BOSNIA: VOTERS USE ELECTIONS TO TURN THEIR BACKS ON THE PARTIES THAT PREVIOUSLY LED THEM INTO WAR
Record ID:
328780
BOSNIA: VOTERS USE ELECTIONS TO TURN THEIR BACKS ON THE PARTIES THAT PREVIOUSLY LED THEM INTO WAR
- Title: BOSNIA: VOTERS USE ELECTIONS TO TURN THEIR BACKS ON THE PARTIES THAT PREVIOUSLY LED THEM INTO WAR
- Date: 11th November 2000
- Summary: SARAJEVO, BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA (NOVEMBER 9, 2000) (REUTERS) 1. GENERAL VIEW OF SARAJEVO SKYLINE 0.05 2. HAS CATHEDRAL AND A MOSQUE IN CENTRE OF SARAJEVO 0.10 3. SLV DESTROYED BUILDING OF SARAJEVO DAILY OSLOBODJENJE WITH TRAM PASSING BY 0.16 4. SLV DESTROYED HOTEL BRISTOL UNDER RECONSTRUCTION 0.20 5. SLV TRAM PASSING BY HOTEL HOLIDAY INN 0.25 6. SLV WOMAN WITH DOG WALKS DOWN THE SARAJEVO MAIN STREET PASSING BY STILL DESTROYED HOUSES AND NEWLY RECONSTRUCTED ONES 0.34 7. MV PEOPLE WALKING DOWN THE MAIN STREET WHILE VARIOUS POLITICAL PARTIES PROMOTE THEMSELVES ON THE BIG DISPLAY SCREEN 0.40 8. SLV WOMAN STANDING IN FRONT OF THE BIG PLACARD BY SDP SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY) WHICH READS "WITH US" 0.45 9. MV YOUNG WOMAN WITH CHILD SITTING ON HER SHOULDERS PASSES BY THE WALL COVERED WITH VARIOUS POLITICAL POSTERS 0.51 10. SCU POSTER BY HDZ ( CROAT DEMOCRATIC UNION ) THAT READS "SELF-DETERMINATION OR EXTERMINATION" 0.56 11. SLV POSTER OF HARIS SILAJDJIC, HEAD OF PARTY FOR BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA, ON THE BIG PLACARD IN THE MAIN STREET 1.01 12. SCUMAN STANDING IN FRONT OF THE POSTER WITH ALIJA IZETBEGOVIC, HEAD OF SDA (PARTY OF DEMOCRATIC ACTION) WHICH READS "WE ARE BETTER THAN OTHERS." 1.06 13. SLV/MV DOZEN SARAJEVANS PLAY CHESS IN THE STREET (WITH BIG PIECES AND CHESS-BOARD DRAWN ON ASPHALT); MAN MAKES HIS MOVE (2 SHOTS) 1.18 14. (SOUNDBITE) (Bosnian) LUKA MEDIC: "I'm sure that time of national parties must end and, if it doesn't happen now, we'll have big problems." 1.29 15. MV CHESS PIECES BEING MOVED 1.34 16. (SOUNDBITE) (Bosnian) ENVER TREPIC: "Bosnia has always depended on its Western and Eastern neighbours and, as the situation there has now improved, it will have a positive impact on Bosnia." 1.49 PALE, BOSNIA NOVEMBER 4, 2000 17. SLV STREET 1.54 18. MV MILORAD DODIK (THE PARTY OF INDEPENDENT SOCIAL DEMOCRATS) SERB REPUBLIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE ARRIVES 1.59 19. SCU INTERIORS YOUNG BOYS IN AUDIENCE HOLDING FLAGS 2.04 20. MV/SLV DODIK ARRIVES ON STAGE; EMBRACES WOMAN AND LEAVES STAGE (3 SHOTS) 2.22 21. (SOUNDBITE) (Serbian) MILORAD DODIK, WESTERN-BACKED PREMIER OF SERB REPUBLIC: "People may vote for SDS, but if they decide to be rational, then they should turn against SDS, because currently SDS can't do any good to the Serb Republic." 2.37 PALE, BOSNIA NOVEMBER 3, 2000 22. SLV SUPPORTERS OF THE SDS (THE SERB DEMOCRATIC PARTY) DRIVING DOWN STREETS 2.45 23. LAS AUDIENCE TILT DOWN AUDIENCE APPLAUD 2.54 24. MV MIRKO SAROVIC, SERB REPUBLIC PRESIDENTAL CANDIDATE WAVES TO HIS SUPPORTERS AND TAKES THE FLOOR (2 SHOTS) 3.08 25. (SOUNDBITE IN SERB) MIRKO SAROVIC: "This is not a duel between Mirko Sarovic and Milorad Dodik only. This is a confrontation of two concepts and two policies, and its outcome will determine the future of the Serb Republic." 3.27 26. SLV STAGE 3.32 TRAVNIK, BOSNIA NOVEMBER 9, 2000 27. MV ALIJA IETBEGOVIC, THE HEAD OF THE SDA PARTY ARRIVES IN BOSNIAN TOWN OF TRAVNIK; SLV SDA RALLY IN TRAVNIK; SCU CHILDREN IN AUDIENCE (3 SHOTS) 3.50 28. (SOUNDBITE IN BOSNIAN) ALIJA IZETBEGOVIC "We want reconciliation between nations and people, because it's a profound precondition for existence of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a free, prosperous and independent country. We want the war criminals to be arrested, regardless of their nationality." 4.18 29. MV IZETBEGOVIC AT PODIUM; SLV SDA SUPPORTERS WITH OPEN UMBRELLAS LISTEN TO ALIJA IZETBEGOVIC (2 SHOTS) 4.28 MOSTAR, BOSNIA (NOVEMBER 8, 2000) 30. SLV SUPPORTERS OF HDZ ( CROAT DEMOCRATIC UNION) ATTEND THE FINAL PRE-ELECTION DEMO OF THIS PARTY IN BOSNIAN TOWN OF MOSTAR PAN TO TRADITIONAL DANCERS 4.38 31. SLV DANCER SWIRLING FLAG; SLV FLAGS AND AUDIENCE (2 SHOTS) 4.47 32. MV ANTE JELAVIC, THE HEAD OF THE HDZ AND CROAT MEMBER IN THE BOSNIAN THREE-MAN PRESIDENCY GETS ON THE PODIUM 4.55 33. (SOUNDBITE) (Croatian) ANTE JELAVIC: "Croats have lost more than others by the Dayton Peace Accord. We lost half of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The international community gave the Serb Republic to Serbs and the Federation to us, where is no parity, consensus and equal rights for us, and which is a prison for Croat people." 5.16 34. SLV HDZ SUPPORTERS APPLAUD TO ANTE JELAVIC 5.21 SARAJEVO NOVEMBER 9, 2000 35. HAS INTERIOR OF ZETRA HALL WHERE SDP (SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY) HAD ITS FINAL PRE-ELECTION RALLY34. ZLATKO LAGUMDJIJA, THE HEAD OF THE SDP GETS ON THE PODIUM; RALLY (5 SHOTS) 5.52 36. (SOUNBITE) (Bosnian) ZLATKO LAGUMDJIJA: "A man told me that he wanted to join the SDP, because nobody in this party asked what nationality he was, and, because of his nationality, he had lost his job. That's what we can see all around this country now, but what we don't want to see any more." 6.23 37. HAS STAGE AND AUDIENCE CLAPPING AND CHEERING 6.27 38. SCU ZLATKO LAGUMDJIJA SIGNING AUTOGRAPHS 6.33 39. SLV STREET SCENE WITH POLITICAL BILLBOARDS 6.37 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
- Embargoed: 26th November 2000 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: SARAJEVO, PALE AND TRAVNIK, BOSNIA
- Country: Bosnia
- Reuters ID: LVA974AB876XKHDU4URZTURIZ8HD
- Story Text: Across former Yugoslavia, voters have used elections
this year to turn their backs on the parties that led them
into war.
Bosnia, which suffered most in the bloodshed that
stained Europe at the turn of the millennium, gets its chance
to choose on Saturday (November 11).
But, while there are signs of weariness with politics
based on national identity, it is by no means certain that all
of Bosnia's three main groups will choose moderates, as their
neighbours in Croatia, Yugoslavia and Kosovo have done.
The West, which struggled with the war and is still
struggling with the peace, has made loud calls for change,
using posters, video clips and an election song to send its
message.
"Why are you always playing the same song when you can
choose?" sing three young girls, a Moslem, Serb and Croat who,
with a little help from their Western sponsors, even made it
on to the satellite music television channel MTV.
In another Western-funded video clip, cartoon characters
complain about their daily lives and then cower as a voice
from a thunder cloud tells them there are more important goals
-- a reference to nationalists' calls to defend the three
groups.
Those calls have been loudest in Croat areas, where the
Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) warns that "extermination"
looms if voters abandon it in favour of more moderate parties
which, it says, are being unfairly favoured by the West.
The Moslem Party of Democratic Action (SDA), campaigning
on its wartime record of defending Bosnia's largest group
against efforts by Serbs and Croats to split the former
Yugoslav republic between them, has also cried foul.
The Serb Democratic Party (SDS), however, has kept its
anti-Western rhetoric to a minimum, mildly dismissing charges
by U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Richard Holbrooke that it is
"criminal" and denying links to suspected war criminals like
its founder, the wartime Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic.
Unlike the other two nationalist parties, seen losing
ground to moderates in the elections, opinion polls show
strong public support for the SDS allegation that it is the
Western-backed premier of the Serb entity, Milorad Dodik, who
is corrupt.
This has given the West's attempt to persuade voters to
"vote out corruption" a
double-edged effect in the Serb republic, one of two entities
in post-war Bosnia, and increased SDS confidence that it can
sweep to victory there.
The anti-corruption message is key to the international
community, which believes that while war is no longer
imminent, it could break out again, unless economic
improvements replace national grievances in the minds of
people on all three sides.
The West has poured billions of dollars into Bosnia since
Holbrooke brokered a peace deal at a U.S. military air base in
Dayton, Ohio, in 1995, but recovery has been painfully slow,
some of the funds have simply vanished and patience is running
out.
A year after its conflict, Kosovo is already being called
a future Taiwan of the Balkans, economically successful,
despite its disputed status, Croatia is moving towards
European integration and even Yugoslavia has started on its way.
But in Bosnia huge swathes of countryside remain dotted
with abandoned, half-destroyed houses, as local politicians in
the Serb republic and Moslem-Croat federation block refugees
return to entrench the ethnic separation brought by the
conflict.
And both Croat and Serb nationalists have warned they
might move to boycott the joint institutions Western officials
are trying to build up to prevent Bosnia sliding back to war
when some 20,000 NATO-led peacekeepers eventually pull out.
Western officials say this is just pre-election rhetoric
and attributed the complaints of Moslem and Croat nationalists
to panic that they will lose Saturday's elections for regional
and central parliaments.
They concede that, in Serb-controlled areas, where there
will be a presidential election alongside the parliamentary
poll, nationalism has a firm grip, but hope that, overall,
Bosnians will make a break with the past.
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