowed, he says, by the heavy tax burden. For each salary he pays, he pays about 90 percent more in taxation and insurance. It makes it difficult to expand the work force.

"If these taxes were lower, they would have a higher salary and a better life," Jevtic says.

He agrees that the country needs more investment from outside. And that investment should be given directly to the private sector.

"They give to the government institutions, which put it in their own pockets," he says, offering a familiar lament.

If there is reason for optimism in Modrica, it is Alfa. It has a sizable work force, but, more importantly, it has a market for its goods. Its German partner has confidence enough to provide Alfa with the materials in exchange for the labor that produces the shoes.

It is progress, however slight.

Down the road and across the unmarked boundary between the two cities, things are not much different. Gradacac is a bustling town on market day with cars parked here and there, wherever there is space.

Outwardly, the scene is one of prosperity, but that is a foolish notion.

Just ask Senad Vukovic, the assistant to the mayor.

The tobacco factory is doing well, relatively. So is the factory that makes engine parts. And the textile plant is making clothes.

"If it weren’t for those three, it would be a very sad picture of the economy here," says Vukovic in his dark office above the hustle of the street.

About 5,000 people are working — 4,000 in production and 1,000 in services, he says. About 4,500 are registered at the employment office looking for work.

But numbers here are as useful as a lumberjack on a submarine. There is no way to count the number of black-market workers. And each days brings new refugees to town and takes a few away.

Back in Modrica, Jovic pined for the investment that comes to the federation. Here, Vukovic wishes for the low taxes that are found in the Serbian portion of the country. The low taxes can help stimulate employment.

Since the search is for progress, the searchers are directed to Duhan, the tobacco factory and the office of Semsudin Besirovic, the factory director.

The factory provides farmers with seed and money to plant and tend a tobacco crop. It then buys the crop and sells it to the cigarette makers.

"We don’t have many employees," says Besirovic. "Before the war we had about 100. Now we have about 50."

The factory does, however, keep about 500 farmers employed with the production of tobacco.

Besirovic has a large office and nearly bare walls. The smell of ripening tobacco is evident.

"We need foreign capital very much to open up public works, like highway construction," he says. "We also need to help the development of small and middle-sized companies that could employ a great army of unemployed."

Ivana Avramovic / Stars and Stripes A wedding shop displays gowns that are out of reach for most Gradacac residents.

But to get the investment, he says, the country needs law and order and stability. He understands the risk that investors fear. Until that fear subsides, the money will not come.

Not far from Duhan is Kula, a clothing manufacturer. Inside, 730 workers — mostly women, again — sew, iron, cut and fold clothes that are bound for the best stores in London and Stockholm and other European cities.

Muner Novalic, the head of contracting for the manufacturer, says he once saw David Duchovny wearing a Kula jacket on an episode of The X-Files.

This factory, shut down during the war, was jump-started with about $2 million of aid after the fighting ended. When it reopened, workers toiled for six months with no salary, simply the promise that a paycheck would eventually come.

Now, some people make more than $200 a month, not a bad salary in Bosnia.

No one here makes less than $100 a month.

The clothes they make, however, sell for much more than that. A raincoat made here sells for more than $300 in Paris.

Novalic is asked what the country needs for economic progress to move at a faster rate. He says it needs investment, but he said Bosnia must make itself attractive to investors.

"For any company from Bosnia to succeed, our country needs to get back a good reputation in the world, the reputations of a settled country," he says.

Bosnia must have law and order. It must have even and fair taxation. And it must have honest government.

"This lawful, orderly state is one of the preconditions," he says.

Novalic is asked if Kula is a success story and he says that it definitely is.

The company’s foreign partners are not doing business here because they feel sorry for the company. They expect and receive high-quality goods.

So is this progress? Well, yes, in the sense that people are working and the workplace seems stable. But like Alfa in nearby Modrica, the product of the labor is sent abroad, making Bosnia attractive for its cheap labor more than anything else. It is like a "Made in Thailand" label on a pair of running shoes.

But in a country where few people have a steady paycheck, no one seems to mind what stimulates the economy as long as the economy is stimulated.

One is reminded of something Novalic said during a tour of his plant.

Bosnians, he said, often talk about joining Europe. This is a ridiculous idea, he says.

He tells them, "You are in Europe. You just need to become a European country."

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     Timeline of the mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina
     Map of U.S. bases used during Bosnia mission (opens new window)

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