NORWEGIAN HOUSING AND RETURN PROJECTS IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA
Report by Karin Lisa Kirkengen
NORDEM Report 18/2006 Copyright: the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights/NORDEM and Karin Lisa Kirkengen.
NORDEM, the Norwegian Resource Bank for Democracy and Human Rights, is a programme of the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights (NCHR), and has as its main objective to actively promote international human rights. NORDEM is jointly administered by NCHR and the Norwegian Refugee Council. NORDEM works mainly in relation to multilateral institutions. The operative mandate of the programme is realised primarily through the recruitment and deployment of qualified Norwegian personnel to international assignments that promote democratisation and respect for human rights. The programme is responsible for the training of personnel before deployment and reporting on completed assignments, and plays a role in research related to areas of active involvement. The vast majority of assignments are channelled through the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
NORDEM Report is a series of reports documenting NORDEM activities and is published jointly by NORDEM and the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights.
Series editor: Hege Mørk
Series consultants: Turid Wulff Knutsen, Christian Boe Astrup
The opinions expressed in this report are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the publisher.
ISSN: 1503–1330
ISBN 10: 82-8158-032-1
ISBN 13: 978-82-8158-032-9
NORDEM Report is available online at: http://www.humanrights.uio.no/forskning/publ/publikasjonsliste.html
Preface The report was commissioned by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the beginning of 2005 and it was researched and written between February 2005 and February 2006. The author of the report, Karin Lisa Kirkengen, worked in Bosnia and Herzegovina for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNCHR) and the European Union Monitoring Mission (EUMM) between October 2000 and November 2004, mainly in the fields of refugee return, property law implementation and political monitoring.
The main findings of the report were presented to the staff of the Norwegian Embassy in Sarajevo on 20 September 2006 and in an open session at the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights on 9 November 2006.
The Norwegian Centre for Human Rights / NORDEM University of Oslo December 2006
Contents Preface Contents Table of figures...... 6 Introduction...... 7 Scope and purpose of the study ...... 7 Brief overview of return and reconstruction in BiH ...... 7 History of return...... 7 Aims and strategies for the international community’s involvement in return ...... 8 Methodology ...... 11 Archive study...... 11 Sources of information...... 11 Categorisation of projects ...... 12 IDP/refugee accommodation ...... 13 Majority housing...... 13 Minority housing...... 13 Field study...... 14 Sample selection ...... 14 Data collection and analysis...... 14 Terms and definitions ...... 15 Ethnicity...... 15 Minority/majority...... 15 Urban/rural...... 16 Archive study...... 17 Overview of all Norwegian funded and/or implemented projects...... 17 Overview of Norwegian funded projects...... 21 Number of projects and houses, implementing agencies and donors ...... 21 Locations...... 22 Project types...... 22 Funding ...... 23 Developments over time ...... 25 Occupancy and return rate ...... 29 Reconstruction model ...... 30 Beneficiary selection...... 32 Criteria for beneficiary selection ...... 33 Other project output ...... 35 Co-operation and co-ordination ...... 35 Project objectives and rationale ...... 36 Field Study...... 38 Background of returnees and return locations ...... 38 Return location profile ...... 38 Sarajevo Stari Grad...... 38 Mostar ...... 39 Bosanski Petrovac...... 39 Kljuc...... 40
Brcko District...... 41 Brod...... 42 Derventa...... 42 Modrica...... 43 Interviewee profile...... 44 Interviewees’ displacement history...... 44 Interviewees’ return history ...... 45 Reconstruction assistance ...... 46 Other return related assistance...... 51 Sustainability of return...... 52 Current return/occupancy rate...... 53 Future stability/growth of return population...... 54 Likelihood of further return ...... 54 Wish for re-migration ...... 54 Presence of young people ...... 55 Standard of life...... 57 Physical and legal security...... 57 Housing...... 60 Utilities and municipal services...... 60 Education ...... 62 Income...... 62 Health...... 67 Socio-political effects of return ...... 69 Socio-economic integration ...... 70 Employment...... 70 Education ...... 70 Pensions ...... 71 Health care ...... 72 Use of commercial services ...... 74 Social relations...... 74 Harassment/Discrimination...... 77 Political aspects of return...... 80 Political representation...... 80 Political participation...... 83 Freedom of expression and religion...... 86 Presence and nature of conflicts ...... 87 Improvement for household and community...... 88 Obstacles and incentives to return ...... 88 Stated reasons for return/remain ...... 89 Pull-factors...... 90 Push-factors...... 90 “Ideological return” ...... 91 Return motivation among different groups of returnees...... 92 Comparison between displacement and return ...... 92 Evaluation of return ...... 94 Pressure and prevention in relation to return ...... 95
Preconditions...... 96 Non-return of other household members ...... 97 Reasons for other failed return...... 99 Other factors impacting on return...... 100 Factors relating to the place of displacement...... 101 Factors relating to the return process...... 102 Factors relating to the place of origin/return...... 102 Influence over return related factors...... 103 Summary and conclusions...... 104 Norwegian housing and return assistance...... 104 Findings in the field ...... 104 Sustainability of return...... 104 Socio-political effects of return ...... 106 Factors promoting and hampering return...... 106 Recommendations for further engagement with return ...... 108 Project conceptualisation and planning ...... 108 Funding ...... 108 Selection of project location ...... 109 Beneficiary selection...... 109 Reconstruction model ...... 110 Project outputs not related to housing...... 110 Co-operation and co-ordination ...... 111 Information management...... 112 Bibliography ...... 113 Annex 1: Map of BiH ...... 116 Annex 2: Abbreviations ...... 117 Annex 3: List of Norwegian housing and return projects...... 119 Annex 4: Questionnaire for field study...... 124
Table of figures
Table 1: All projects per implementing agency...... 18 Table 2: All projects, project type per year (number of projects)...... 19 Table 3: All projects, project type per year (number of houses) ...... 20 Table 4: All projects, HVM occupancy rate per project (%)...... 21 Table 5: Norwegian funded projects per donor and implementor ...... 22 Table 6: Norwegian funded projects, projects per entity (left) and housing units per entity (right) ...... 22 Table 7: Norwegian funded projects, projects per project type (left) and housing units per project type (right) ...... 23 Table 8: Norwegian funded projects, funding per entity/district...... 24 Table 9: Norwegian funded projects, funding per project type ...... 25 Table 10: Norwegian funded projects, projects per entity per year (number of projects) 26 Table 11: Norwegian funded projects, projects per entity per year (number of housing units) ...... 26 Table 12: Norwegian funded projects, project type per year (number of projects)...... 28 Table 13: Norwegian funded projects, project type per year (number of housing units) . 28 Table 14: Norwegian funded projects, funding per project type per year (NOK)...... 29 Table 15: Norwegian funded projects, reconstruction model...... 32 Table 16: Project locations visited, occupancy rate (%)...... 53 Table 17: Interviewed households, household members per age group (individuals)...... 56 Table 18: Interviewed households, stated average monthly income in BAM (%) ...... 63 Table 19: Interviewed households, stated average monthly income in BAM according to ethnic status and urban/rural residence (%) ...... 64 Table 20: Municipalities visited, composition of municipal/city/district assemblies...... 81 Table 21: Interviewed households, voting...... 85 Table 22: Interviewed households, positive and negative aspects of the place of displacement and the place of return ...... 93
NORWEGIAN HOUSING AND RETURN PROJECTS IN BOSNIA AND 7 HERZEGOVINA
Introduction
Scope and purpose of the study The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) initiated the present study in order to obtain an overview over the Norwegian assistance provided to returning refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) and an assessment of the effects of this assistance. The study was also aimed at providing recommendations for further engagement with return. The study was not meant to evaluate the projects, but rather to study the sustainability and sociopolitical effects of the return resulting from the projects. Some of the Norwegian return projects had previously been evaluated,1 but no overview existed over the Norwegian assistance to return in BiH and little systematic information was available about the effects of this assistance over time.
The project overview was planned to be carried out mainly through a review of archived project documentation, while the study of the effects of the projects was foreseen to involve primarily interviews with beneficiaries and other relevant interlocutors in selected project locations. The study was intended to include all Norwegian funded and/or implemented return projects, but to focus on the Norwegian funded projects and particularly on minority return.
Brief overview of return and reconstruction in BiH
History of return More than 2 million of the 4.3 BiH pre-war citizens were displaced as a consequence of the 1992 – 1995 war. Approximately half became refugees, mainly in countries in the region or Western European countries, and half became IDPs within BiH (UNHCR 2003). Because the war divided communities along ethnic lines and ethnic cleansing was carried out in many areas, IDPs were mainly displaced to areas where they were of the same ethnicity as the majority of the population.
Majority return2 began as soon as fighting ceased, in some areas even before the peace agreement was signed in December 1995. Minority return occurred only on a very small scale in the first years after the war and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) recorded only 45 523 minority returnees in 1996 and 1997.3 Returning refugees from abroad frequently did not return to their places of origin because these places were dominated by another
1 Solberg (2005); Ugland and Wallevik (2001). 2 See the discussion of majority/minority return in the section titled “methodology”. 3 http://www.unhcr.ba/return/T5-022006.pdf
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constituent people and they therefore in reality became IDPs upon return rather than returnees (UNHCR, 2005). Authorities in most places opposed and obstructed large-scale minority return. IDPs and refugees often feared to return to areas where they would constitute a minority and were likely to experience hostility and discrimination. The first minority return movements were frequently met with demonstrations, security incidents and threats (ICG 1997, 1998, 2000, 2002; AI 1997). Minority return to Croat and Serb dominated areas generally met with more open resistance than return to Bosniac dominated areas, and the Eastern Republika Srpska (RS) was the last region to be “opened up” for minority returns (AI, 2000). Apart from political obstruction and security incidents, large-scale destruction4 and occupation of “abandoned” habitable housing were the main obstacles to return. Generally return first took place to areas with destroyed or heavily damaged property (often rural areas) and later – as occupied property was gradually returned to pre-war owners and occupancy holders – also in areas with habitable property. Over time security largely ceased to be a problem and socio-economic factors such as the lack of employment and adequate public services were perceived to constitute more significant barriers to return. The process of minority return was driven mainly by the intervention of international actors and the returnees themselves, who often showed great determination to return even in the face of security threats and other obstacles.
2002 was the peak year of minority return and 102 111 minority returnees were registered by UNHCR. Altogether, the agency registered 454 566 minority returnees as of February 2006. Unfortunately this number is hardly reliable, as the collection of data relied on a variety of sources and methods in the absence of a proper registration process carried out by the authorities or another actor with an adequate field presence. Some large municipalities even reported figures for repossession of property, which of course did not necessarily entail the return of the owners, as a basis for the returnee statistics. The real number of minority returnees is therefore probably considerably lower.
Aims and strategies for the international community’s involvement in return The foundations for the international community’s aim of facilitating return lay in annex 7 of the General Framework Agreement for Peace (GFAP), commonly called the Dayton agreement.5 The annex established the refugees’ and IDPs’ right to return to their pre-war homes. The international policies in the field of return were based on this legal foundation and further developed through policy and coordination bodies. After 1997 the international community increasingly focused on achieving minority return.
The international community sought to promote return through political, financial and other means. Representatives of international agencies mandated to deal with return frequently negotiated agreements with authorities at various levels allowing IDPs and refugees to return. In some places resistance to return was gradually countered through
4 445 000 housing units or 37% of the housing stock had been destroyed (MHRR, 2004). 5 http://www.ohr.int/dpa/default.asp?content_id=375
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negotiated phased return to specific locations. The presence of international agencies, in particular regular patrols by the NATO Stabilisation Force (SFOR) and the UN International Police Task Force (IPTF), also provided security to returnees in the first phases of a return movement. Transport and legal aid were other activities that significantly supported the return process. The High Representative’s so-called “Bonn powers” were used to impose legislation, notably the laws on cessation of war time laws allowing allocation of property “abandoned” by refugees and IDPs, and remove officials who obstructed return or the repossession of occupied property. In 1999, key international agencies established a mechanism, the Property Law Implementation Plan (PLIP)6 aimed at monitoring and ensuring compliance with the laws governing the repossession of property, which led to the resolution virtually all claims by 2004. This enabled owners or occupancy right holders7 to return to previously occupied housing or alternatively let or sell their houses or apartments and find durable solutions elsewhere. Unfortunately, the break-through in this process came at a point when international assistance to reconstruction had dropped significantly. This may have resulted in lost opportunities for return of persons who had to vacate occupied property but whose own property was damaged or destroyed.
The international community has also been the largest financial contributor to the return process in BiH.8 BiH authorities only became involved in the financing towards the end of the process. Financial assistance has mainly taken the form of reconstruction of housing and infrastructure and to a lesser degree of livelihood support or income generation assistance. Some attempts to link political and economic interventions had rather limited success, such as the Open Cities Initiative, which sought to make international financial assistance to municipalities or cities conditional upon openness towards minority return (ICG 1998). The Return and Reconstruction Task Force (RRTF), which was established in 1997 and aimed at facilitating returns, in course developed into a fairly effective coordination mechanism that channelled assistance to the most needy groups and most promising return locations and that brokered agreements with local authorities. Responsibility for reconstruction and return assistance was gradually transferred to the BiH authorities as relevant structures were built up.9
The aim of (minority) return can be seen to serve several underlying aims, not all of them necessarily clearly expressed by or of equal importance for the different actors involved, but nevertheless guiding the process as a whole. First of all, the right to return and the assistance in realising this right provided individuals with a degree of reparation for what they had suffered and restoration of some of what they had lost as a consequence of the
6 For more information see http://www.unhcr.ba/protection/plip.htm 7 An occupancy right to “socially owned” property, usually an apartment in a building owned by a state owned company, entailed the right to use an apartment for life and could be passed on to the heirs of the holder. For more comprehensive information about the restitution process in BiH see Hastings (2001) and Philpott (2005). 8 International donors are estimated to have invested approximately 2.5 billion EUR in the return sector until and including 2004, compared to the various BiH authorities’ total allocations of approximately 100 million EUR (Progeco, Safege and PMO, 2005). 9 For an overview over BiH institutions active in the return sector see Progeco, Safege and PMO (2005).
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war. Facilitating return was also clearly a response to a humanitarian need for decent living conditions for refugees and IDPs who had not found a durable solution in the place of displacement. Return, and especially minority return, also served the geopolitical aim of a stable, democratic country and region by countering the ethnic cleansing carried out in the war and restore some of the pre-war ethnically mixed demographic pattern.
Although there are linkages and overlaps between these aims or approaches, there are also certain tensions. While the humanitarian approach would dictate that assistance is given to the most needy and vulnerable, the return of elderly and people with few resources would do the least to achieve geopolitical aims of sustainable minority return as a basis for an ethnically integrated society. Moreover, although return is generally conceived of as the preferred durable solution for refugees and IDPs, people who have been displaced do not necessarily want to exercise their right to return and would instead prefer to be assisted in the place of displacement.10 Moreover, IDPs’ and refugees’ wish for return, which should be the main guide to return assistance, is not a given. It is shaped at least in part by the options available. International policy and assistance will therefore inevitably influence the interest in return. Seen purely from a humanitarian perspective one could have argued against the international community’s policy of countering local integration in urban areas (for example by limiting the allocation of land plots) and facilitating return even to very remote rural areas where basic living standards could not be guaranteed.
Only geopolitical aims consistently pull in the direction of return. Return was therefore from the outset a political issue at least as much as a humanitarian strategy or a question of protection of individual rights – both for the international community and for BiH actors.11 This is not necessarily condemnable, as the aim of an ethnically integrated BiH is by all means a worthy and meaningful pursuit. However, this aim may to some degree have led the focus away from individuals and their needs and wishes and thereby to a certain lack of realism as to what was achievable in terms of return. Many return projects seem to have struggled to balance the partially contradictory aims and approaches underlying the goal of (minority) return.
10 For a discussion of the widely held view that return is the preferred solution for IDPs and refugees see Allen and Morsink (1994). 11 See Ito (2001) for a critical discussion of the politicisation of return in BiH.
NORWEGIAN HOUSING AND RETURN PROJECTS IN BOSNIA AND 11 HERZEGOVINA
Methodology
Archive study
Sources of information The research has been carried out using materials in the archives of the Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA) in Oslo and Sarajevo, the archives of the Norwegian MFA, the archives of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) in Oslo, a database developed by the NRC as a part of an evaluation carried out in 2002, reports produced by Stiftelsen Sandnes-Dubrovnik (SSD), reports produced by Caritas Norway and the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and reports produced by databases developed by the Housing Verification and Monitoring Mission (HVM)12 and International Management Group (IMG)13. The archive materials consisted mainly of final reports and revised budgets for housing projects, but also of other supporting documents.
Access to materials about the Norwegian funded housing/return projects in BiH is limited for several reasons. Neither the implementing agencies nor the Norwegian donor seem to have produced a current overview over the projects from the beginning of their involvement in BiH. NRC produced a database with information about all their shelter projects in 2002 based on the material in the archives in the organisation’s country office in Banja Luka and the head quarters in Oslo. This took place 9 years after the first housing projects were carried out in BiH and office locations as well as personnel had changed during this period. The present archive study has shown that although this database is comprehensive, it does not include all the NRC projects or all the housing units included in the projects. As for NPA, it has proved impossible to locate documents about all projects in their archives. Information about some of the projects has been obtained only through references from other sources, such as overview reports, financial reports or databases produced by other organisations. None of these sources provide complete and easily identifiable project information. IMG, which in 1997 developed a database over all (re)construction projects in BiH, depended on receiving information from the implementing agencies. The quality of this exchange of information seems to have varied considerably from area to area according to the capabilities of staff members and the co-operation between them. The IMG database therefore does not contain entries
12 HVM was established by a consortium of donors in 1999 in order to examine the use of rehabilitated housing. HVM carried out field checks in order to collect information on double occupants (people who had received reconstruction assistance but continued to occupy another person’s property), assist local authorities with the exchange of information about repossessed housing units and assist donors and implementing agencies with the selection of housing reconstruction beneficiaries (World Vision, 2004). 13 IMG was established in 1993 as a response to the crisis in BiH with the aim of assessing needs and assisting donors in developing, managing and monitoring infrastructure projects.
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about all projects and due to the lack of accurate codes, names or other information the projects are partly difficult to identify. The database was handed over to local authorities in 2000, after which it does not seem to have been updated. The HVM database is based on the IMG database and is consequently affected by the same problems as the former. In addition to carrying out field checks in order to establish whether repaired and reconstructed housing units were inhabited by their pre-war residents, i.e. the beneficiaries of reconstruction assistance, HVM also interviewed beneficiaries about a range of issues related to the sustainability of their return. These latter data, which obviously would be of considerable value to research on return in BiH, as well as lists of beneficiaries of the projects, have been handed over to BiH authorities and are unfortunately not available to researchers. The BiH authorities have very limited capacity to analyse this material. The HVM data on occupancy and return rate, however, are available for many of the Norwegian funded projects, although not all projects are easily identifiable due to inaccurate project codes. The MFA archives are large and unwieldy and both open ended and specific searches can be very time consuming, and as the housing and return projects have been archived under many different headings the present study may not have located all relevant projects in this archive. Although it is not likely that there have been many more projects of this kind than the ones included in the overview below, the possibility that some projects are missing cannot be excluded.
As for the project reports themselves, the quality of reports varies considerably from project to project. For the projects carried out in the last years of the Norwegian engagement in the housing and return sector in BiH, reports are mostly thorough and detailed. Reports for projects carried out during or shortly after the conflict are usually far more sketchy. These reports often leave out important information such as the displacement status and the ethnicity of the beneficiaries and contain little or imprecise information about the location of the houses reconstructed. Very few final reports include a list of beneficiaries of the project. It may therefore be difficult to determine basic characteristics of the projects. For some of the projects funded by other donors than MFA it is even unclear exactly how many houses have been repaired. The project materials pertaining to the MFA funded houses are mostly somewhat more accurate.
For all the reasons mentioned above, it is virtually impossible to obtain a complete and accurate overview over the housing units repaired and reconstructed by Norwegian actors in BiH. The overview of projects presented may therefore omit projects or contain erroneous information about their content.
Categorisation of projects In some cases it can be difficult to determine whether an organisation’s activities should be treated as one or several projects, as they are based on several donor allocations or are labelled with several project numbers. As a general rule, projects reported in one final report are counted as one project, unless the donor allocations are from different years.
All the projects included in this study involved repair or reconstruction of houses or apartments that existed before the war and that the project beneficiaries owned or held an
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occupancy right to.14 This includes private houses, private apartments and socially owned apartments, which will all be referred to as “housing units”. Projects that only involved new construction of housing or rehabilitation of publicly owned housing for persons who did not live there before the war are not included, as this form of housing assistance was not return related. The projects cannot easily be divided into clear-cut categories based on their purpose or group of beneficiaries. Many projects had different target groups and several aims. The findings will be presented using the main three categories defined below, in accordance with the main objectives and target groups of the projects. Because not all the project beneficiaries were returnees and it has proved impossible to single out this group of beneficiaries, the projects included in the report are collectively labelled “housing and return projects”.
IDP/refugee accommodation This project type expanded, rehabilitated or reconstructed private housing units temporarily housing IDPs or refugees. Often this assistance consisted of adding floors to existing private buildings in order to create living space that the house owners committed themselves to putting at the disposal of IDPs or refugees for a period of 2-3 years. The projects also often involved repair or reconstruction of war-damaged housing units. Some of the house owners had themselves been displaced and were able to return as a result of the projects. The project type is therefore included in the research even though its primary purpose may have been to provide shelter for IDPs rather than for returnees.
Majority housing This type of project repaired or reconstructed housing units belonging to members of the local majority who were either living in the war-damaged housing or who were able to return as a result of the reconstruction. Many projects did not make a clear distinction between these two kinds of beneficiaries or included both. It has therefore not been possible to distinguish majority return projects from other majority housing projects. Some of these projects may have included a few minority beneficiaries as well, probably mainly households who stayed in the location during the war.
Minority housing This type of project encompasses repair or reconstruction of housing units owned by persons belonging to the respective local minorities. Virtually all projects benefiting persons belonging to this group are return projects,15 although some of the beneficiaries had already returned to their damaged housing units when the projects started.16 Many minority return projects also included majority beneficiaries, especially in the first years of minority return.
14 See explanation of occupancy right in footnote above. 15 Although one project, Caritas’ project from 2003, included a number of minority beneficiaries who had never left their houses or apartments as a consequence of the war. 16 In fact, in the last years of the international engagement with minority return staying over night in the place of return at least periodically became one of the main ways of demonstrating commitment to return and therefore eligibility for minority return projects.
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Field study The field study was carried out through interviews with 101 beneficiaries and through interviews with and materials produced by representatives of international organisations and local authorities. The interviews were carried out during two three weeks’ trips to BiH, the first in June and July 2006 and the second in October and November 2006.
Sample selection The interview sample of beneficiaries was selected randomly on the basis of a non- random selection of projects. The projects were selected among the projects that had sufficient information available to locate the beneficiaries. Projects were also selected with the aim of focusing on minority return and on the municipalities with the highest number of Norwegian funded projects and houses. The sample was selected randomly from geographical clusters created based on the lists of these selected projects. An effort was made to include both urban and rural majority and minority returnees, but this was not possible in all municipalities due to the composition of the beneficiary population. A minimum of 4 beneficiaries from each category were selected in each location. Because the starting point of the sample selection was a non-random selection of projects, it is not certain that the findings in the report are representative for all Norwegian-funded project beneficiaries.
Data collection and analysis Formal and semi-structured interviews were carried out with the respondents with the assistance of an interpreter. Most interviews lasted for about an hour. Answers to the structured part of the interviews were not read out, but reply options were checked with the respondents if necessary. No reply options were provided for the more open-ended questions relating to the return process. Only one of the selected beneficiaries refused to be interviewed when she understood that we could not help her with her complaints about the reconstruction. All others were very friendly and mostly very eager to talk. Many seemed to appreciate that someone from the “international community” came to ask how they were getting on. All interviewees were assured that the information they provided would remain confidential, but some may still have been reluctant to be open about certain issues, for example related to ethnicity.
Data were recorded in writing and codified and entered into Excel shortly after. Much of the data was also kept uncodified as written recordings in order to allow for qualitative analysis. Some recordings were checked with the interpreter. Several checks were also carried out to check the reliability of the entered data. Data was analysed both quantitatively and qualitatively. Findings were discussed during the fieldwork with the interpreters, some of whom were very experienced field workers in the return sector in BiH and who provided valuable insights. The findings were also compared with similar studies.
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Terms and definitions
Ethnicity Interviewees were asked which ethnic background they had, primarily in order to assess whether they belonged to the local majority or minority. Many, especially elderly people, used religious (Muslim, Catholic, Orthodox) instead of ethnic terms (Bosniac, Croat, Serb). Some ridiculed or expressed their very understandable frustration at these categorisations. In the study the ethnic terms will be used, and “Bosniac”, “Croat” and “Serb” will be used for people who are citizens of BiH (instead of for example “Bosnian Croat”). “Bosnian”, “Croatian” and “Serbian” will be used to refer to nationality as opposed to ethnicity, in the sense of “from/of Serbia” etc.
Minority/majority Although “minority returnee” and “majority returnee” are terms that are commonly used and understood in BiH, in many places it may actually be difficult to determine whether a returnee should be considered a minority or majority returnee. UNHCR defines minority returnees as “persons who have returned to their pre-conflict municipalities,17 currently dominated by (an)other constituent people(s) of BiH.”18 However, in some return locations it is unclear which constituent people “dominates” the municipality, either because administrative boundaries have changed since return, because demographic changes has led to political changes or because it can be argued that political power is primarily exercised at another level than the municipal level. Both Mostar, Bosanski Petrovac and Brcko District have undergone political and/or administrative changes since the projects studied were implemented and returnees to these municipality may therefore be difficult to classify. All the other municipalities visited are unproblematic in this regard. Even though the distinction between minority and majority returnee may be disputed in these and other cases, the history of ethnic cleansing and the continued ethnic divisions in BiH still make it meaningful.
When return began, the conception of “minority returnee” that seems to have been applied in most places could be defined as follows: “a person of a different ethnicity than the demographically and politically dominant group at the municipal level”. According to this definition Bosniak returnees to Hodbina (formerly in the Croat-dominated municipality Mostar South), Croat returnees to Bijelo Polje (formerly in the Bosniac- dominated municipality Mostar North) and Serb returnees to the formerly Bosniac dominated Bosanski Petrovac would all be defined as minority returnees. Croat returnees to Boce and Boderiste would be defined as majority returnees, because these villages belonged to the Croat municipality of Brcko Ravne. This classification makes sense for the period of return, as the returnees primarily related to the authorities and the
17 “Pre-conflict municipality” has in BiH usually been interpreted as meaning “pre-conflict housing unit”. This meant that persons who were displaced within a municipality (often referred to as “floaters”) also could be regarded as displaced persons who had a right to return. 18 For example in the return statistics (http://www.unhcr.ba/return/index.htm)
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population at the municipal level when they returned, which were largely ethnically homogeneous.
However, since the time of return for the interviewees in the three mentioned areas, the six former Mostar municipalities and the three former Brcko municipalities have been reunited and a new administrative level has been formed – Mostar City and Brcko District respectively. Both these units are supposed to exclude the dominance of any single ethnic group. No precise and reliable population data exists for either area, but it is estimated that there is a slight Croat majority in Mostar19 and a slight Serb majority in Brcko.20 By most accounts Croats are also economically dominant in Mostar, as are Serbs in Brcko. Serbs are without any doubt a demographic minority in Mostar, as Croats are in Brcko, so it is not problematic to label the interviewees from these groups in Hodbina, Bacevici, Boderiste and Boce as “minority returnees”. With Bosniacs in Hodbina and Dizdarusa and Croats in Bijelo Polje the situation is less clear, but for the reasons mentioned the two former groups will be considered minority returnees and the latter majority returnees. In Bosanski Petrovac return in and out of the municipality has completely changed the situation compared to when return started and Serbs are now in majority demographically and politically. However, in many respects it still makes sense to consider returnees to Bosanski Petrovac minority returnees. The municipality is a weak administrative unit in BiH and most decisions that really matter are taken at the cantonal level, which in the case of Bosanski Petrovac is Bosniac-dominated.
For most of the analysis in the report the second understanding of “minority returnee” will be applied, i.e. persons who belong to a different ethnic group than the one that is currently demographically and politically dominant at the strongest level of government in the respective location. The first understanding, relating to the demographic situation at the municipal level, will be applied only in the analysis relating to the return process itself.
Naturally these definitions can be problematic also at an individual level, which in this study is the case for several persons who are married to someone of a different ethnicity. In almost all these cases, the women followed their husbands in displacement and it also emerged in other ways that they were mostly treated as belonging to their husband’s ethnic group. Therefore the household has been defined according to the husband’s ethnicity in these cases provided he is still alive.
Urban/rural Areas will be categorised as urban or rural in accordance with the 1991 census.
19 See ICG (2003). 20 See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brčko_District
NORWEGIAN HOUSING AND RETURN PROJECTS IN BOSNIA AND 17 HERZEGOVINA
Archive study
Overview of all Norwegian funded and/or implemented projects A total of 72 housing or return projects were implemented by Norwegian organisations and/or with Norwegian funding in BiH in the period from 1993 to 2003. 17833 housing units were completed21, repaired or reconstructed through these projects. The real figure is almost certainly higher, as there are no available figures for one of the very first IDP accommodation projects. On the other hand, the total number is also inflated by two so- called glazing projects implemented by NRC in 1997, which only repaired broken windows in a total of 7201 housing units and consequently involved very minimal repairs. Some other projects have also involved very minor reconstruction assistance, for example some of the first minority return projects that reconstructed the housing units of majority IDPs occupying minority housing and then slightly rehabilitated the vacated housing units. Generally, the extent of assistance per housing unit varies so much that it can be misleading to judge the amount of assistance by the number of housing units repaired or reconstructed. Unfortunately the general quality of the data does not permit any categorisation of the extent of intervention, separating minor repairs from major or full reconstruction.
Few final reports include exact numbers of household members residing in or returning to the housing units, but most seem to have calculated with an average of 4 members per household. This average would make the total number of beneficiaries of the housing and return projects 71332. However, as shown in the field study of this report, in many projects fewer household members are currently living in the housing units.
The projects were implemented by NRC, NPA, SSD (through their local implementing partner Reconsult), IOM and Caritas Norway (through their local implementing partner Caritas Banja Luka).
Only 12 of these projects (17%) were not funded by a Norwegian actor (the Norwegian MFA or the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD)). 5 projects were funded by the European Commission’s Humanitarian Aid Department (ECHO), 5 by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and 2 by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische
21 This refers to the early IDP accommodation projects, in which floors were added to private houses or half-finished floors were completed in order to create living space that the owners of the houses obliged themselves to put at the disposal of IDPs for a certain period of time in return for the construction assistance. In the remainder of the report, for the sake of simplicity the term “repaired or reconstructed” will be used to include also this form of construction.
NORWEGIAN HOUSING AND RETURN PROJECTS IN BOSNIA AND 18 HERZEGOVINA
Zusammenarbeit (GTZ). These projects were implemented in 17 municipalities or other local administrative units22 and involved 1614 houses. For one project with one housing unit the donor is not known.
The table below provides an overview over all the projects by implementing agency:
Implementing Number of Number of houses % Norwegian agencies projects funded projects NRC 35 11972 80% NPA 31 5664 81% SSD 4 88 100% IOM 1 37 100% Caritas Norway 1 72 100% Total 72 17833 82% Table 1: All projects per implementing agency The projects were implemented in 61 municipalities or other local administrative units in BiH.23 49 projects (with 8849 housing units) were implemented in the Federation. 16 projects (with 5054 housing units) were carried out in the RS. 2 projects (with 355 housing units) were implemented in Brcko District. 4 projects (with 3538 housing units) were carried out both in the Federation and the RS and 1 project (with 37 housing units) was carried out in both entities and the District. Again the two glazing projects distort the overall picture somewhat, as they were mainly carried out in the RS and therefore inflate the number of housing units in the RS. In terms of more substantial assistance, it is clear that far more was implemented in the Federation.
Because of imprecise project information it is difficult to determine whether the projects were mainly in rural or in urban areas. Most projects (34, with 12954 housing units) seemed to have been carried out in both urban and rural areas, but there were more projects that only covered rural areas (26, with 2699 housing units) than projects only covering urban areas (7, with 1967 housing units). It is likely that most houses repaired or reconstructed were in rural areas.
22 Banovici, Brcko, BIHA controlled Fojnica, HVO controlled Fojnica, Gradacac, Kladanj, Lukavac, Maglaj, Modrica, Prijedor, Prnjavor, Sanski Most, Srebrenik, Tesanj, Travnik, Tuzla and Zivinice. 23 Banja Luka, Banovici, Bosanska Krupa, Bosanski Petrovac, Bosansko Grahovo, Brcko (now Brcko District), Brka (now Brcko District), Bugojno, Centar (Sarajevo), Derventa, Doboj, Doboj South, Donji Vakuf, Drvar, BIHA controlled Fojnica (Fojnica), HVO controlled Fojnica (Fojnica), Glamoc, Gradacac, Gradiska, Ilidza, Ilijas, Jablanica, Jezero, Kalesija, Kladanj, Kljuc, Kotor Varos, Kozarska Dubica, Krupa na Uni, Kupres, Laktasi, Livno, Lukavac, Maglaj, Modrica, Mostar North (now Mostar city), Mostar South (now Mostar city), Mostar Southeast (now Mostar city), Mrkonjic Grad, Novi Grad, Novo Sarajevo, Prijedor, Prnjavor, Ravne (now Brcko District), Ribnik, Samac, Sanski Most, Sipovo, Srebrenik, Srpska Kostajnica (now Kostajnica), Srpski Brod (now Brod), Srpski Sanski Most (now Ostra Luka), Stari Grad (now Mostar city), Stari Grad (Sarajevo), Tesanj, Teslic, Travnik, Tuzla, Vukosavlje, Zenica and Zivinice. Some of these municipalities have merged or changed names since the projects were implemented, as shown by the names in brackets.
NORWEGIAN HOUSING AND RETURN PROJECTS IN BOSNIA AND 19 HERZEGOVINA
10 projects (with 1053 housing units) were primarily intended to provide accommodation for IDPs while at the same time improving the living conditions of the hosts/house owners, some of whom may have returned as a result of the project. 31 projects (with 7724 housing units) fall into the category of projects for local majority residents and/or majority returnees. 16 projects (with 743 housing units) benefited almost exclusively minority returnees. 13 projects (with 1052 houses) included both majority and minority returnees. 1 NPA project for 52 Roma resident households could be categorised as a minority resident project, and will be presented together with the minority return projects in the analysis below. The two mentioned glazing projects implemented by NRC in 1997 benefited both IDPs, local residents, minority returnees and possibly also refugees and majority returnees. Because it is difficult to determine which group was the main beneficiary of the projects and because there were so many houses involved but a low level of assistance, the projects will be kept apart as a separate project type (labelled “emergency repairs”) in the following analysis. 2 projects involving 2 housing units lack sufficient data to determine what kind of projects they were.
The following charts show the variation in project type per year, first expressed in numbers of projects, then in numbers of houses. In the second chart the two emergency repair projects are excluded, as the large number of houses involved (7201) distorts the presentation of the other types.
14
12
10
8 Emergency Minority Majority/minority Majority 6 IDP
4
2
0 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002
Table 2: All projects, project type per year (number of projects)
NORWEGIAN HOUSING AND RETURN PROJECTS IN BOSNIA AND 20 HERZEGOVINA
4500
4000
3500
3000
2500 Minority Majority/minority Majority 2000 IDP
1500
1000
500
0 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002
Table 3: All projects, project type per year (number of houses) The charts show that IDP accommodation projects were overtaken by majority return projects as soon as the war over. The first attempts to assist minority beneficiaries were made in 1997, with one project targeting resident Roma in Zivinice, a mixed majority and minority return project in Mostar and an emergency repair project targeting spontaneous minority returnees to Drvar. Even in 1998, which was the year the international community in BiH began prioritising minority return, only one project, the MIR project funded by UNHCR and implemented by NRC in Prijedor and Sanski Most, included only minority beneficiaries. Elsewhere one considered it most prudent to include majority beneficiaries in the first “minority return projects”. In fact, in the beginning the mixed projects mostly included far more majority than minority beneficiaries. Only in 1999 did the number of minority projects and minority houses exceed those of majority beneficiaries.
The chart below shows the occupancy rate – meaning the percentage of housing units inhabited by the beneficiary household (i.e. the pre-war owners or occupancy right holders) or at least some members of it – for those projects for which HVM has carried out field checks that could be identified from the information provided by HVM. The field checks were carried out between 2000 and 2005. Because beneficiaries may have both returned and re-migrated after the checks were carried out, it is not granted that the data give a correct picture of the present occupancy rate, however, it is likely to be a fairly reliable indicator. The projects are labelled with the name of the municipality or geographic area where they were carried out, the year the project started and the donor.
NORWEGIAN HOUSING AND RETURN PROJECTS IN BOSNIA AND 21 HERZEGOVINA
100
90
80
70
60 Minority Majority and minority 50 Majority 40 IDP accommodation
30
20
10
0 Ilijas/99 (NMFA) Kljuc/97 (NMFA) Kljuc/97 MIR/98 (UNHCR) Brcko/98 (NMFA) Brcko/97 (ECHO) Maglaj/99 (NMFA) Maglaj/00 (NMFA) Kupres/02 (NMFA) Posavina/97 (NMFA) Posavina/98 (NMFA) Posavina/99 (NMFA) Posavina/00 (NMFA) Posavina/01 (NMFA) Posavina/95 (NMFA) Sarajevo/97 (NMFA) Sarajevo/97 (NMFA) Sarajevo/98 Una Sana/98 (NMFA) Una Posavina2/00 (NMFA) Sarajevo2/97 (NMFA) Posavina/98 (NORAD) Donji Vakuf/96 (NMFA) Donji Bosanski Petrovac/00 (NMFA) Bosanski Petrovac/99 (NMFA) Table 4: All projects, HVM occupancy rate per project (%) The chart shows a large variation in occupancy rates among the different Norwegian projects, from the first project in tense 1997-Brcko at 20% to an impressive 97% in Bosanski Petrovac, where large scale minority return has completely changed the post- war demography. Apart from Bosanski Petrovac, however, minority projects clearly have lower occupancy rates than majority and mixed projects. The average occupancy rate for the majority projects is 80%, for mixed projects it is 77% and for minority projects it is 66%.
Overview of Norwegian funded projects
Number of projects and houses, implementing agencies and donors A total of 59 projects (with 16218 housing units) were funded by NMFA or the (NORAD). NMFA funded 50 projects (with 15273 housing units) through direct allocations to the implementing agency and 2 projects (with 401 housing units) through IMG, as well as 3 projects (with 456 housing units) in cooperation with other donors – UNHCR, SIDA and other Nordic governments.24 NORAD funded 4 projects (with 88 housing units). The following table shows the breakdown of projects and housing units per donor and implementing agency.
24 As far as possible only the Norwegian funded part of the co-funded projects is analysed in this report, but due to imprecise data mistakes in this division are possible.
NORWEGIAN HOUSING AND RETURN PROJECTS IN BOSNIA AND 22 HERZEGOVINA
Implementor Tot NRC NPA SSD IOM Caritas Donor Projects/houses Projects/houses Projects/houses Projects/houses Projects/houses Projects/houses NMFA 25/10474 24/4727 1/72 50/15273 NMFA/IMG 1/336 1/65 2/401 NMFA 2/419 1/37 3/456 co-funded NORAD 4/88 4/88 Tot 28/11229 25/4792 4/88 1/37 1/72 59/16218 Table 5: Norwegian funded projects per donor and implementor
Locations 40 projects (with 7727 housing units) were carried out in the Federation (FBiH), 15 projects (with 5022 housing units) in the RS and 1 project (with 112 housing units) in Brcko District. 2 projects (with 3320 housing units) were carried out in both entities and 1 project (with 37 houses) was carried out in both entities and the District. The charts below show the distribution of projects and houses between the entities and the District.
2 % 3 % 0 % 2 % 20 %
25 % FBIH FBIH 1 % RS RS 48 % Brcko District Brcko District FBIH/RS FBIH/RS FBIH/RS/BD FBIH/RS/BD 68 % 31 %
Table 6: Norwegian funded projects, projects per entity (left) and housing units per entity (right)
The two big glazing projects – one implemented in the RS and one in both entities – level out the distribution of houses between the entities somewhat. However, there was clearly much more project activity in the Federation than the RS. There are probably several reasons for this, one of them being a higher level of destruction and another a generally greater political willingness to facilitate return in the Federation in the first years after the war.
Due to a general low level of precision in reporting it is difficult to establish exactly how many housing units were reconstructed/repaired in rural and how many in urban areas.
Project types 6 of the projects (with 789 housing units) provided accommodation for IDPs and local residents/majority returnees. 26 projects (with 6624 housing units) entailed reconstructing
NORWEGIAN HOUSING AND RETURN PROJECTS IN BOSNIA AND 23 HERZEGOVINA
houses of local residents/majority returnees. 15 projects (with 758 housing units) benefited primarily minority returnees. 9 projects (845 houses) were both majority and minority return projects. 2 projects (with 7201 housing units) were glazing projects that can be categorised as emergency repair due to the low level of repairs and the fact that many of the beneficiaries were still in displacement. The charts below show the distribution of projects and houses between the different project types.
3 % 14 % 6 %
24 %
IDP 40 % IDP Majority Majority Majority/minority Majority/minority Minority 44Minority % Emergency Emergency 14 % 45 %
5 % 5 %
Table 7: Norwegian funded projects, projects per project type (left) and housing units per project type (right)
The two glazing projects again distort the general picture when it comes to number of houses, making this type of assistance seem almost equally common to majority housing. In any event, beneficiaries of both emergency and IDP projects mainly belonged to local majority groups, and the charts therefore clearly show that most of the project activity targeted the respective majority population in the project locations. The differences between the two charts show that both IDP accommodation and minority and mixed projects had fewer direct beneficiaries per project than the majority projects and especially the emergency projects.
Funding A total of 355 380 571 Norwegian kroner (NOK) was allocated to the Norwegian funded projects.25 The total costs per project and per housing unit vary enormously according to variations in damage level of the housing units included as well as the project model chosen. At the one extreme of this scale are the glazing projects carried out by NRC in 1997 where only emergency repairs were carried out. At the other end are the more challenging minority return projects carried out in the last years of the housing programmes in BiH. Due to the many obstacles to minority return these projects required both a different level of engagement by the implementing agencies in the beneficiary selection process, which entailed higher administrative costs, and more output in the form of livelihood support, infrastructure and other project components. The level of costs also depends on the reconstruction model selected, as self-help projects were generally found to be more cost-efficient than contracted projects.
25 For the projects co-funded with other donors only funding provided by the Norwegian donors is included.
NORWEGIAN HOUSING AND RETURN PROJECTS IN BOSNIA AND 24 HERZEGOVINA
The middle half of the cost range of the projects consist of projects with a budget between 2 500 000 NOK and 8 500 000 NOK. This makes for an average cost per housing unit of 21 913 NOK. This amount is somewhat misleading, because it was not possible to calculate for all projects how much was invested into the housing repair/reconstruction compared to the administration of the project or components such as counselling, infrastructure or livelihood support. Many beneficiaries only received a few windows or some bricks and mortar worth a couple of hundred NOK, whereas a smaller number had completely destroyed houses reconstructed and also received some livelihood support. Many beneficiaries were also in projects that included significant investments in public infrastructure that targeted other groups than the housing beneficiaries.26
The following chart shows the percentage of funding per entity/District, which confirms the picture provided by the distribution of projects and housing units presented above. The vast majority of the funds utilised for housing and return projects was spent on projects implemented in the Federation.
3% 1% 2%
20%
FBIH RS Brcko District FBIH/RS FBIH/RS/Brcko District
74%
Table 8: Norwegian funded projects, funding per entity/district The next chart shows the percentage of funding allocated to the different types of projects. The largest part was spent on majority housing and return projects. Considering that most of the beneficiaries of the IDP accommodation projects as well as the emergency repair projects also probably belonged to the local majority, it can be estimated that less than a third of the total funding was spent on minority beneficiaries.
26 The EC’s review of the BiH return sector mentions average prices of housing reconstruction (including housing units with varying damage levels and reconstructed through various models) ranging from 5318 EUR to 22271 EUR (Progeco, Safege, PMO, 2005).
NORWEGIAN HOUSING AND RETURN PROJECTS IN BOSNIA AND 25 HERZEGOVINA
1% 17% 18%
IDP accommodation Majority Majority and minority Minority 16% Emergency repair
48%
Table 9: Norwegian funded projects, funding per project type In relation to funding several project reports note that the donor’s approval and allocation was made so late that the construction season, which starts in spring and ends in autumn, could not be fully utilised. This often led to reconstruction being completed only in late autumn or winter, when beneficiaries were reluctant to return because the houses were not yet dry and otherwise insufficiently prepared for the winter and because their children were in the middle of a school year. Late return increased the likelihood of damages and looting, which again deterred return.
Developments over time Norwegian funded housing assistance was first focused on the Federation. Before 1997 there was only one housing project in the RS, NRC’s IDP accommodation project in Posavina initiated in 1995 and carried out mainly in 1996. NRC continued its activities in the RS and implemented the two mentioned glazing projects in 1997 as well as a majority return project. From 1998 onwards the assistance in terms of both projects and houses more or less equalled out between the two entities, as shown in the charts below.
NORWEGIAN HOUSING AND RETURN PROJECTS IN BOSNIA AND 26 HERZEGOVINA
12
10
8
FBIH RS 6 Brcko District FBIH/RS FBIH/RS/BD
4
2
0 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002
Table 10: Norwegian funded projects, projects per entity per year (number of projects)
4500
4000
3500
3000
FBIH 2500 RS Brcko District 2000 FBIH/RS FBIH/RS/BD
1500
1000
500
0 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002
Table 11: Norwegian funded projects, projects per entity per year (number of housing units)
NORWEGIAN HOUSING AND RETURN PROJECTS IN BOSNIA AND 27 HERZEGOVINA
The first projects were IDP accommodation projects, a response to the massive influx of IDPs from the Eastern RS to the Tuzla area. In 1995 the first return projects were initiated in areas where fighting had ceased and this form of assistance dominated the peak years of assistance, 1996 and 1997. In 1997 the first projects targeting minority groups were initiated. One provided small scale upgrading of houses owned by resident Roma in Zivinice. Another project included both majority and minority returnees in the Mostar area. A third, one of the glazing projects mainly implemented in the RS, assisted spontaneous minority returnees to Drvar. 1998 was the first year minority return was the main aim of the housing assistance, but all Norwegian funded projects included majority returnees as well – in some cases to a far greater extent than minority returnees. From 1999 onwards the only Norwegian funded projects that exclusively targeted majority returnees were the ones carried out by SSD in two villages in Derventa and Brod. Other projects were mixed or assisted mainly minority returnees. The continued assistance to majority beneficiaries after 1998 despite the new international priority of minority return had several reasons. First of all, minority return met with strong resistance, and continued help to the majority population was seen as a means to “buy support” for minority return. Secondly, repairing and reconstructing housing units of majority IDPs facilitated repossession of occupied property owned by minorities. It was easier for local authorities to comply with internationally imposed laws and evict households that had their own damaged housing units reconstructed than to evict households that had to be provided with scarce alternative accommodation. In this way, majority return could lead to minority return, a strategy that many agencies sought to utilise in order to assist more people with the funds available. In some cases beneficiary selection was done with such linkages in mind and households were chosen on the grounds that they freed up property to which minorities could return. In the two last years of Norwegian assistance all the other projects than SSD’s primarily assisted minority returnees.
NORWEGIAN HOUSING AND RETURN PROJECTS IN BOSNIA AND 28 HERZEGOVINA
14
12
10
8 Emergency Minority Majority/minority Majority 6 IDP
4
2
0 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002
Table 12: Norwegian funded projects, project type per year (number of projects)
4500
4000
3500
3000
2500 Minority Majority/minority Majority 2000 IDP
1500
1000
500
0 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002
Table 13: Norwegian funded projects, project type per year (number of housing units) Whereas the number of projects was relatively high until 2000, the number of housing units repaired or reconstructed fell drastically after 1996/97. (Again the 7201 emergency
NORWEGIAN HOUSING AND RETURN PROJECTS IN BOSNIA AND 29 HERZEGOVINA
repaired housing units from 1997 are taken out of the second chart). This coincides with the shift from majority to minority housing. The reduction in the number of houses per project probably partly reflects the different level of damage of the houses, as implementing agencies eager to present impressive figures to their donors chose the least destroyed houses first. Over time this increased the costs per housing unit because the more damaged houses had been left out. To some extent the lower numbers of housing units per project are also a consequence of the more comprehensive nature of minority return projects, which sought to address more than housing needs of both the minority beneficiaries and of the majority community in order to overcome the many obstacles to minority return. In these projects a smaller part of the budgets were therefore spent on housing compared to other components. However, the main reason for the drop in housing units is probably the drop in funding, which peaked in 1996, immediately after the war and some years before minority return became feasible in most areas. Norwegian funding was not well timed to support minority return. 2002, the last year of Norwegian funding to housing and return projects and the year with the smallest amount allocated, was the year the largest number of minority returnees was recorded by UNHCR.
90000000
80000000
70000000
60000000
Emergency repair 50000000 Minority Majority and minority 40000000 Majority IDP accommodation
30000000
20000000
10000000
0 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002
Table 14: Norwegian funded projects, funding per project type per year (NOK)
Occupancy and return rate HVM verified 2854 of the Norwegian funded housing units and established an average occupancy rate of 85%. This is above the overall average occupancy rate for reconstructed housing units in BiH of 76%. The occupancy rates for those Norwegian funded projects that can be identified are shown in the chart in the section above providing an overview over all projects.
NORWEGIAN HOUSING AND RETURN PROJECTS IN BOSNIA AND 30 HERZEGOVINA
Some of the project reports provide information on occupancy and return rates upon project completion. The numbers are mostly high compared with HVM statistics. The difference between the assessments may be due to households giving up on return or actually using the reconstructed housing units only part time. A few reports note problems with split minority families and housing units vacated by majority IDPs being occupied by other IDPs instead of the original owners. Another refers to a village in Brod where the low occupancy rate was believed to be a strategy by refugees in Croatia aimed at “forcing” the international community to reconstruct the entire infrastructure before return.
Reconstruction model The manner in which the projects were implemented can be divided into three main categories; reconstruction through contractor (sometimes called “key-in-hand”), self-help reconstruction through materials and self-help reconstruction through cash.
Many projects were carried out using contractors hired either directly by the implementing agency or through the municipality. The implementing agencies seem to have used contractors mainly because it ensured a higher quality, time-efficiency and inclusion of beneficiaries who would not have been able to carry out repairs on their own due to lacking skills, ability or finances or due to long travel distances from the place of displacement. Also, this model decreased the possibility of misuse of assistance by the beneficiaries. 20 projects utilised only this implementation model, repairing or reconstructing a total of 1034827 housing units.
Especially as funding began to decrease, many agencies preferred to use a self-help approach by providing either cash or materials and letting the owners carry out the reconstruction or repairs themselves. The main advantage of this model was that it lowered the costs per housing unit and thereby allowed the agencies to reconstruct more housing units with smaller funds. Moreover, many agency workers and others observed that the self-help approach was based on a tradition in BiH of people building their own houses and that the involvement of the owners empowered them and increased the sense of community, as neighbours and relatives helped each other in the reconstruction. The obvious disadvantage of this approach was that it risked leaving out individuals and families who were not able to accept donations in a self-help model because they were unable to carry out the works themselves, lacked relatives to help them, were not able to pay someone else to carry out the reconstruction and were displaced very far from the place of return.
Donations of materials were sometimes coordinated with the municipal authorities in order to facilitate storage while the reconstruction was ongoing. Occasionally cash was provided in addition to materials in order to enable the owners to pay for skilled labour where this was needed, for example for plumbing and electrical installations. A particular version of this model was utilised by SSD, which requested the beneficiaries to repay
27 The two glazing projects are among these, hence the large number of housing units.
NORWEGIAN HOUSING AND RETURN PROJECTS IN BOSNIA AND 31 HERZEGOVINA
50% of the value of the materials to a village fund, which purpose was to fund projects to the benefit of the whole return community. The experiences with this model were mixed, as many did not repay and had to be pursued in court. 7 projects (with 1261 housing units) provided the donations only in the form of materials. 1 project (with 300 houses) provided some cash in addition to the materials. 4 projects (with 88 housing units) utilised the 50% credit model.
When using the cash model, the implementing agency usually paid cash in instalments after verifying that the works had been carried out in accordance with the plan agreed in advance with the beneficiary. The cash model was used alone in 6 projects resulting in the repair or reconstruction of 2163 housing units.
The advantages and disadvantages of these models often led the agencies to combine them so that those who were able to carry out the reconstruction by themselves received materials or cash or a combination, whereas those who were not had their houses or apartments reconstructed through contractors. 19 projects used a combination of these models, resulting in the repair or reconstruction of 1993 housing units.
For 2 projects (with 65 housing units) it is unclear which implementation model was used.
It seems that the local offices of the organisations were relatively free to develop models and decide which model to use. For example, the NRC office covering Brod, Derventa and Modrica used the cash model extensively, contrary to other NRC offices. The following chart shows the percentage of projects using the various models and combinations of models.
NORWEGIAN HOUSING AND RETURN PROJECTS IN BOSNIA AND 32 HERZEGOVINA
3% 10% 7% 2%
12% 12% Cash Cash/contractor Cash/materials 2% Contractor 2% Contractor/materials Contractor/materials & cash Materials Materials & cash Materials & cash, 50% on credit Unknown 17%
33%
Table 15: Norwegian funded projects, reconstruction model
Beneficiary selection It seems that in the first projects the beneficiary selection process was mainly carried out by the municipal authorities, although survey information provided by the municipalities was checked by the agencies in order to ensure compliance with the criteria for the projects. The municipal authorities were well placed to assess needs and obtain essential information, but agencies often experienced that they included persons who were not legal owners, were not among the most needy or did otherwise not meet the criteria of the projects – possibly because they were motivated by personal or political gains. Because of these experiences, the implementing agencies became increasingly involved in the selection process. Where the beneficiaries were residents in collective centres (for example in the IDP-accommodation projects) UNHCR also usually provided lists of potential beneficiaries. Various actors such as IDP/returnee associations, associations of war-veterans and international agencies, including other agencies implementing housing and return projects, also provided lists of potential beneficiaries. It seems that in most projects potential beneficiaries were able to apply either directly to the agency or through the municipality, a process that was often facilitated by announcing projects through the local media.
When the focus of the projects shifted towards minority return, the need to co-operate with other actors than local authorities, which often obstructed minority return, increased. This led to a closer co-operation with international actors working on return, as well as with local non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and IDP/refugee/return representatives and associations. Co-operation with the latter local actors was also
NORWEGIAN HOUSING AND RETURN PROJECTS IN BOSNIA AND 33 HERZEGOVINA
problematic in many areas, as they also often proposed potential beneficiaries on the basis of politics or personal connections rather on the agencies’ criteria. Agencies therefore to a greater degree developed quite intensive methods for selecting beneficiaries involving questionnaires, face to face interviews, checks with neighbours and others and “go and see visits”, where potential beneficiaries visited the return locations through organised transport before the final selection was done. NRC’s Information and Counselling on Repatriation (INCOR) component was probably the most complex of these mechanisms. The agencies’ project staff frequently became pressurised by (potential) beneficiaries, associations/representatives and authorities in the process of the beneficiary selection. NRC notes in a project document that having Norwegian project leaders relieved some of this pressure from local staff members, who were able to tell beneficiaries that the decision was ultimately made by a foreigner. Although local authorities were much less involved in the selection process for minority projects than for majority projects, some final reports note the need to inform and involve the authorities in order to prevent disputes between the returnees and the authorities and the majority population.
Other circumstances than local actors’ lack of transparency in the selection process contributed to put an emphasis on the beneficiary selection for the agencies. As minority return only became feasible at a time when funding had started to decrease, when the least damaged houses had been repaired and donors had become wary of funding houses that remained empty upon completion, it became increasingly important for the implementing agencies to seek to ensure that the beneficiaries would actually return. One NRC report notes that although a thorough beneficiary selection increases the administrative costs, it also increases the likelihood of return as a result of the project and therefore ultimately cost-efficiency.
Criteria for beneficiary selection Although there are few details pertaining to the selection criteria in many reports, there is evidence of the criteria changing according to the aim of the project and as a result of negative experiences from previous projects. The project reports reflect a focus that shifted over time from the buildings to their owners. Some early reports reveal that the starting point of a project was a survey of damaged houses, after which the owners of the eligible (i.e. not too destroyed) houses were identified. In the first projects the technical criteria, such as the level of damage, are the ones most frequently mentioned. Social criteria are the second most important, prioritising households with disabled members, with members killed in the war or households with elderly or female heads. The inclusion of female heads of households is virtually the only reference to gender aspects of the projects found in the project reports.
Over time households with many members were preferred. Ownership of the housing unit is not specified in all reports, but this was generally required. The only known exception to this rule are the two glazing projects, which were aimed at temporary improvement of living conditions also of IDPs occupying housing units. With the focus on return after the war came new criteria such as IDP/refugee status and release of occupied housing
NORWEGIAN HOUSING AND RETURN PROJECTS IN BOSNIA AND 34 HERZEGOVINA
through reconstruction. Agencies also seem to have become more aware of assistance reaching many who were not actually that needy and consequently stressed that beneficiaries should not have means to reconstruct on their own, other available and inhabitable property or have received previous assistance.
When projects began targeting minority returnees and the agencies became aware of the many obstacles to this type of return the beneficiaries’ genuine interest in and psychological preparedness for return became more important. Potential beneficiaries were often required to demonstrate this, for example by cleaning the ruins of their houses, staying over night near their houses for a period of time or even by returning before receiving assistance. The many incidents in relation to minority return meant that the security of the potential beneficiaries became an important criterion, which was sought assessed and ensured in co-operation with international military and police as well as local authorities. When economic survival became a more pressing concern than security, the agencies sought to assess the potential beneficiaries’ economic preparedness for return. Some projects also sought to include minorities either on the grounds that they would be easy to integrate and beneficial for the municipality as a whole, or because they were seen as resource persons or leaders for the minority returnees and consequently likely to promote further, and more sustainable, minority return. The very last projects sought to increase the number of large and young households in order to overcome the problem of largely small and old minority households returning through previous projects. While the criteria for minority beneficiaries increasingly sought to target more resourceful households, the criteria for majority beneficiaries continued to stress vulnerability and release of occupied housing or alternative accommodation.
A certain tension can be traced in the reports between two major goals of return projects – a high return rate and sustainable return. It seemed to be the case that a thorough beneficiary selection tended to lead to a high number of elderly returnees, who are less likely to contribute towards the goal of “sustainable return”28 than younger families. Many project workers in BiH have remarked that the safest returnees - especially to minority or rural areas - were older people, who required little beyond a reconstructed house and a pension in order to return. Younger families naturally need adequate educational facilities and employment opportunities, as well as an environment they believe is safe and providing opportunities for their children in order to make return a desirable option. These needs were often not met in the return locations and agencies could do relatively little to change this. This experience, combined with the need to present good results to their donors, may have led the agencies to include more elderly beneficiaries than desirable considering the long-term goal of sustainable return. There is not much data available about the age of the beneficiaries in the reports, but the emphasis on those young families that were included shows that the agencies clearly perceived the age structure of many projects as a problem.
28 Although frequently used in BiH, the term “sustainable return” was hardly ever defined. It seemed to be used both in a very narrow sense meaning simply that the returnees remained in the place of return and in a much broader sense implying that they enjoyed the full range of human rights. For a brief discussion of the term see the section titled “Sustainability of return” further below.
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Other project output 22 of the housing and return projects included major repairs or reconstruction of public infrastructure, such as IDP/refugee accommodation in public buildings, repairs of schools, nurseries, hospitals, community centres, electricity and water systems, roads and streetlights. 10 projects included smaller scale components such as household items.
17 projects provided some kind of income generation assistance or livelihood support. Most of this assistance seems to have been provided on a very small scale, possibly too small to make much of an impact on the households’ economic situation. Only a few of the projects seem to have aimed this assistance at the community as a whole as opposed to each individual household, thereby seeking to promote co-operation and maximise the benefit of the assistance.
Co‐operation and co‐ordination RRTF and its member agencies the Office of the High Representative (OHR) and UNHCR are frequently referred to in project reports and it is evident that the information exchanged and the priorities set through this co-ordination mechanism to a considerable extent determined which areas were selected and which groups of beneficiaries targeted. It seems that all the implementing agencies participated in the local RRTF coordination meetings, although SSD was not aware of the mechanism and consequently did not participate in the first years of its operation. Reports contain few traces of competition, conflicts or other problems between agencies, although such problems undeniably did exist in BiH. This is hardly surprising given the number of implementing agencies working on housing and return in BiH – often in the same neighbourhoods and villages – applying different methodologies and criteria and all striving to achieve good results to present to their respective donors. As will be mentioned in the field study, the different methodologies and criteria created tension among (potential) beneficiaries, who perceived the differences in assistance as unfair. A fear of unfavourable comparisons and of exposing less successful aspects of projects may have resulted in less exchange of information and collective learning than what would have been desirable. However, to some extent it seems that the problems encountered by agencies were so widespread and so clearly caused by the difficult circumstances rather than by the agencies’ fault that “lessons learnt” also have been transferred to some degree from one agency to another in the course of their programmes.
Most of the project reports mention various forms of input provided by other agencies that contributed positively to the projects. This input ranges from low cost household equipment to costly electrification projects. In some areas such linkages may simply be the result of several agencies working in the same area and being approached by the same local actors, but there are also references of discussions and agreements between different agencies in this regard. This seems to be the case with some collective investments such as infrastructure, but there are also examples of agreed linkages with income generation projects, transport, legal aid and other types of projects implemented by other agencies. Some reports mention co-operation with SFOR and IPTF in terms of providing security
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for minority returnees. Such co-operation was a standard practice for UNHCR in the first years of minority return.
Project objectives and rationale Available project reports often state the immediate objective or purpose of the project as what would more commonly be called project output: The “objective” is simply an imprecise reference to “results that can be guaranteed by the project as a consequence of its activities” (NORAD, 1999), for example to “provide shelter for house owners, refugees and displaced persons.” Other project reports refer to objectives or purposes that go beyond the project activities and describe what these activities are meant to achieve, for example “durable return of minorities to both sides of the IEBL (Inter-Entity Boundary Line).” The problem of many of these objectives, however, is that no indicators are provided to determine when the objective could be considered met. This is also the case for the very few long term objectives or goals mentioned in the reports, such as “contribution to community development refer to Dayton accords”. The fact that so few projects seem to have felt the need to explain the objective of (minority) return may be an indication both of the strength of joint international policy making in BiH and of goals that were so widely shared that they acquired an almost dogmatic status. The lack of clear immediate and long-term objectives and indicators to measure them, would make the projects difficult to evaluate.
A few project objectives were changed in the course of implementation, which mostly seems to have taken place after consultation and in agreement with the donor. These changes were all the result of changing circumstances in the field, such as refugees finding private accommodation and the need for collective accommodation diminishing as a result. In some cases the number of housing units repaired or reconstructed was lower or higher than planned due to changes in prices or incorrect assessments of damage levels.
It is often not clear from project documentation why a project aim or a specific location was chosen for a project. Most decisions that must have been made in the course of the project are not documented, let alone explained. However, most projects seem to have been determined by one or several of the elements below:
• Requests of municipal authorities • Requests by groups of potential beneficiaries, such as IDP/returnee representatives and associations • Recommendations of the RRTF or other international actors in BiH • Priorities of the NMFA • Recommendations of the Norwegian Embassies • Staff members’ assessments of the situation and needs on the ground
As mentioned in the section on co-ordination, the agencies largely followed the priorities identified by the main international actors in BiH. As for locations, the requests of the
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municipality seem to have been decisive for the selection of majority return projects, whereas RRTF’s recommendations and the demonstrated interest in return by minority returnees themselves carried much weight in relation to minority projects. It is likely that agencies referred to the authoritative and recognised RRTF mechanism rather than merely justifying their choices on their own assessments because they believed that this would carry more weight in the eyes of the donor. In some cases it is evident from the reports that the agencies made their own assessments of the viability of some locations, and most of the requests and recommendations provided by authorities, potential beneficiaries and international actors were probably checked against the local knowledge and experience of the agencies’ project staff.
Relatively few project reports make efforts at expressing lessons learnt or recommendations for future. One final report stresses the need for a more comprehensive approach to income generation, which seems only to have been partially implemented in later projects: “To recreate the village environment fully, I think we have to approach whole villages with houses, infrastructure and help to start agricultural activity.” One detailed NRC report written on the background of a minority return project in Posavina seeks to summarise the prerequisites for minority return projects, referring to real support from local authorities, acceptance of minority return by the majority, beneficiaries genuinely interested in return and solutions to the problems of the majority population through minority return – for example reconstruction of houses of majority IDPs occupying houses of minorities. Some reports make general observations summarising their experiences, for example that the older generation is the first to return, that different groups show varying interest in return, that jobs and social security are crucial for successful for return, that minority return to towns meets with more resistance than minority return to rural areas and that the resistance to minority return partly depends on whether the current minority is big enough to be perceived as a threat to the post-war ethnic dominance or not.
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Field Study
Background of returnees and return locations
Return location profile The locations visited vary considerably in terms of demography, war and return history and political and economic situation. All these factors are likely to have influenced to some degree both the interviewees’ decision to return and remain and their current living conditions. Below follows a brief description of the locations. Unfortunately there is a general dearth of reliable and easily available statistical information in BiH, which means that some of the information provided below is imprecise.
Sarajevo Stari Grad Of a total of 50626 pre-war residents in the municipality 78.02% were Bosniacs, 10.23% were Serbs, 2.36% were Croats, 6.39% declared themselves as Yugoslavs and 2.99% belonged to the category of “others”. Like the rest of the city the municipality was besieged for the greatest part of the war and especially houses near the frontline were badly damaged. Majority return started immediately after the war and took place on a large scale to reconstructed property. Minority return started later and according to the UNHCR statistics, 310 Croats and 1388 Serbs have returned to the municipality, however, a representative of the municipality believed the number of Serb returnees in reality is much smaller. The municipality assesses that about 50% of the pre-war Serb houses have been sold. The main Bosniac nationalist party, Stranka Demokratske Akcije (the Party of Democratic Action, SDA), dominates the municipality politically29. The municipality is urban and located in one of the most economically favourable areas in BiH.30
The interviewees in Stari Grad municipality were beneficiaries of a NPA project from 1997 and live in the outskirts of the town centre, near the former frontline at the top of the hills surrounding the city. The two neighbourhoods visited (Sedrenik and Berkusa/Bostarici/Iza Gaja) are on different sides of the town but are similar in many respects. They are urban but peripheral and some interviewees had enough land near their house to deal with agriculture on a small scale. Both areas are mainly populated by the same people who lived there before the war, contrary to many neighbourhoods in
29 SDA has 14 seats in the municipal assembly, SDP has 6, SBiH 5 and SDU 4. See the list of abbreviations for the full names of parties. 30 The very summary comments on the economic situation of the municipalities visited are based on the assessments of authorities and international agencies in the respective areas.
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Sarajevo that have seen a considerable influx of IDPs. People in the area seem mainly to have stayed during the war or been displaced elsewhere in town.
Mostar Mostar had 126066 inhabitants before the war, out of which 34.85% were Bosniacs, 18.97% were Serbs, 33.83% were Croats and 2.32% were “others”. The town was affected by heavy fighting first between Serbs and Bosniacs/Croats and then between Bosniacs and Croats along a frontline that went through the very centre of town. After the war the municipality was split into three Croat-dominated municipalities, three Bosniac- dominated municipalities and a neutral central zone. The city was administratively reunited through the statute imposed by the High Representative in January 2004.31 Minority return, especially return to urban areas, met with considerable resistance. The unified area covers both urban and rural areas. The main Croat nationalist and Bosniac nationalist parties, HDZ and SDA, dominate political life in Mostar, while Serbs in the area are virtually unrepresented politically.32 The war-time division of the town into a Croat-dominated west side and a Bosniac-dominated east side has only to a limited degree been countered by minority return across the former front line and there has been very little Serb return.33 Minority return to rural areas started in 1998 and was largely organised by the international community. Minority return to town was delayed due to obstruction and security incidents and the first organised movement in 1999 was followed by the second a whole year later. Although there has been an increase in economic activities in town, the area is by most accounts less economically advantageous than Sarajevo.
The interviewees in Mostar were beneficiaries of a NPA project from 1999 and lived in the villages of Hodbina, Bacevici and Bijelo Polje. The latter two are closer to town and more accessible. The two former are Bosniac/Serb and Serb return areas, whereas Bijelo Polje is a Croat return area. Bijelo Polje is on the main road and less marked by agricultural activity than Hodbina and Bacevici. When the project was implemented all three were minority return locations, but the distinction between majority and minority has been somewhat blurred by the reunification. All the locations are considered by representatives of the authorities to be relatively successful return locations compared to other locations in the area. Serbs returned primarily from neighbouring RS municipalities, Bosniaks from East Mostar, other nearby Bosniac-dominated municipalities or from abroad and Croats returned from West Mostar or Croatia.
Bosanski Petrovac Bosanski Petrovac had a total of 15552 inhabitants before the war, 21.1% of which were Bosniacs, 75.2 % Serbs, 0.3% Croats and 3.4% “others”. The municipality was split by
31 http://www.ohr.int/decisions/mo-hncantdec/default.asp?content_id=31725 32 The coalition led by HDZ has 7 seats in the city council, SDA has 4, SBiH 2, SDP 2, NSRzB 1 and a coalition led by smaller Croat-prefix parties has 1 seat. 33 UNHCR had of October 2005 registered 2848 Croat minority returnees, 7719 Serb minority returnees, 6741 Bosniac minority returnees and 70 “other” minority returnees to Mostar.
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the frontline and a smaller part became a part of the RS after the war. Bosniacs were displaced from the municipality in the beginning of the war and Serbs at the very end when the joint Federation army took control over the area. Immediately after the war the population was almost exclusively Bosniac. Spontaneous Serb return began shortly after the signing of the Dayton agreement. After considerable return, Serbs – who are usually considered minority returnees because the municipality is in the Federation and because of the immediate post-war demography - are again in majority at the municipal level.34 This also manifests itself in a political majority of RS-based parties at the municipal level.35 As is the case in the other municipalities in the Federation with a Serb majority, the municipal authorities claim that the canton discriminates against the municipality because of its demography. Despite the current Serb majority, Serbs are underrepresented in the public sector, as most of the positions were filled before return started. The municipality is economically disadvantaged, but has agricultural potential and significant forest resources.
The interviewees in Bosanski Petrovac were beneficiaries of two projects that NRC implemented in Bravsko and Bjelaj in 1998 and in Bare in 2000. Bravsko is a large Serb village on the main road, Bare is also Serb but closer to town on the main road, whereas Bjelaj is a mixed village far from the main road and consequently cut off from public transport. Small-scale agriculture and forestry is the main source of income in all three villages. People from Bare and Bravsko were mainly displaced to Prnjavor and Derventa, while Bosniacs from Bjelaj were displaced to Bihac and other nearby Bosniac dominated municipalities.
Kljuc Kljuc had a total of 37233 inhabitants before the war, 47.58% of which were Bosniacs, 49.52% Serbs, 0.90% Croats, 1.46% Yugoslavs and 0.54% “others”. Bosniacs now constitute the majority of the population. Like Bosanski Petrovac, a large part of the population of all ethnicities were displaced at some point in time. Serbs were mainly displaced to Banja Luka and Prijedor, whereas Bosniacs were displaced to nearby Bosniac-dominated municipalities and Western Europe. The municipality was split as a consequence of the war and 43% of the pre-war municipality now constitutes Ribnik municipality in the RS. Serb return started in 1998, but has been relatively insignificant36 and Serbs are not politically represented. Return representatives believe atrocities committed by Serbs and the fact that the leader of the RS association opposing return (Ostanak) originates from Kljuc are factors contributing to the low return rate. That a large part of the municipality is now in the RS has probably also negatively affected
34 The municipality estimates that there are currently 2173 Bosniac residents, 4270 Serbs and 450 Bosniac IDPs. 35 SNSD, has 7 seats in the municipal assembly, SDA 3, SPRS 2, LDS 1, SBiH 1, SDP 1, Pensioners BiH 1 and an independent councillor 1. 36 UNHCR estimated in May 2005 that only 502 out of a total of 18174 residents are Serbs, and only 59 are Croats.
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return. SDA has majority in the municipal council.37 The economic situation in the municipality is bleak and no minority returnees are known to have found employment in Kljuc.
The interviewees in Kljuc lived in Kljuc town, Rudenice and Velecevo and were beneficiaries of a NRC project from 1998. There are Serb returnees in town and in the mixed village Rudenice, while Velecevo is a Bosniac village. Both Velecevo and Rudenice are on the main road and relatively close to town, but Rudenice is worse off when it comes to infrastructure, especially the Serb-owned houses farther from the road. There were many empty houses in the project studied, especially in Rudenice.
Brcko District Brcko had 87332 inhabitants before the war, 44.39% of which were Bosniacs, 20.76% Serbs, 25.38% Croats, 6.44% Yugoslavs and 3.03% “others”. The municipality was divided by the frontline and split into three war-time municipalities – each dominated by a different constituent people. The area’s status was left undecided at Dayton as its location was considered vital by both the RS and the Federation, and was only resolved with an arbitral decision in 1999 that established a District for the entire pre-war Brcko municipality, under the exclusive sovereignty of BiH. There has been considerable return to Brcko,38 but the authorities have also actively supported the local integration of Serb IDPs through land plot allocation. Minority return to the town and its surroundings was fiercely resisted in the beginning, and initially occurred in a phased and organised manner on a backdrop of demonstrations and security incidents. Local authorities appointed by he OHR’s representative in Brcko, the Supervisor, governed the District until the elections in 2004. The main multi-ethnic party, Socijaldemokratska Partija (Social Democratic Party, SDP), and the main Serb nationalist party, Srpska Demokratska Stranka (Serb Democratic Party, SDS), are the largest parties in the assembly.39 SDP also won the mayoral elections. Brcko has a favourable geographic position for trade and has been the subject of much international assistance. Its economic situation is generally assessed to be better than most other BiH municipalities.
The interviewees in Brcko were beneficiaries of a NPA project from 1998 and lived in Lipovac, Boce, Boderiste and Dizdarusa. Lipovac is a village consisting of one Croat and one Serb hamlet that were divided by the IEBL. Boce and Boderiste are Croat villages that belonged to the war-time Croat Ravne municipality although they were territorially in the Bosniac municipality. Dizdarusa is a dominantly Bosniac suburb of Brcko town.
37 SDA has 13 seats in the municipal assembly, followed by SBiH with 7, SDP with 3, LDS with 1 and Pensioners BiH with 1. 38 According to the latest UNHCR statistics, 17745 Bosniacs, 6296 Croats and 2524 Serbs have returned to Brcko. 39 SDS has 6 seats in the assembly, SDP 6, SDA 4, SBiH 3, HDZ 3, SNSD 2, NHI/HSS 2 and SPRS 2.
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Brod The pre-war population of Brod totalled 33962 inhabitants, 12.19% of which were Bosniacs, 33.76% Croats, 41.00% Serbs and 2.43% others. The municipality was briefly controlled by Croat forces in the beginning of the war, after which the RS army controlled it for the remainder of the war. Large parts of the population were therefore displaced, but most Serb returnees came back to the area (if not necessarily to their houses) after a couple of months. Bosniac minority return started in 1998, while significant Croat return only started in 2000. Bosniacs have generally shown more interest and returned in greater numbers than Croats, who mostly have much better living conditions in Croatia.40 The authorities allocated land plots to IDPs, Serb refugees from Croatia and even Serb IDPs in neighbouring municipalities in an effort to compensate for the depopulation resulting from the large displacement and relatively small influx of IDPs and refugees. SDS has been in power in the municipality since the war, but minority returnees are at least represented in the municipal assembly.41 The closeness to Slavonski Brod in Croatia provides for some economic opportunities, but the situation is clearly much worse than in the other border town visited, Brcko.
The interviewees in Brod lived in Brod town and the villages Lijesce, Gornji Klakar, Sijekovac and Kricanovo and were beneficiaries of several projects implemented by NRC between 1997 and 2001. There are both Serb, Bosniac and Croat beneficiaries in town. Lijesce and Gornji Klakar are Serb villages, Kricanovo is Croat and Sijekovac is mixed. The latter is close to town whereas the others are somewhat more remote.
Derventa The pre-war population of Derventa totalled 56328 inhabitants, 12.64% of which were Bosniacs, 40.81% Serbs, 39.01% Croats, 5.87% Yugoslavs and 1.67% “others”. Its wartime history is similar to that of Brod, as the control over the area changed from one army to another during the first year of war. Many Serbs were therefore displaced only for a short period of time, whereas Croats and Bosniaks started returning several years after the war. As in Brod, Bosniacs showed more eagerness to return and started returning in 1998, while Croats began returning in 2000 in small numbers.42 The town received IDPs primarily from Bosanski Petrovac and allocated land plots to many of them. The municipality has been dominated by SDS since the war, but was challenged by the main Serb moderate party, Stranka Nezavisnih Socialdemokrata (Party of Independent Social Democrats, SNSD), in the last elections.43 SNSD won the mayor in a narrow race with the support of out of country voters and minorities, but SDS is still the largest party in the assembly. Parties representing primarily minority returnees did not get any seats in the
40 UNHCR estimates that 1216 Bosniacs, 765 Croats and 2 “others” have returned to Brod. 41 SDS has 7 seats in the assembly, SPRS 5, SNSD 5, NHI/HSS 3, SDP 2, PDP 2 and the Pensioners party RS 1. 42 UNHCR estimates that 1771 Bosniacs and 491 Croats returned to Derventa. A group of Bosniacs also never left the municipality. 43 SDS has 11 seats in the assembly, SNSD 10, PDP 4 and SPRS 2.
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assembly in the last elections, which is an indicator both of the small number of minority returnees and of their lack of influence. Economic prospects are generally quite bleak.
The interviewees in Derventa lived in Derventa town, Zeravac, Donji Visnjik, Kostres and Velika and were beneficiaries of several projects implemented by NRC and SSD between 1996 and 2000. There are both Serb, Bosniac and Croat beneficiaries in town. Donji Visnjik and Zeravac are Croat villages, Kostres is a Serb village and Velika is a Bosniac village. Especially Donji Visnjik is remote and does not have access to public transport while Kostres is relatively accessible.
Modrica Modrica had a total of 35413 inhabitants before the war, 29.49% of which were Bosniacs, 35.48% Serbs, 27.28% Croats, 5.12% Yugoslavs and 2.64% “others”. A part of Modrica today constitutes Vukosavlje municipality, also in the RS. Bosniacs were mainly displaced to Western Europe and Federation municipalities. Croats were mainly displaced to Croatia. The authorities obstructed return and supported the integration of Serb DPs through the allocation of a large number of land plots. Bosniacs started expressing their interest in return shortly after the Dayton agreement was signed, but the first returns took place only in 1999. Bosniac return has since been taking place in large numbers, whereas Croat return has been rather negligible in comparison.44 SDS dominated the municipality for most of the post-war years, but lost this position in the last elections when SNSD won the position of mayor and the same number of assembly seats as SDS.45 Despite the significant return rate only one Federation based party is represented in the assembly and with only one seat, which according to the municipal return focal point is mainly due to returnees not registering because they are afraid to lose their health insurance rights in the Federation. Modrica’s economy is more favourably assessed than many other nearby municipalities and, contrary to many other groups of returnees, Bosniac minority returnees to Modrica have been relatively successful in creating their own employment. The agricultural potential in the area is considerable, and projects such as the business incubator in Tarevci (one of the main Bosniac return sites) has been instrumental in creating and sustaining businesses.
The interviewees in Modrica were beneficiaries of a project implemented by NRC in Modrica town in 1997 and of a project implemented by NPA in Kuznjaca, Gornji Kladari, Garevac and Cardak in 1999. The beneficiaries in town are mainly Serb residents and majority returnees. The beneficiaries in the three other villages are all Croats. Kuznjaca is most remote and none of the beneficiaries were there when we visited. The situation was somewhat better in Gornji Kladari, Garevac and Cardak, but there were many empty houses in all the villages.
44 According to UNHCR 4978 Bosniacs, 566 Croats and 246 “others” returned to Modrica. 45 SNSD has 11 seats in the assembly, SDS 11, PDP 1, SPRS 1 and SDP 1.
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Interviewee profile The survey sample consisted of 101 households46, residing in the municipalities of Stari Grad (Sarajevo), Bosanski Petrovac, Kljuc, Brod, Derventa and Modrica, the city of Mostar and the Brcko district. 64% of the households are considered to be minority households and 36% majority households.47 62% of the households lived in rural areas. More minority than majority households (15 percentage points) lived in rural areas. In 41 of the households women were interviewed, in 33 men and in 23 both women and men (mostly married couples) were interviewed. Most of the interviewees were middle aged and elderly, and only 13% of the interviewees were younger than 40. 37% of the interviewees were Bosniacs, 36% Serbs and 28% Croats. 8% of the interviewees were (or had upon return been) in mixed marriages. 32% had 4 years of primary education or less, 25% had primary education (8 years), 40% had secondary education (11-12 years) and 4% had university education. There were a total of 294 household members living in the interviewed households. The average household consisted of 2.9 members.
All households interviewed (possibly except for one48) were reconstruction beneficiaries of Norwegian NGOs financed with funds from the Norwegian government. 56% of the households were reconstruction beneficiaries of NRC, 41% of NPA and 3% of SSD.
Interviewees’ displacement history 6% of the interviewed households (all majority households) never left their houses even though the housing units were damaged during the war. The remainder were all returnees. Most of the households fled with the waves of displacement that followed the outbreak of hostilities or moving frontlines in their respective areas of residence. The exceptions are households in Stari Grad, which were displaced when their houses happened to be seriously damaged by grenades during the years the city was under siege, and a few interviewees who had been working abroad when the war broke out and cut them off from their houses. Most interviewees (70%) left in 1992, Croats and Bosniacs in Mostar and Bosanski Petrovac respectively were displaced in 1993 and Serbs in Bosanski Petrovac and Kljuc were displaced in 1995. Most households (53%) had been in one town or village during the time of displacement, but many had moved between different towns or even different countries during their displacement. 27% had been in two places and 14% had been in three to five different places during their displacement. Many had clearly changed accommodation several times in each town or village as well. Slightly more than half (52%) had been refugees (i.e. displaced outside of BiH) at some point of time during their displacement. 30% of the households returned to their reconstructed housing units from abroad (mainly Croatia, but also Serbia and Montenegro or Western
46 A household is considered to be a group of persons regularly sleeping and sharing meals in one housing unit (i.e. a house or, in the case a house contains separate apartments, an apartment). Family members who spent most of the year in another housing unit were not considered to be part of the same household. 47 See the discussion of what constitutes a minority/majority returnee/resident in the section entitled methodology. 48 One interviewee claimed not to have received assistance although the household was on the final beneficiary list. See the section headed “housing”.
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European countries). 24% returned from another entity in BiH. 18% returned from another municipality in the same entity. 23% were living in the same municipality when their housing units were reconstructed, but many of these had been displaced elsewhere before, only to return to live in occupied property49, with friends or relatives or in their own damaged property before they moved to their reconstructed houses or apartments.
For 42% of the households occupied property was the last accommodation before they returned. 29% stayed with relatives or other hosts in their last place of displacement, 19% rented housing, 4% lived in collective centres and 1 household lived in their own stables. Most households relied on several sources of income while in displacement. The most commonly mentioned was humanitarian or social aid provided by international agencies or domestic authorities or organisations (mentioned by 57% of the interviewees), irregular employment (31%), pensions or disability payments (26%) and remittances or other help from relatives (25%). Only 12% of the households had members who were regularly employed in displacement, 9% were engaged in agricultural activities and 3% had savings. The interviewed households spent between a few months and 10 years in displacement. The last year any of the households returned was 2002. More than half spent between 6 and 8 years in displacement.
Interviewees’ return history All but two of the interviewees, whose reconstructed houses were used by their sons while they lived in nearby houses, claimed that their households lived in the repaired or reconstructed housing units permanently. In a few cases there were reasons to doubt this, and the houses may in reality be used only part time or only by some members of the household. All but two interviewees, both minority returnees in a village in Derventa, also said they were registered as residents on the address of this housing unit. Although in principle international agencies in BiH reconstructed only housing units that were legally owned by and were the pre-war residence of the beneficiaries, there were at least six exceptions to this rule. These houses were either owned by another family member than the one who had received the donation, had only been weekend houses or had not been completed before the war. The agencies may have been aware of this and shown flexibility for pragmatic reasons. However, two families had obviously solved the housing needs of the younger generation by obtaining reconstruction assistance for former weekend houses, which would normally not have been in accordance with international policies.
Most of the interviewees did not describe the return as organised unless they moved back with other returnees in buses or lived in collective accommodation awaiting reconstruction, which only 12% did. However, few if any minority returnees seemed to have returned entirely on their own without any previous contact with return representatives or international agencies. Return representatives and associations have played an important role in many areas by contacting (potential) returnees and being the
49 Either legally, by being allocated housing units that were “abandoned” when others were displaced in accordance with wartime laws, or illegally by simply moving in to uninhabited property.
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first link between them and the international agencies. Local authorities often facilitated contact between international agencies and majority returnees.
Reconstruction assistance All interviewees except for one in Sarajevo claimed to have received reconstruction assistance. In this case it was unclear whether the household was on the project’s beneficiary list by mistake or whether the interviewee did not know about the donation because she had married into the family later. Most, but not all, seemed to remember that the assistance had been delivered by a Norwegian organisation, if not necessarily which organisation.50 It was difficult to establish exactly what each household had received and in which manner, but it was clear that most had received an extensive or full reconstruction. 8% seemed to have received only very minor assistance, such as interior works in housing units that had been occupied by IDPs or refugees. The interviewees were beneficiaries of projects that used different reconstruction models.
Of those who confirmed they had received assistance, 45% said they were satisfied with it. 38% said they were partially satisfied, 15% were not satisfied, and 2% did not know. 80% of the beneficiaries said they had carried out additional repairs with their own means, adding anything between bathroom tiles and a whole additional floor. One or two beneficiaries seemed to have received another donation for the house in addition to the Norwegian one.
84% of those who answered the question of how important the assistance had been to them said that the assistance had been very important, while only 3% said it had not been so important. One of the latter was an interviewee who had let the son from a previous marriage move in to the reconstructed house and had regretted this later when his family had to leave the housing they occupied, which means that the household interviewed by their own fault actually did not benefit from the assistance. Many said they would not have been able to carry out the reconstruction only with their own means or that they would not have returned without the donation. Several appeared to have had the means to repair or reconstruct their houses without a donation, as their houses were far beyond the rather Spartan “IMG standard”51 commonly applied. However, it is difficult to assess at present the means the households had at the time of return and the extent of the repairs required. Some referred to other aspects of the assistance than the material and said that the donation had given them a feeling of security and support.
50 Due to the large number of organisations that worked in BiH it is quite common for beneficiaries to be confused as to who the donors and/or the implementers of the project were. Hans Skotte (2004) calls this the “Some organisation syndrome”. Humanitarian workers in BiH have told that theirs and other organisations were not infrequently all labelled “UNPROFOR” after the first international ground presence in many locations in BiH. 51 This standard entailed that the beneficiary household as a minimum would have the following rooms and facilities at their disposal: 5 m2 bedroom area per person, one living room area, a kitchen area (combined with living room area if this was the case pre-war), one bathroom, one entrance lobby, water installations and sanitary fittings for the toilet/bathroom and kitchen and electrical installations and accessories in the rooms selected for rehabilitation. See www.reliefweb.int/library/documents/KosovoAssessment99.pdf for more details about this standard.
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Few of those who reflected on which other types of assistance would have been better than the one they received, mentioned other forms of assistance than reconstruction. Many stressed that to “have a roof over one’s head” – a frequently used expression – was their priority at the time of return. Some interlocutors remarked that returnees often had difficulties thinking beyond housing when they first returned, while income generation became their main concern only after the reconstruction. 8% of the interviewees said that the best form for assistance would have been to be given employment opportunities that enabled them to finance the reconstruction themselves. Unsurprisingly there were few suggestions as to how this could be accomplished.
“At the time reconstruction was the most important.” Bosniac woman, Velika
“The most important assistance would have been to get a regular income. Whatever we got was a lot at the time, but compared to what needed to be done it was little.” Bosniac man, Sarajevo
“There is no better help than reconstruction. But it could have been done better. NPA wanted as many houses as possible – they did not look beyond that.” Serb man, Hodbina
“Work is the most important thing, not donations. It is better to pay reconstruction with what you earn.” Croat man, Bijelo Polje
Reconstruction model There are considerable differences in degree of satisfaction among beneficiaries of different types of reconstruction assistance. Of the three beneficiaries who participated in the SSD project one was partially satisfied and the two others were satisfied. The beneficiaries who received money in instalments were among the most satisfied beneficiaries. 60% of them said that they were satisfied, 37% that they were partially satisfied and only 3% that they were not satisfied. Of the ones who received materials 50% were satisfied, 45% were partially satisfied and 5% were not satisfied. The beneficiaries who had their houses reconstructed by contractors were the least satisfied. 28% were satisfied, 38% were partially satisfied and 33% were not satisfied.
When asked whether they would have preferred another type of assistance than the one they received, almost half (49%) said they believed they had received the best form of assistance. Again beneficiaries who received money instalments were the ones who expressed greatest satisfaction; 66% believed this type of assistance was the best. The answers of the interviewees who had their houses reconstructed by contractors showed that they were not primarily dissatisfied with the model as such, but rather with the way the assistance had been delivered. 54% of them said they believed contracted reconstruction to be the best form assistance. One of the three SSD beneficiaries believed this model was the best. The beneficiaries who received materials were the ones least satisfied with the type of assistance, and only 10% said they thought this model was the best. The others would have preferred either a contractor or cash.
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The answers relating to types of assistance show that there is no single model of assistance that is best for all beneficiaries. All models have disadvantages and advantages, and the age, ability and social and material resources of the beneficiary determines which model is best. Many interviewees appreciated the flexibility provided by self-help approaches (materials, money or a combination), which allowed them to decide themselves how to best meet their housing needs and add their own funds if they had any. As there is a tradition for people to build their own houses in BiH, quite a few have the required skills or have relatives or friends who do. Many said they had been able to construct more for the donation than if a contractor had been paid the same amount.52 However, a perceived disadvantage with donations that only consisted of materials was the extra costs that many had to cover because they needed professionals for the whole, or parts of, the reconstruction. This problem is solved by providing assistance wholly or partly in cash. However, some beneficiaries who received money and needed to pay for contractors had experienced problems because they were not satisfied with the contractors’ work and unsuccessful in their complaints against them. Minority beneficiaries may also be reluctant to complain against a majority contractor without the return agency acting on their behalf, such as one household in Brod who said they had been afraid to complain against the contractor for fear that the latter would damage something in the house as a retalitation for their complaints. Beneficiaries were of the opinion that the advantage of a contracted reconstruction was that it was easier and safer for beneficiaries than to build themselves or find someone else to do it for them. However, many felt that they had little say in the reconstruction process with this model and that the contractors did a bad job and were not sufficiently controlled by the agency. The advantages of the credit/village fund model applied by SSD were perceived to be the common good of the village fund. The obvious disadvantage was the difficulty of enforcing payment (aggravated by the lack of a professional and independent judiciary) and some beneficiaries’ lack of understanding of what the assistance entailed. The latter may have led some to accept the terms without believing that they would actually have to repay half of the donation. The following statements show some of the variation in the assessment of different models:
“I don’t know how I would have managed without the donation. If they had given me a contractor they would just have made emergency accommodation. This way we made it the way we wanted.” Croat woman, Dizdarusa
“We were very happy we got the donation although it was minimal. We would have preferred to get a contractor through NRC because it would have been easier to control. In the beginning we did not feel free to chose contractors and complain to them, and contractors did not come here from the Federation. Other organisations controlled also privately hired contractors and told them to redo things if necessary, but NRC didn’t.” Bosniac couple, Sijekovac
52 Evaluations of for example SIDA’s self help projects also show that this model is cost-efficient compared to the use of contractors (Skotte, 2004; Cukur, Magnusson, Molander, Skotte, 2005).
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“Assistance in cash was best, because we were old and wouldn’t have managed to build ourselves with only materials.” Woman, Modrica
Complaints 57% of the beneficiaries, including some of those who said they were satisfied, had complaints about the assistance received.
26% of the complaints regard the quality of the work carried out by the contractors. A few said that what had been done was so bad that it had to be completely redone, which they had later done with their own means. Several beneficiaries complained that the contractors were not trained craftsmen, but “post Dayton construction firms" who saw a chance to earn money in the new sector of internationally funded reconstruction that emerged after the war. These beneficiaries typically claimed that they could have done a better job with the same amount of money. Those who were present during the reconstruction seemed to be more satisfied with the result, but some had clearly had to argue with the contractors. 5% of the beneficiaries complained about the quality of materials. Shortly after the war there was little construction material on the market, which meant that the prices were high and the quality often unsatisfactory. Some of the dissatisfaction with materials and works may be based on an assessment of the repairs on the basis of the materials and prices available today. Whereas some seemed to put the problem of low quality of works and/or materials down to merely a lack of skill or a tight budget, 7% of the beneficiaries stated that they suspected the contractor of having cheated the agency by doing less than they were supposed to do and pocketing the difference. Corruption is a widespread problem in BiH that affects virtually all segments of society. Interviewees also complained about this in relation to health services, social services and reconstruction assistance provided by governmental bodies.53 However, there is a culture of routinely suspecting corruption in BiH, which makes it difficult to assess how seriously such statements should be taken. It is possible that the combination of high prices of materials and a lack of transparency in the reconstruction process fuelled suspicions needlessly, but it is also quite possible that some contractors saw a window for making some extra profit by cutting corners and exploited this.
25% of the beneficiaries complained about the extent of the assistance. This concerned both the type of assistance, for example that they did not receive anything beyond reconstruction, and the quantity of space reconstructed. The complaints partly seemed to be founded on comparisons with other beneficiaries and partly on a conception of what they needed or were entitled to. It is true that especially the early Norwegian projects were not very generous when it came to other types of assistance than reconstruction, whereas other organisations offered transport, household items or income generation packages. In fact, Norwegian NGOs stated that it took a long time to convince representatives of the Norwegian MFA of the necessity to add a livelihood support
53 One interviewee in Sarajevo even said that applicants to jobs in the public sector were frequently asked to pay as much as 2-5000 Bosnian Convertible Marks (BAM) to be hired.
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component to the reconstruction assistance. Many agencies developed a more comprehensive project model over time in an effort to better address obstacles to return observed through earlier projects.
When it comes to the reconstruction itself it is difficult to say whether the Norwegian projects were of a lower standard than other projects. Most agencies’ projects kept to the minimum standards commonly referred to as the “IMG standard”54. It could be that there have been mistakes in assessing space needs for some families. However, it is also possible that these interviewees had actually listed only some family members as interested in return and that others decided to return after the beneficiary selection had been completed, that the family had increased since before the war55 or that they simply thought the IMG standard was unsatisfactory. Some beneficiaries seemed to feel entitled to regain all they had lost during the war and found it difficult to reconcile themselves with the fact that only a part of their pre-war house was reconstructed. Others, however, acknowledged that many had not received any assistance at all and appreciated the assistance of someone they felt was not obliged to help them.
7% of the beneficiaries interviewed claimed they did not get all the materials that were required or promised. A particular problem was reported by 5 beneficiaries in Bosanski Petrovac and Kljuc, where the gables of the houses had not been closed, which lead to leakages and other damages.
For some beneficiaries it was clear that problems relating to missing parts or faulty reconstruction had been aggravated by their late return, as the houses had stood unguarded through winter storms and two of them had been looted.
6 % of the beneficiaries stated that they had tried to complain either to the contractor, the agency or the municipality. 2 households had some limited success in that they received some of the materials they missed, but others said there had been no response to their complaints. A few remarked that it was unclear how much the implementing agency controlled the contractor and that it was often difficult to contact the agency at all. One beneficiary who had spoken to a representative of the agency had simply been told that he “could take it or leave it” and that the assistance could easily be given to someone else if he was not satisfied. Such complaints were more common among beneficiaries of the early projects. The first projects on average had many more beneficiaries, which naturally made communication with each beneficiary more difficult, but agencies also seem to have become more conscious of the importance of good communication with beneficiaries in the later projects.
Irrespective of the complaints, virtually all seemed grateful for the assistance. It was also clear that the assessment of the assistance had to some degree changed over time. In some cases, faults of the construction faults were not immediately visible for the beneficiaries
54 See explanation provided in footnote above. 55 Most agencies would not reconstruct a house for more than the pre-war number of household members, at least not if this meant expanding it.
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but became evident only after some time. However, it is clearly also a question of changing needs and conceptions. Some remarked that at the time of the reconstruction they were glad merely to have a roof over their heads. As the situation normalised they also ceased to conceive of their house simply as shelter and consequently assessed it differently, for example according to the standard of housing they enjoyed before the war.
Some of the complaints may have arisen from insufficient transparency and communication with (potential) beneficiaries. Many interviewees stated that they did not know how much was supposed to have been done with their house or how much it had cost. 4% of the beneficiaries claimed that they had either not signed a contract, seen the tender or a specification of materials or signed the hand over document. As mentioned above, several interviewees seemed unclear about who had actually carried out the project, which may be an indication of insufficient involvement of the agency with the beneficiaries. 4 interviewees who were beneficiaries of NRC’s project in Bosanski Petrovac and Kljuc in 1998 were not even sure how they entered the reconstruction programme. One elderly couple claim they did not apply and believed that they entered the programme because a nephew put their names on a list of people interested in return. One interviewee also said he did not apply and therefore assumes that the representative of the Mjesna Zajednica56 (MZ, Local Community) put his name on a list. Two other beneficiaries had expressed their interest in return, but said they were not informed that they had been selected before the works had already started. Insufficient transparency creates problems and conflicts and breeds suspicion that could have been avoided with a better flow of information. In some cases, a lack of communication with (potential) beneficiaries can negatively influence the result of the project, for example because beneficiaries are selected who are not genuinely interested in return. This seems to have been the case for example with NRC’s 1998 project in Kljuc and Bosanski Petrovac. As NRC noted in their review from 2002, the project may even have had negative consequences for further return to Kljuc because other donors and agencies became sceptical about the return potential in the municipality.
It is also clearly a problem that different agencies offer different criteria and project models. In most of the locations visited more than one agency had implemented reconstruction projects following different methodologies. Many perceived it as unfair that some returnees received more or better reconstruction assistance than others or were included in income generation projects simply because they were included in one agency’s reconstruction project instead of another’s. This perceived injustice was another source of tension among returnees.
Other return related assistance 49% of the households said they had received no other assistance than reconstruction in relation to their return. 23% had received agricultural assistance in the form of livestock, seeds or trees. 14% mentioned that they had received household items or food. 11% had received tools or machinery for construction, agriculture or crafts. Not all of this
56 The lowest level of administrative units in BiH.
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assistance seemed to have been provided by the agencies involved in the reconstruction. Much of the assistance did not seem particularly well conceived or targeted and appeared to have made little lasting impact. Households generally seemed to have received very little and may not have had the required knowledge or other prerequisites to benefit from the assistance, especially the tools, machinery and agricultural assistance. Several had received livestock that died after short time and one family did not succeed to be reimbursed despite their insurance. Some interlocutors mentioned particularly egregious examples of ill-conceived agricultural assistance, such as tractor attachments being given to people who had no more land than a garden plot in front of their house. At the same time some interviewees were clearly both knowledgeable and motivated to deal with agriculture but had not received much help in this regard.
Almost all who received other aid than reconstruction (47% of all households) said they received this assistance from an international organisation. 5% of the households had been assisted by authorities in the place of return (at the local level or higher) and 6% by a local NGO, religious or political organisation or a return representative.
Sustainability of return Despite the frequent use of the expression “sustainable return” in relation to return projects in BiH, it rarely seemed to be defined by any of the agencies involved. Most used it to refer to aspects of return relating to the economic survival of the returnees and the exercise of social rights such as health care and education. However, occasionally it may have been used in a fairly relativist or minimalist sense simply to mean “lasting return” in the sense that the households or communities of returnees remain in place over time. The virtue of this definition is that it is easy to operationalise; one can simply establish whether the returnees are still in their houses a certain number of years after return. However, as such a situation may simply be the result of a lack of options and is compatible with destitute living conditions, a more ambitious definition may be called for.
UNHCR has used a definition of sustainable return that is more normative and demanding; “the ability of returning refugees to secure the political, economic, [legal] and social conditions needed to maintain life, livelihood and dignity” (Macrae, 1999). This understanding of sustainable return is probably closer to what most return agencies strove to achieve than the minimalist definition above. It may, however, be difficult to determine exactly what it entails in practice. It should probably not be interpreted as ambitiously as UNHCR’s description of “the end state” of reintegration of refugees and IDPs; “the universal enjoyment of full political, civil, economic, social and cultural rights” (UNHCR, 2004). Such a yardstick may be too demanding, as one can hardly argue that non-returnees in BiH enjoy the full range of human rights. On the other hand, it clearly demands respect of basic civil and political rights and the absence of abject poverty.
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In the following, the situation in the return locations visited will be sought measured by using indicators that could be applied to both these definitions of sustainable return. Where possible, comparisons with countrywide data will be made.
Current return/occupancy rate The most basic way to measure the success or sustainability of return projects is to count how many people have returned and still remain, either as households or as individuals. A common way to do this is to count inhabited houses and establish an occupancy rate by dividing this number with the total number of reconstructed houses in a project. In BiH such occupancy rates were established by HVM for the majority of the return projects. HVM figures are available for most, if not all, of the project locations visited. In many locations return representatives and other local residents also provided information about the occupancy status of reconstructed houses. In some cases this information can be considered more reliable than the HVM data because it is more recent and was obtained for all the houses in the respective location. The table below shows the occupancy rate considered most reliable for the respective locations visited.57
100
90
80
70
60 Urban/Majority Rural/Majority 50 Urban/Minority Rural/Minority 40
30
20
10
0 Bjelaj Serbs Bare* Velika Croats Kostres Lipovac Bravsko Bosniacs Velecevo Bosniaks Kuznjaca Rudenice Sijekovac Kricanovo Dizdarusa G. Kladari Brod town Kljuc town Kljuc Modrica town Bijelo Polje** Lijesce/Klakar Derventa town Derventa town Derventa town Boce/Boderiste Garevac/Cardak Brod town Serbs Brod town Croats Sarajevo outskirts Zeravac/D. Visnjik Bacevici/Hodbina* Bosanski Brcko Brod Derventa Kljuc Modrica MostarSarajevo Petrovac
Table 16: Project locations visited, occupancy rate (%)
* Based on incomplete list of beneficiaries ** No beneficiary list available
57 Due to different project codes it proved impossible to match the HVM data with the NPA project information from Mostar. The data from Hodbina/Bacevici is based on field visits to beneficiaries selected randomly from an incomplete list. For Bijelo Polje there was no list of beneficiaries, so beneficiaries were selected randomly among names provided by a return representative and project beneficiaries.
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How high the occupancy rate must be to make a project successful is debatable. 100% is ideal but rare, and due to difficult conditions for return in many places in BiH, the many empty houses reconstructed with international funds in BiH and the impossibility of predicting the choices of individual households most agencies and donors in BiH would probably be satisfied with somewhat less. The average occupancy rate of all the projects (financed by different donors) verified by HVM in BiH is 76%, which most of the project locations visited compare favourably with. However, results such as in the Croat villages in Modrica (Kuznjaca, Gornji Kladari, Cardak and Garevac), Croat parts of Derventa town and Serb Rudenice and Kljuc are clearly beyond any acceptable standard.
Future stability/growth of return population The occupancy rate is merely a snap shot of the currently inhabited houses and cannot alone show the sustainability of a return project over time. Possible indicators of the future stability or growth of a particular return population are the likelihood of further return as assessed by the returnees themselves, the wish to re-migrate expressed by the returnees and the presence of children and young people.
Likelihood of further return Establishing the likelihood of future return through the assessments of the returnees themselves is not unproblematic, as they may not be realistic in their judgements. It is possible that returnees will be influenced by wishful thinking or by the wish to please an international interlocutor and therefore inflate the possibility for return. It is therefore not encouraging that very few of the interviewees believed that family members who had not yet returned would do so. Only 7% believed return of former household members was likely. 32% believed it was unlikely and 12 % were uncertain whether relatives would return. 50% said they did not have other pre-war household members who were still in displacement. This probably means that it is not very likely that more relatives will return to the reconstructed houses in the near future. In some places returnees expressed more optimism about return in general to the project location, if not of their own relatives. Mainly this concerned Bosanski Petrovac and Brcko, where interlocutors said return was still ongoing. In most other places interviewees were rather sceptical about the possibility for further return.
Many said that relatives, mostly grown up children, would return if they found employment in the place of return. Sometimes this seemed to be based on wishful thinking rather than on a realistic assessment of their relatives’ situation, many of whom worked and rented or built housing in the place of displacement. Some also seemed to expect that at least one son would return with their families and take care of them in old age. This was clearly not expected of daughters, who were mostly deemed not likely to return if they were married elsewhere.
Wish for re‐migration In the locations visited, 29% of those who answered the question whether they would leave if they had the opportunity answered in the affirmative, whereas 67% said they did
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not wish to be anywhere else. Several of the interviewees who answered the latter, however, said that younger members of their families wished to leave. In fact, of the interviewees younger than 40, half said they would have liked to leave and half that they would not. These figures do not necessarily indicate a particular danger of depopulation. Generally only a few expressed their wish to leave in very strong terms or mentioned specific opportunities. Those who said they would like to go elsewhere do not necessarily wish to leave permanently, but may want to work abroad or elsewhere for a while. Also, most clearly have few opportunities to go elsewhere – least of all to Western countries with strict visa requirements, where most seem to want to go. However, it should be noted that those who mentioned specific plans to move were all younger people and some of these will most likely re-migrate. The following statements are fairly representative:
“I would leave today if I could find work and take care of my children.” Young Bosniac woman, Dizdarusa
“We would have been strangers wherever we went. We belong here.” Elderly Bosniac couple, Derventa
According to UNDP’s Early Warning System, 51,8% of all BiH citizens (48,7% of the Bosniacs, 40,8% of the Croats and 60,5% of the Serbs) would leave BiH if they had been given a chance. This wish is even more prevalent among people between 18 and 35, among whom 70% would leave the country if they could. Although there is a risk that some of the project beneficiaries will re-migrate, this risk generally seems lower than in the rest of the country. A part of the reason for the lower interest in re-migration is probably the age composition of the interviewees, which overwhelmingly consists of people older than 40 (87%). It is also possible that returnees, who often have invested much both materially and psychologically in the return, are less eager to leave than Bosnians who are still in displacement or who were never displaced.
Presence of young people Clearly children and young people are necessary for the return population in the different locations to survive over time. Hence the age distribution among the interviewees is a key indicator of the sustainability of return. Of the total of 294 persons who live in the households of the interviewees, 33% are elderly (in the age group 61+), 26% are middle aged (between 41 and 60), 21% are young grown ups (21-40) and 21% are children and young people (0-20).58 59% of the household members are older than 40.
There is consequently a significant overweight of elderly people in the households studied. Unless more young people return or the young people currently there give birth to extraordinarily high numbers of children in the years to come, the return communities
58 We did not get exact years of birth for all household members, but were still able to categorise them by age group. The age distributions applied were chosen in order to reflect rough life cycle stages – childhood and adolesence, child bearing age, middle aged working life, and retirement age – as well as to have intervals that are of fairly equal size and therefore more easily comparable. The first and last categories consist of one more year than the other categories.
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studied will gradually shrink as more members die than new members are born. Because exact years of birth are not available for all household members it is not possible to make a population curve and compare it with healthy population curves or the BiH average. However, as the age intervals cover almost the same number of years, the age composition can be presented as a small population pyramid showing a clear trend of negative growth.
Members 61-81
Members 41-60
Rural minority Urban minority Rural majority Urban majority Members 21-40
Members 0-20
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
Table 17: Interviewed households, household members per age group (individuals) The breakdown by ethnic status and urban/rural place of return shows that the tendency of negative growth is much stronger among minority returnees, in particular urban minority returnees. The finding related to urban minorities may be influenced by the selection of project locations, as the sample contains more urban minority beneficiaries in municipalities that are among the generally less successful minority return municipalities, such as Brod and Derventa, than in the generally more successful return municipalities. However, in both minority groups there are more members in the oldest age group than in any of the younger age groups seen separately. In both majority groups, the youngest category is larger than the oldest.
An analysis of the age distribution per household shows that the age of the beneficiaries jeopardises the future occupancy of the houses in the project. More than half of the households (54) do not have any members younger than 40, which reduces the likelihood of new household members being born. These households are therefore not very likely to grow unless family members who live elsewhere decide to join them or move in after having inherited the housing unit. As discussed above, this likelihood is at present judged as relatively small. 34 households consist only of one or two members who are 61 years or older. Within a relatively short time span these persons are likely to die or need care,
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which for most has to be provided by family members. If these family members do not return, the houses inhabited by elderly people alone may soon remain uninhabited. For the remaining 20 households without members who are likely to bear more children the time perspective is longer, but the problem is the same.
Of the indicators measuring the success/sustainability of return purely in terms of the presence of returnees in the project locations, the low presence of young people is by far the most alarming. This is especially the case for minority return. It is clear that further return of young people is absolutely necessary for the return to these locations to become sustainable.
Standard of life Both the minimalist and more demanding definitions of sustainable return mentioned above entail indicators relating to the standard of life the returnees enjoy. If basic needs are not met the beneficiaries cannot be said to be able to secure “conditions needed to maintain life, livelihood and dignity” and they are also likely to leave to somewhere better as soon as they can. In the following the interviewees’ standard of life relating to the fields of security, housing, utilities, income, education and health will be sought measured. Where possible, the results will be compared with similar information valid for the whole of BiH.
Physical and legal security
Personal safety Only 2 interviewees (2%), one minority and one majority interviewee, stated that they did not feel safe. The situation of both interviewees is quite specific, as one of them is harassed by a neighbour, a IDP family from Srebrenica, and the other is a former concentration camp inmate who seemed to be quite marked by his war time experience. It is therefore not clear that their statements are indicative of the general security situation in the places they live. 93% of the interviewees said that they felt safe. 5% said that they felt partially safe. Two of the latter explained their answer with reference to minefields near their homes, which were both in villages in Brcko where minefields border several gardens. Mines are still a significant security risk in BiH, particularly for rural returnees, but many interviewees said they knew where the mines were and did not see them as a major problem. The others who felt partially safe were all minority returnees. A few said that they occasionally experienced incidents involving verbal abuse or objects being thrown at their houses. In Derventa and Brod interlocutors said that offensive graffiti and intimidation of minority groups in relation to religious holidays and major sports games sometimes occurred. However, except for the one person harassed by her neighbours, interviewees did not seem particularly concerned by such incidents. According to the Early Warning System (EWS) “minority groups in all areas are at least a third more likely to be victims of crime than the local majority. This is worrying and suggests that minorities are considered to be an easy target. (…) Members of local minority groups are more likely to be victims of a crime in both Bosniak and Croat majority areas. Only in
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Bosniak majority areas did they express sufficient confidence in the police to request more assistance than the majority group. In the RS, minority groups are both less likely to be victims of crime and less likely to require police assistance.” (UNDP, 2005)
50% stated that the security situation had improved since they returned, while 45% did not think the security situation had changed much since they returned. No one said that the security situation had worsened. This difference reflects differences in resistance to return from place to place and over time, but probably also simply individual perceptions of the security situation. Minority returnees generally experienced a greater change in security. 62% said that the security situation had improved. Several described a total change in their feeling of safety, such as a Croat man in Cardak: “At Christmas they (Serb IDPs) would shoot from every house.59 Now I could sleep in the garden.” Many minority returnees referred to security problems they had experienced when they returned. Most of the incidents mentioned were limited to verbal abuse, but one family in Brod had a bomb thrown in front of their house that blew in their windows and a returnee to Hodbina found a booby trap disguised as a radio in front of his garage. Several had also received serious threats, including death threats.
Trust in local police 76% of the interviewees stated that they trusted the police. Two interviewees even stated that the police were the only ones they trusted. Many indicated that their assessment of the police had improved since they returned and some attributed the change to the considerable international focus on the local police. 15% stated that they trusted the police partially. Some explained that they trusted individual officers but not the institution as such. Only 6% said that they did not trust the police. Interviewees who did not trust the police or trusted them only partially believed that the police either did nothing to address certain crimes or criminals or that they actually participated in crime. 3% said they did not know whether they trusted the police – mainly because they had no contact with the institution at all. These figures compare favourably with the results of the EWS, in which 60.6% of the interviewees stated that they approved of the work of the police, 29.9% did not and 4.1 neither approved nor disapproved (UNDP 2005).60
Minority returnees actually expressed greater trust in the police than majority returnees and residents. 83% said they trusted the local police, 11% trusted them somewhat and 6% did not trust them. This is in accordance with the findings of the EWS (UNDP, 2005): “Minority groups are more satisfied with the quality of police assistance than the majority groups. The reason may be low initial expectations, as well as a police understanding that minority problems are delicate and require careful handling.” However, some minority interviewees were doubtful that the local police would treat them in the same manner as
59 Shooting in the air is a relatively common way to celebrate in the region, but minority returnees in some areas may have had reasons to believe that there was also an element of threat against them in this practice. 60 The question was formulated differently (“Do you approve of the work of the police?” versus “Do you trust the local police?”) but are similar enough to be comparable.
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persons belonging to the local majority or complained that the support provided by the local police did not amount to any practical results:
“When there were Serbs (IDPs) here they came often to patrol. I doubt they would come now if I needed them.” Croat woman, Dizdarusa
“IDPs who got plots still cut our wood and use our land. The police comes but does nothing.” Croat woman, Garevac
78% of the interviewees said that there were minority police officers in their communities whereas 22% did not know. Not surprisingly there was a higher awareness of the ethnic background of police officers among minority returnees, 86% of whom said there were minority police officers in their communities, while only 14% did not know. A few interviewees noted that the minority officers were usually young and low ranked.
Presence of alleged war criminals In some areas in BiH it has been observed that the presence of alleged war criminals hampers return and causes fear among returnees. It proved even more difficult than foreseen to establish whether this was the case in the locations visited, although we stressed that we did not want any names or other facts and asked only in order to assess the security of the interviewees.
Many mentioned war crimes without indicating that they knew anything about the perpetrators. 3 of the interviewees (2 majority returnees and 1 minority returnee) had been concentration camp inmates and several had missing or killed civilian relatives or knew of other civilians who were killed or missing – often persons who had stayed behind when the others were displaced. Many mentioned houses being destroyed deliberately, sometimes after the peace agreement was signed, and property being looted during the war. 7% of the interviewees said they believed there were war criminals in their neighbourhoods (both majority and minority returnees from Kljuc, Bosanski Petrovac and Derventa). 3% said they did not think so. 88 % said they did not know whether there were war criminals present. Some said that it would be natural to assume that there were war criminals in the neighbourhood, but that they did not know for sure. The reluctance to make any kind of statements about perpetrators may have several reasons. Many obviously simply do not know, as they fled before any incidents occurred. A few indicated that they preferred not to know too much, as they feared this knowledge could be dangerous for them. Others expressed an attitude that seemed to be based on a sort of pragmatism, believing it would do more harm than good to look too closely at wartime incidents. The following statements are illustrative:
“I don’t know and I don’t ask. There are people who know but they probably don’t want to say anything.” Serb Man, Lipovac.
“It is better that we don’t know who destroyed our house.” Croat couple, Derventa.
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Trust in judiciary 46% of the interviewees stated that they trusted the judiciary, 31% said they trusted it partially and 12 % said they did not trust it. 12% did not know. There are somewhat fewer minority respondents than majority respondents who said they trusted the judiciary (7 percentage points) and somewhat more who said they did not (6 percentage points). Many said that they had never had any experience with the judiciary and therefore did not know how to assess it. Those who had negative opinions believed that the courts were influenced by political parties or by criminals or that they were corrupt. One majority returnee who was himself employed in the local court registry claimed that the courts “close their eyes to big crime and only catches the small fish”. Some minority respondents believed that the courts treated people differently according to their ethnicity, an attitude that was partly based on negative experiences with the judiciary:
“My son was imprisoned just because he tried to feed his family [allegedly through small- scale illegal logging]. They would not have done that to a Bosniac.” Serb man, Bravsko
“We know who destroyed the house, but fear to bring them to court. What would it bring? We would not be treated equally in court.” Bosniac couple, Sijekovac
“The house was broken into twice while we were there. I don’t trust the courts because they didn’t prosecute after the robberies.” Croat Man, Garevac
Trust in courts seems to be somewhat lower than in the general population, as the EWS found that 56.4% of the population approved of the work of the courts, 34.2% did not and 4.4% neither approved nor disapproved (UNDP 2005). However, there were also fewer who said they did not trust the courts than in the EWS, which suggests the difference could be caused by a lower level of knowledge about or experience with the courts among the interviewees for this study rather than a lower degree of trust.
Housing All interviewees lived in houses that seemed to meet their basic needs for accommodation. Very few families seemed to suffer from a lack space and despite complaints about the reconstruction, these faults did not seem to have a significant negative impact on their lives.
Utilities and municipal services 44% of the interviewees stated that they had satisfactory access to all the following utilities; water, canalisation, electricity, roads, public transport, garbage collection and phone. 57% had satisfactory access to what can be termed basic utilities and services in BiH; water, canalisation, electricity, roads and public transport. The access to utilities was significantly worse for interviewees in rural areas than for urban interviewees. In rural areas only 14% of the interviewees had satisfactory access to all utilities and 32% to all basic utilities, compared to 92% and 97% of interviewees living in urban areas. There is also a difference, although less marked, in the utility access for majority and minority
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interviewees respectively. Whereas all majority interviewees in urban areas had good access to basic utilities, 95% of the minority interviewees did. In rural areas only 27% of the minority interviewees had good access to all basic utilities, compared to 42% of the majority interviewees. There are probably several reasons for these differences. Some of the rural areas had been disadvantaged with regards to utilities also before the war. Rural areas, in particular minority villages, were also more likely to have their infrastructure damaged or destroyed during the war. However, there are reasons to believe that the situation is also partially caused by discriminatory allocation of public resources. Authorities in most places in BiH left reconstruction of both housing and infrastructure for minorities to international actors and preferred to help the majority population. This meant that after the internationally financed infrastructure projects ceased, minorities have often not been assisted. In Kljuc it was pointed out that all the households without electricity were Serbs and in Brod several interlocutors remarked that all the Serb majority villages had streetlights while a Bosniac majority part of town did not.
The most serious utility problem seemed to be the lack of electricity connection for three minority households, two in Rudenice in Kljuc and one in Kricanovo in Brod. There were small children in two of these households. All three had been connected to the electricity network before the war. It has often been difficult for minority returnees to areas far from the (reconstructed) electricity grid to become reconnected to the network, as the network reconstruction is expensive and has generally been carried out by international agencies in areas with relatively big clusters of returnees. Several households stated that they had waited for up to 5 years after their houses were reconstructed before they were reconnected to the electricity network. 13% of the interviewees stated that they had unsatisfactory access to water. They compensated for this by using private wells, rainwater or by collecting water from other nearby sources. Several of these households had not been connected to the communal water system before the war. 1 minority household in Brcko was not connected to the communal canalisation system. The house had been built shortly before the war and had not been connected when the owners were displaced. 21% of the interviewees had no convenient access to public transport. Particularly households with school children who attended schools beyond walking distance perceived this as a major problem. 16% of the interviewees had relatively bad access to roads, as the village roads were made of macadam and were badly maintained, but all houses were accessible by car when we visited (summer and late autumn). 25% had no phone connection. 46% of the households had no access to a mechanism of garbage collection, but this did not seem to be perceived as a problem, as the inhabitants were used to disposing of their garbage themselves.
95% of the respondents stated that they had never experienced any problems obtaining personal documents or other services from the municipality. Considering the significant problems minority returnees encountered with regard to personal documents in the first years of return, this figure is somewhat surprising. It is possible that interviewees referred only to the more recent years and that initial bad experiences were expected at the time and therefore not considered anymore. 3% believed their problems with the administration were due to their ethnicity. Some said employees in the local
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administration harassed them in the beginning when they came to ask for documents and others said they believed the administration in the place of return had requested returnees from Croatia to pay more for documents than others. 2% stated that they had had problems to obtain documents because of legal issues.
Education Most of the interviewees (74%) did not have any school aged household members. Of the school aged children in the households interviewed, all seemed to attend school regularly – if not all in the place of return (see below under integration). 85% of the interviewees with school aged children said that they were satisfied with the way the children were being treated and educated in school, 2 interviewees (7%) were only partially satisfied and 1 interviewee (4%) was not satisfied. Those who were only partially satisfied had concerns about the quality and scope of the education offered. In rural areas with few school children, such as Bravsko, there were insufficient qualified teachers and equipment. As mentioned above, the lack of transport is another significant obstacle for education in rural areas, especially for secondary education. The one interviewee who said he was not satisfied with his child’s education, explained this by the differential way she was treated by one of her teachers, allegedly because of her ethnicity. Issues around ethnicity will be dealt with under integration below, suffice to say here that harassment and cultural/religious content are problems that may limit the access to and quality of education for returnees, especially minority returnees.
Income 4% of the interviewees did not state any average monthly income for their households, either because they did not know (1%) or because they did not wish to state it (3%). Two of the latter households were regularly employed, while a third received several benefits/pensions from Croatia. 6% said that their households had no regular income and were not able to assess approximately how much they disposed of each month. The average income among the ones who did provide information, including those who reported no regular income, was 323 BAM. This makes for an average of 113 BAM per person. The income varies considerably among the households – from 0 to 2000 BAM. Similarly, the average income per person also shows large discrepancies – from 0 to 1000 BAM.
Some cautionary remarks should be made about the stated income levels. Very few of the interviewees stated how much they receive from family members in the form of remittances or food contributions or how much they earned on irregular employment. This means that the stated monthly incomes are generally lower than the real incomes. Many households interviewed produce much of their food themselves and therefore need less cash than households that have to buy everything they consume. Moreover, it is likely that for various reasons not all interviewees have provided complete information about their sources of income. None of these caveats, however, is likely to alter significantly the general picture of very low income levels.
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The following table shows the income levels of the interviewed households compared with the sample of the Early Warning System from the same period as the interviews were carried out. It shows that a greater percentage of the interviewees than of the EWS sample have an income in the lower categories (below 400).
35
30
25
20 Early Warning System Interviewees 15
10
5
0 101-200 201-300 301-400 401-500 501-600 601-700 701-800 801-900 901-1000 No income 1001-1100 1101-1200 1201-1300 1301-1400 1401-1500 1501-1600 1601-1700 1701-1800 1801-1900 1901-2000 Less than 100 More than 2000 Table 18: Interviewed households, stated average monthly income in BAM (%) Compared to the established poverty lines for BiH (for example those used in the Living Standard Measurement Survey61), the stated income levels are very worrying. The extreme poverty line is set at 2988 BAM per annum for a four person household, i.e. 249 BAM per month. The general poverty line is set at 7232 BAM per annum for a four person household, i.e. 603 BAM per month. 24,5% of the EWS sample reported an income below 200 BAM, which is well below the extreme poverty line (UNDP 2005). 44% of the interviewees for this study reported an income in the same category. 65,4% of the EWS sample reported an income below the general poverty line, compared to 91,8% of the sample for this study. Unfortunately there is no information about the (average) size of the households in the EWS sample, which makes it somewhat inaccurate to use a measure based on a specific household size. The average household size of the sample for this study is 2,9, which means that fewer households in reality fall below the threshold than the percentages above would indicate. Nevertheless, it is unquestionable that the interviewees as a group are significantly poorer than the BiH average, and that a very large percentage of them can be considered poor. It should however be remarked that
61 For more information see http://www.fzs.ba/Eng/lsmse.htm
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many of the interviewees would undoubtedly have been even worse off in the place of displacement, where they had neither work nor accommodation.
The average incomes vary considerably according to ethnic status and urbanity. Rural minority households had an average income of 262 BAM, urban minority households 302 BAM, urban majority households 331 BAM and rural majority households 500 BAM. The latter average, however, is heavily influenced by a few high-income households. The chart below shows that the differences in distribution are relatively minor, but that rural minority households are clearly overrepresented in the very lowest income categories and that the highest income of an urban minority household is lower than for the other groups.
35
30
25
20 Rural minority Urban minority Rural majority 15 Urban majority
10
5
0 101-200 201-300 301-400 401-500 501-600 601-700 701-800 801-900 901-1000 No income 1001-1100 1101-1200 1201-1300 1301-1400 1401-1500 1501-1600 1601-1700 1701-1800 1801-1900 1901-2000 Less than 100 More than 2000 Table 19: Interviewed households, stated average monthly income in BAM according to ethnic status and urban/rural residence (%) Most households (79%) rely on a combination of sources of income. In BiH no type of income – even incomes that are characterised as stable in this study, such as pensions and regular salaries – can be taken for granted due to the generally bleak economic situation. A diversification of incomes is therefore likely to decrease the households’ vulnerability by making it less dependent on one source. However, households that rely only on incomes that can be characterised as unstable – such as irregular work, agriculture and remittances – are likely to be more vulnerable than those who have more stable sources of income such as regular salaries and pensions. 19% of the households have no stable income at all. Their income is difficult to predict and could vanish entirely should the harvest fail, no seasonal work be found and no remittances arrive from relatives. 13% have one stable source of income, but for most (9%) this is a pension or benefit. The stability of this source compensates for the lack of diversification, but the possibility of delays in pension payments or cuts in benefit schemes put the households at risk. The
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majority, 55%, make a living out of a combination of stable and more irregular sources of income. Only 13% have two or more regular incomes, which gives them a relatively high degree of income security.
Again rural and minority respondents distinguish themselves negatively when it comes to income stability: 26% of the minority interviewees and 25% of the rural interviewees have no stable income. Only 6% of the rural and 8% of the minority interviewees have more than one stable source of income.
Employment In 77% of the households no one was regularly employed. In 20 % of the households one person was regularly employed and only in 3 % of the households two persons were regularly employed. Most of the ones employed, worked in the private sector (60%). One household member worked with an international agency. Slightly more women (14) than men (12) were regularly employed.
It was difficult to establish how many persons should be considered unemployed. Registration with the unemployment office is no reliable indicator. Most register at the bureau primarily in order to obtain health insurance, which means that many who are employed but not insured through their employer still register, while some who are actually unemployed fail to register because they do not regard this as a means to gain employment. For these reasons there are also no reliable unemployment figures for the country as a whole. In the interviews we asked how many members of the household would have liked to work and were seeking work.62 This means that in addition to children, students and retired and disabled people, those who would be able to work but are taking care of small children at home, dealing with agriculture commercially, are otherwise self employed or consider it impossible to find work – and therefore do not seek it – have not been counted as unemployed. In total there were 99 household members in the sample that are considered able and interested in employment, out of which 73 are considered unemployed. This makes for an overall unemployment rate of 74%. There are notable differences between minority household members, of which 84% are unemployed, and majority members, of which 58% are unemployed. There are also clear differences between rural and urban members, of which 79% and 66% respectively are unemployed.
Although there are no countywide statistics for unemployment that could serve as a comparison, such unemployment rates must obviously be considered very high. For majority households it probably reflects beneficiary selection criteria that focused on social and economic vulnerability. For minority households it may be an indication of discrimination, but also of the socioeconomic situation of those who chose to return. As
62 In order to comply with ILO’s definition of unemployment: “the unemployed are defined as those people who have not worked more than one hour during the short reference period [normally last day or week] but who are available for and actively seeking work.” (ILO, 1997)
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will be elaborated below, many had no employment in displacement either and decided to return partly because they could not afford to rent.
The figures presented above do not take into account that many household members are employed on a seasonal or day-to-day basis. It was difficult to get an overview over this form for employment, but 25% of the households had members who were employed from time to time.
Pensions 50% of the households received one or more regular work pensions. 21% received a disability pension, 6% received child benefits and 3% received benefits for a deceased relative. Only 30% of the households did not receive any pension or benefit. Although there are more elderly among the minority households, the percentage of minority households that receive pensions and benefits is actually smaller (63% compared to 83% of the majority households). The size of the pensions and benefits varies considerably. The large percentage of households that receive work pensions is of course a reflection of the age profile of the interviewed households. Of concern is a group of middle aged and elderly interviewees and other household members who had no pension entitlements or were unlikely to earn them in time. This was the situation of several elderly farmers who had most likely not been able to pay voluntary contributions and of people near retirement age who became unemployed before they fulfilled the requirements for working age and who saw their chances of regaining employment as very slim. The lack of any adequate system of social assistance and care for the elderly leaves these people dependent on relatives and whatever income they can make on small-scale agriculture.
Other sources of income The most common source of income other than salaries and pensions is agriculture. 51% of the households engage in agricultural activities of some sort. However, only 11% of the households produce agricultural products for sale as well as for their own use. Many complain that it is very difficult to make an income on agriculture. Even those who have the necessary knowledge, experience and good farmland to be able to produce on a larger scale face obstacles such as a lack of tools and machinery, a lack of reasonable credit schemes suitable for farmers and a lack of (access to) markets. There are several cooperatives registered in the areas visited, but few of them seem to have the resources needed to be of use to their members. Those who manage to make a little money on agriculture mostly do it on such a small scale that the difference between commercial and subsistence farming are marginal. For example, one family in Bravsko had to sell their cow to pay the hospital bill of the grandmother and consequently had to renounce a monthly income of 150 BAM – virtually their only regular income. Many families have a little land or at least a kitchen garden and some have a cow. Considering the monthly incomes of some families it is likely that they produce a large part of their food themselves. Among the few examples of successful agricultural activities were two notable exceptions in Derventa, both of whom had been supported by SSD’s agricultural programme but who also had invested significant funds from relatives living abroad in
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their farms. Several interviewees said that they would have wanted credits in order to bring their agricultural activities to a commercial level, but that they found the conditions offered too difficult to meet, for example monthly repayment, which was not considered suitable for farmers. In some areas visited, notably Brcko, the presence of mines was an obstacle to agricultural activity. One family said they rented farmland from others because they could not access their own due to mines.
Remittances or other assistance from family members is the second most common additional source of income. 33% of the interviewees stated that they receive occasional remittances or food from family members in other parts of BiH or abroad. The amount of this assistance is not known, as only a few included this in the assessment of their monthly income because the amounts were not predictable. It is consequently difficult to assess how important this assistance is. A few seemed to depend entirely on such contributions, but the majority rather gave the impression of needing remittances primarily as an additional income and for unforeseen expenses.
25% of the households have members who are irregularly employed, i.e. who only work in seasons or when they are hired for day labour. The work seemed to consist mainly of manual labour, and more men than women appeared to have recourse to this source of income.
Apart from those engaged with agriculture on a commercial basis, only two household members were self-employed. One was a female majority returnee who ran a grocery store. The other was a male majority returnee who ran a carpentry workshop.
Health
Health insurance coverage In 75% of the households all the members were health insured. In 11% of the households only some members were insured and in 13% of the households no member was insured. These figures are not directly comparable with the findings of the Social Insurance Technical Assistance Project, which found that the countrywide percentage for health insurance coverage was 71% (World Bank, 2003), because we only succeeded in obtaining information for the household, as the interviewees did not in all cases know the health insurance status of other members. Nevertheless it would seem that the health insurance coverage is relatively high. The reason for this is most likely that such a large part of the household members are pensioners. Pensioners (and their spouses) are entitled to health insurance through their pensions. In fact, of the households that only consist of persons older than 60, 82% have health insurance for all members. Of the remaining households 72% were fully covered.
There are stark differences in health insurance coverage between majority and minority households. While 92% of the majority households were fully covered, only 66% of the minority households were. In 18% of the minority households no member was health insured. This difference is probably linked both to the lower percentage of minority
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households receiving pensions and having regularly employed members and to a lower percentage of minority household members being registered at an employment bureau. Only in one of the majority households with unemployed members no members were registered (6%), whereas in 35% of the minority households with unemployed members no member was registered
For non-pensioners it may be difficult to obtain health insurance. Employed persons are health insured if their employer pays contributions on their behalf, but as many of the interviewees confirmed, outside of the public sector this is often not the case. Therefore, many employees register at the employment bureau as if they were unemployed in order to be health insured. Former employees who are on so-called “waiting lists” after having been laid off by companies affected by the war-time economic collapse are in a difficult situation, as they are formally employed but do not receive salaries and their health contributions are not paid. Their official status prevents them from registering at the employment bureau. In order to obtain health insurance as unemployed it is necessary to register at the local employment bureau, in some areas within very short deadlines that many are not aware of. Some lose their entitlements to health insurance in this way. To some degree this is a return problem, as people move between areas covered by different health insurance bureaux and therefore need to de-register and re-register. Minority returnees are likely to be particularly disadvantaged in the current system of multiple health insurance funds, laws and regulations, and they may be given less information and shown less flexibility than persons belonging to the local ethnic majority. However, other categories of the population who change status (for example from child to grown up or employed to unemployed) also fail to comply with the deadlines for various reasons such as a lack of awareness. Children are normally insured through their parents, which means that also many children are not covered because their parents are not. Farmers and other self-employed persons must pay for their insurance, which many cannot afford. We only heard about four people paying their own insurance in the course of the interviews. A few people we spoke to claimed they were insured through war veterans’ associations. Several interviewees stated that it did not mean much to them whether they were insured or not because they had to pay for medical services anyway. For minor medical services the difference in price for those with and for those without insurance may not be so significant, but if surgery or hospitalisation is required the lack of health insurance can carry a high price.
Problems related to health care 78% of the interviewees stated that they had not experienced problems related to health care. 26% of these do not have health insurance, which would normally pose problems for their access to health care. That they do not complain about problems indicates that they have not needed medical treatment often or that they have either managed to obtain treatment despite the lack of insurance or found the full cost affordable. The most frequent complaint against the health care system was the prices of services. 4% of the interviewees, all minority returnees, had been denied health care in the place of return, but this was either a problem that had been overcome or that they had experienced only on one occasion. 3%, also all minority returnees, stated that they had not been able to
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obtain health insurance in the place of return and experienced problems as a result of this. One Bosniac minority returnee who did not have health insurance claimed that he had been asked for HVO (the former Bosnian Croat army) membership papers when he sought to obtain health insurance and apparently been refused to register, as he naturally lacked these papers. One family had to take a loan to pay for the treatment of a child that was not insured and had not yet been able to pay it back. 4% of the interviewees (both minority and majority) claimed that medical staff expected patients to pay bribes. One majority interviewee (who seemed to feel badly treated by most people) stated that he had been treated badly in hospital and one minority returnee stated that she had heard that the doctors did not treat minority patients well.
Changes in health related to return Asked whether their health condition had improved or worsened since they returned, 53% of the interviewees stated that it had worsened. As many of the interviewees were elderly it was difficult both for them and for us to judge whether age or return was most to blame for the decline in health. Most attempted to make a distinction and a little more than a third (19% of the whole sample) seemed to see return – mainly the harsh living conditions due to lack of infrastructure, income, family support and social life – as one of the reasons they felt in poorer health. 35% of the interviewees seemed to be in poorer health mainly due to old age or reasons related to war and displacement. 31% of the interviewees had not noted any change in their health condition since return. 10% of the interviewees stated that their health condition had improved as a result of return – mainly because they considered the environment in the place of return healthier or because they felt calmer and happier in their own houses. There are some differences between minority and majority interviewees in this respect. More minority than majority returnees felt their health had improved (6 percentage points) and there were also more of them who felt that it had worsened due to return (8 percentage points). A possible explanation could be that some minority returnees seemed to have been affected emotionally by return to a higher extent than majority returnees due to the additional obstacles they met and seemed to appreciate more having returned. At the same time, minority returnees – as shown above – generally also have more difficult living conditions.
Socio‐political effects of return The socio-political effects of the projects will be assessed primarily through the project beneficiaries, as a wider study of the remainder of the population in the respective locations was not feasible within the scope of this study. However, in addition to interviews with beneficiaries the assessment also draws on information obtained from interviews with interlocutors representing the remainder of the community, as well as information obtained from other sources about the community or municipality as a whole. The following socio-political factors will be assessed: socio-economic integration, political representation, political participation, freedom of expression and religion and the presence and nature of conflicts between the returnees and other groups. In many ways the following can be seen as an extension of the assessment of the sustainability of return,
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as it seeks to measure the fulfilment of civil and political rights. It can also be argued that integration makes return more sustainable as more needs are met in the place of return, which makes it more likely that rights are fully enjoyed and that returnees will have less reasons to move elsewhere.
Socio‐economic integration The degree of socio-economic integration will be sought measured by assessing the extent to which returnees carry out activities and use services in the place of return rather than in the place of displacement or another place where they belong to the ethnic majority. It will also be measured through their assessments of their relations with others from different ethnic groups and of the extent to which they feel discriminated against or harassed.
Employment In 91% of the households with employed household members, these were employed in the municipality of return. However, two of these households (9%) had members employed in what was formerly their municipality of displacement but since the reunification of Mostar belongs to the same administrative unit as their place of return. The only households that had members employed in the municipality of displacement, were two minority households that had been displaced in Croatia. Only 7 minority households (30% of the households with members employed) had found employment in a place where they belonged to the local minority.
In 83% of the households with members registered at the employment bureau, these members were registered in the municipality of return. Those who were registered elsewhere (mainly in the place of displacement) were all minority returnees. Some of the latter seemed to maintain strong ties with the place of displacement, whereas for others the decision to register elsewhere may also have been based on administrative complications or a lack of trust in the institutions in the place of return.
Education Of the households with school-aged children, 74% send all the children to the nearest school in the municipality of residence/return. None of the households sent their children to school in the municipality of displacement, but several students attended school in an area where they belonged to the majority instead of the nearest school.15% of the households, all residing in Mostar, send one or more children to a school in the municipality that is not the nearest school. For a secondary school student in Hodbina it was unclear whether the household felt more comfortable with a Bosniac-majority school for reasons related to ethnicity or whether the choice was rather a matter of courses offered. Families in Bijelo Polje with both primary and secondary school students explained their decision to send their children to Croat-majority schools by referring to the importance of their children being taught the Croatian language and/or the Croatian curriculum. One of them also stated that the nearest Bosniac-majority school was too “Muslim dominated”. Another said that she would not mind sending her children to a
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mixed school “as long as she was not the only one”. 2 households (7%) had enrolled children in schools in nearby municipalities where the children belong to the majority ethnic group. One minority returnee family had taken their child out of school in the place of return and enrolled her in a school in the other entity because she was harassed by majority children. A majority returnee family had enrolled their daughter in a secondary school in another town where her mother’s relatives live due to the lack of transport from the place of return to the town where the nearest secondary school is located. In one minority household the children from the woman’s first marriage were living and attending school in the other entity, but it was unclear for which reason.
Information about other households currently without school aged children confirms that education still is a problematic issue for many returnees, in particular for minority returnees, that may hamper integration or even determine the place of residence for families with children. It is often difficult to determine whether problems with education are related to ethnicity or to other factors such as travel distance and choice of education, and none of the interviewees said openly that they did not want their children to go to mixed schools. However, some interviews expressed an element both of concern for the “ethnic character” of the education – most clearly expressed by the Croat parents in Bijelo Polje – and for the risk of harassment based on ethnicity in mixed schools. Only one interviewee said he was dissatisfied with the way his daughter was treated in school, which was allegedly linked to her ethnicity. However, a minority student in secondary school said he had experienced some harassment in the first year or two after return, but that he now felt accepted by his peers. In some of the locations visited some of the so- called “national subjects” (language, religion, history and geography) were taught in separate classes. This may solve some of the problems related to curriculum for minority students. However, a teacher in Brod commented that this division of students also made many minority students feel uncomfortably different from their fellow students.
Pensions Three majority households received pensions and/or benefits from several funds, either because they had worked abroad or because they received war-related benefits from Croatia. 62% of the households received pensions and/or benefits from a fund covering the municipality of return. 25% received them from a fund covering the other entity. 11% received pensions or benefits from a fund in a country in the region63 and 6% from another Western European country. All the ones who received pensions from the other entity were minority households. Many of them, notably returnees from the RS, stated that they would have preferred to receive their regular work pension from the FBIH fund instead of the RS fund because the FBIH pension is higher but that they had not succeeded to transfer their entitlements from one fund to the other. All the majority returnees received pensions and benefits from a fund covering their place of return.
63 The countries in the region have signed agreements on payments of pensions, which enable refugees and others who earned their pension entitlements on the territory of one of the former Yugoslav republics to receive pensions also if they reside in another.
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Contrary to the paying institution, the location where pensions and benefits are collected is usually optional. Still, 54% of the minority households chose not to receive them in the place of return and instead collected the pensions and benefits in the municipality of displacement or in another municipality in BiH or Croatia. Some travel to collect the pensions while others collect them through relatives or neighbours. It was not always clear why returnees did not wish to transfer the payment to the place of return and in many cases there were probably several reasons. Some said they wanted to avoid fees requested for the transfer through banks or mail delivery. Others mentioned the cumbersome de-registration and re-registration procedure as an obstacle. For some it may simply be more convenient to go to a nearby post office in the other entity rather than going through the administrative procedures. There also seemed to be a certain lack of information about applicable procedures. Those who collected pensions in Croatia said they were afraid of losing entitlements to health care in Croatia, considered to be far better than the health care in their place of return, should they transfer the payment. A few said they were waiting for the possibility to change pension funds and receive a FBIH pension before getting their pension transferred to the place of return. Knowledge about administrative procedures related to for example pension and health rights vary, but it seemed that most were aware that they could receive pensions by mail if they wished. All the majority households receive their pensions in the municipality of return/residence, but in Mostar and Brcko not all collected them in the nearest collection location.
Health care 73% of the insured interviewees stated that they were health insured through the fund covering their municipality of return/residence. 25% were insured through the fund covering their municipality of displacement and 3% were insured through the fund covering their municipality of displacement in addition to the fund covering their municipality of return. 3% were insured through the fund in another country where they had earned their pension entitlements. All the majority interviewees were health insured in the fund covering their place of return. For returnees within the Federation and for returnees to Brcko from within BiH the question of changing health insurance fund does not arise, as there is only one fund in the Federation and both the RS and the Federation funds cover Brcko. In Brcko many were in fact uncertain about which fund they were insured through, although the health care system is still clearly divided. Among those who had returned across the entity or across the border approximately half were insured in the place of return. Pensions and health insurance are linked in the sense that many are entitled to the latter through the former, but it is not necessary to receive both from the same entity. Most of the receivers of pensions in the households visited were health insured in the same entity that pays their pension, but a few had transferred their health insurance to the fund covering the municipality of return while still receiving their pensions from the entity of displacement.
62% of the interviewees stated that their households use health care facilities in the municipality of return/residence. Among these are also households without insurance in the place of return (13% of all interviewees) and households in which not all members are insured (9% of all interviewees). This means that that they either pay the full price for
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treatment or that medical staff are flexible.64 It is again slightly misleading to talk about “municipality of return” in the case of Mostar and Brcko due to the merger of the former municipalities. In reality many of the interviewees in these places receive health care in facilities that are not the closest to where they live and where they are not from a different ethnic group than most of the medical staff and other patients. These facilities are located in places that for some returnees actually were their municipality of displacement. In Mostar many interviewees seemed to prefer this arrangement, whereas in Brcko some found it inconvenient that they were requested to use health facilities that were further away or that were not possible to reach by public transport merely because they belonged to the Federation instead of the RS fund. 20% of the interviewees, all minority returnees, stated that they used health care facilities in the entity of displacement. One minority interviewee stated that the household sometimes used the health services in the place of return and sometimes in a nearby municipality in the entity of displacement. Those who seek medical treatment in the place of return generally seem satisfied with the way they are treated by the medical staff. 17% stated that they never used health care, in many cases because they were not insured. There are twice as many households that never use health care among the minority households (20%) than among majority households (11%).
Again it is difficult to say why interviewees chose to keep their health insurance in the entity of displacement and seek medical treatment there. Unsurprisingly there is both a lack of knowledge of entitlements and procedures with regard to health care and a fear of or scepticism towards bureaucracy. Only two interviewees voiced concerns related to ethnicity – claiming that health personnel in the place of return treated members of the local minority in a discriminatory manner – however, one of these was the interviewee who generally expressed most concerns about return and the other had been denied treatment once and had not tried again. Some simply seem to find it more convenient to receive health care in the entity of displacement because it is not too far away, it is complicated to de-register and transfer insurance or because family members living in the entity of displacement can help with transport and other support. For those who have been displaced in Croatia the main reason is that health services are of a higher quality there and may actually be closer for returnees who live near the border because not all services are available in their municipality of return. Whereas in BiH the introduction of new ID cards should eliminate the possibility of being registered as resident in two places and chose where to exercise which rights, several returnees from Croatia seemed to continue to be registered as residents there as well as in the place of return in order to exercise rights such as health care. For returnees who have been displaced in the RS the lower prices of health care in the RS seemed to be an important reason to use health care there.
64 In theory it should be possible to receive treatment in a municipality not covered by the fund one is insured through, but the treating institution should then be reimbursed by the fund, which apparently does not happen.
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Use of commercial services All interviewees except for one minority returnee (who lived close to a neighbouring municipal centre) stated that they use services such as shops and workshops primarily in the municipality of return. Many said that prices were the main factor determining where they shopped and none seemed uncomfortable using commercial services in the place of return. A few interlocutors pointed out that trade now works well across ethnic boundaries, which was not the case a few years ago.
Social relations 85% of the interviewees characterised the relations between the ethnic groups as good or very good. 4% made a more mixed assessment, using expressions such as “so-so” “neither good nor bad”. Only 2 interviewees characterised the relations as bad – the same two interviewees who differed negatively from the others on issues such as security.65 There were no major differences between minority and majority interviewees in this regard. Several stressed that they helped or were helped by members of other ethnic groups during the war or after they returned. Many seem to socialise at least with some members of a different ethnic group.
However, many elaborated their assessment in ways that showed that even though there are no major problems in the relations towards persons with a different background, there are still tensions. This was especially palpable in descriptions of interaction between minority and majority groups. Many made a distinction between those who had lost family members in the war and those who had not, believing that those who had were less inclined to interact with people from another ethnic group. As noted in the section on security, there are latent suspicions with regards to participation in war crimes between different ethnic groups. Very few interviewees seem to experience open hostility, but many note that attitudes are cold or merely polite and that there is little contact with members of other groups. Some minority interviewees said majority neighbours had only visited them secretly in the beginning, explaining that they suspected religious leaders to have “forbidden” contacts with people from other ethno-religious groups or that neighbours feared disapproval of such contacts from other members of the majority.
“With Croats we just greet and nothing more. (…) People sometimes turn their backs on us. We feel this. (…) I listen to Grude radio station sometimes and it bothers me the way they speak – as if Herzeg-Bosna was a state.” Bosniac man, Hodbina
“Relations are OK, but we don’t really trust the Bosniacs. In the beginning they came here to show that they were richer and better off. Bosniacs feel stronger even in this municipality. They have jobs, bigger houses – and they got their country.” Serb woman, Bravsko
65 9% did not answer the question, in some cases because there were no members of other ethnicities in their neighbourhoods.
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“I am angry because of what they (Serbs) did to my husband. It is difficult. I only have as much to do with them as I have to, not more.” Bosniac woman, Velecevo
“When we meet people elsewhere they greet, here they turn their backs. Former friends don’t want to be seen socialising with us.” Croat woman, Kljuc
“It depends. Some don’t greet, but we socialise with some people. No one bothers us, but there is no common life. A man I worked with for 20 years does not even greet me.” Serb man, Kljuc
“Still they think we are guilty and we think they are guilty – but ordinary people are not the guilty party.” Serb man, Bare
There were examples of a shared feeling of being a minority leading to good relations between different minority groups in contrast to the more troubled relations with the majority population. This seemed to be the case in Hodbina were Serbs and Bosniacs clearly socialised, but several commented that they had little contact with Croats. However, there were also examples of people who felt like minorities within minorities, such as a Croat minority returnee in the mainly Bosniac neighbourhood of Dizdarusa who felt that some Bosniac neighbours treated her badly, partly because she had been on good terms with some of the Serb IDPs who occupied houses in the neighbourhood when she returned. Several interviewees in mixed marriages had experienced a similar two-fronted tension, as both majority and minority groups expressed some hostility towards them. Some minority interviewees differentiated between local majority residents and IDPs belonging to the local majority, stressing that they had better relations with the former. This pattern was also observed in the World Bank’s social capital study (World Bank, 2002), with certain local exceptions. IDPs and minority returnees are more likely to see each other as competitors for scarce resources, such as jobs, and do not have personal connections dating back from before the war.
Some who characterised relations as good, qualified their statements by referring mainly to closer friends or acquaintances:
“Those I was friends with before I am also friends with now.” Croat man, Boderiste
A few suggested that most people were too bothered with their financial situation to be much concerned about ethnicity:
“People care about survival, not about other people’s names.” Bosniac woman, Brod
Many, mainly minority interviewees, stressed that relations had improved since return started. A few majority interviewees also acknowledged that relations were tense in the beginning. Interviewees in mixed marriages mentioned that this status had been particularly difficult in the first time after return.
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“In the beginning there was no will for contact. Now we socialise.” Serb man, Lipovac
“I didn’t feel welcome in Brcko and my wife had problems in the Federation, but now it is OK.” Bosniac man, Lipovac
“When I claimed the apartment, they called me Ustasha. In the beginning they looked at me as an enemy because I was married to a Croat. It improved. It was worse for my husband, but he also felt better after a while.” Serb woman, Brod.
Not all interviewees made a comparison of the present relations with relations before the war, but more than half of those who did said that relations were more or less the same as before the war. One rural minority returnee even said that she thought relations were better, as there were so few people left in the area she lived that they socialised more across ethnic groups. There are hardly any differences between minority and majority households in this regard. There are many possible explanations for this relatively positive assessment. Many may not have had very close contacts with people from another ethnic group even before the war:
“The relations are good. Here we are all Bosniacs. In town we greet, but we don’t socialise. It is the same as before the war.” Bosniac woman, Dizdarusa
Some of the interviewees, especially elderly and rural returnees, also seemed generally quite isolated at present. Moreover, as will be elaborated below, many interviewees did not seem very willing to talk about matters related to ethnicity and may have given a positive assessment because they felt this was easier or more socially accepted. It is therefore difficult to say how much one should take these assessments of social relations at face value. However, it was clear from the vast majority of the interviews that what characterised their relations with people of another ethnicity was not primarily fear or mistrust, but rather a certain reserve and a considerable degree of pragmatism. Those who perceived a difference in relations compared to before the war described it as follows:
“Relations changed because of the war. Those who lost family members don’t even greet. Before we were together all the time. It will take time. I am sad because young people are so hateful, they are taught to hate. They don’t know how it was before the war. You couldn’t say what you wanted, but you were safe everywhere.” Bosniac woman, Brod
“The relations did not change that much – maybe because I didn’t lose any family members during the war (…) but people think about who is guilty, who is not. (…) There is no hatred towards people in the closer community, but towards others in the wider society there is.” Bosniac woman, Sarajevo
“Before the war we did not care about ethnicity.” Serb man, Kljuc
“The relations are not like before the war because they can’t be, but people live normally.” Serb man, Hodbina.
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“We greet each other, but we are not “house friends” any more.” Bosniac man, Dizdarusa
“Relations are good, but they are not the same. No Bosniac or Croat told me where my grandmother [who went missing during the war] is.” Serb man, Kostres
“Relations are good. They are worse than before the war, but trust is coming back slowly.” Bosniac man, Velika
A certain nostalgia and exaggeration of positive aspects of the past characterised many of these comments. One minority returnee in Hodbina differed from most by providing a more critical perspective of the pre-war situation:
“Before the war people were “drugged”, they had no sense of reality or direction. Now everyone is just busy with their own problems.” Serb man, Hodbina
We asked primarily about relations between different ethnic groups, but some interviewees provided information about relations with people with the same ethnic background as themselves. Several said that social life had declined also in mono-ethnic circles. This decline in socialisation and withdrawal to the closest circle of relatives and friends, both due to material preoccupations and due to a lower degree of trust among people of different ethnic groups, is confirmed by countrywide studies such as a World Bank study of social capital (World Bank, 2002).
“Even among the Bosniacs relations are different now, mainly because of economic conditions. People live from day to day. The impulsiveness is gone.” Bosniac man, Sarajevo
However, some minority returnees seemed to feel that the return experience, which for several involved living in collective accommodation for a while and experiencing certain levels of hostility from the surrounding community, had brought them closer together. One female interviewee in Bravsko said that the relations with fellow minority returnees were even better than before the war. The World Bank found in 2002 that majority communities with limited population changes and minority returnee communities have retained higher levels of interpersonal trust than other groups (World Bank, 2002).
Harassment/Discrimination 78% of the interviewees said that they had never felt harassed or discriminated against. 15% said they had felt harassed or discriminated against in the beginning of the return process but not any longer. 5% said they sometimes felt harassed or discriminated against, 1% often felt harassed or discriminated against and 1% did not know. Minority interviewees were overrepresented among those who had experiences with harassment or discrimination, whether in the past or present, but 71% said they had never experienced this.
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Mostly the interviewees seemed to talk about harassment in this context, not discrimination. Most examples that came up were security incidents, threats and verbal harassment. Discrimination is of course much more difficult both to perceive and to prove. We often tried to clarify the question of discrimination by asking returnees whether they believed that someone belonging to the local ethnic majority would have more possibilities for example finding a job than others. There seemed to be a certain reluctance to talk straightforwardly about differential treatment on the basis of ethnic belonging, although many in effect stated that persons belonging to the ethnic majority more often had jobs and electricity connection for example. Many only commented that the situation was difficult for everyone, irrespective of ethnicity. This reluctance to talk openly about discrimination was also noted by the World Bank study on social capital (World Bank, 2002). Some, however, indicated that minorities were in an even more difficult situation than members of the local majority. In Brod and Derventa some minority interviewees said they believed the authorities discriminated minorities for example with regards to utilities. A few had experienced openly discriminatory situations. One Bosniac couple had been requested to pay an electricity bill for an amount of electricity they manifestly had not used and when they protested the representative of the electricity company had said quite bluntly that “someone has to pay, because our Serbs don’t”. 66 A Croat couple in Brod had been told by employees in the post office that they were “second rate citizens”. None of these two episodes were recent, but although authorities may no longer be so open about their differential treatment, it is not likely that discrimination as such has disappeared. Most interlocutors confirmed that authorities are no longer openly obstructive of return and that their attitude towards minority returnees is rather characterised by indifference and a lack of assistance. The change in attitude may be explained by an increased acceptance of minority return, but may also result from a realisation that minority return does not constitute a threat to the ruling groups in most places, as few and mostly elderly people have returned. The following statements are representative:
“It is difficult for everyone, not just for Croats.” Croat woman, Garevac
“Maybe someone wants me to leave and therefore blocks electricity reconstruction. I don’t know.” Serb man, Kljuc
A few interviewees said they had felt discriminated by other actors than the local majority authorities. One minority couple in Brod said they had felt discriminated by a local Croat humanitarian organisation that thought they supported the Serb army because they had a distant relative who worked for the JNA. A Croat returnee in a Bosniac returnee neighbourhood in Brcko felt discriminated by the Bosniac dominated MZ. This again shows that tensions related to ethnicity are not limited to the majority/minority divide, but exists also between different minority groups.
66 In the first years after the war IDPs were frequently not charged for utilities such as electricity, while minority returnees often were requested to pay various administrative fees or even bills they had not incurred.
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It is possible that many try to avoid seeing problems in ethnic terms as they perceive this as something negative. One Croat returnee half jokingly said that he only felt discriminated when he watched TV – referring to the Croat politicians’ repeated complaints about discrimination. Many minority returnees may simply lack the knowledge or awareness to see patterns of differential treatment in their communities – because they are isolated, have little education or are too preoccupied by financial worries. In any event, it is in effect difficult to demonstrate that the fact that very few minority returnees seem to have jobs and that some lack basic infrastructure is a result of discrimination. Meetings with officials confirmed that in the places visited there have been few vacancies in the public sector since the waves of displacement when majority IDPs filled the positions of members of minorities who fled. Those majority IDPs who have jobs in the public sector are likely to stay and solve their housing needs by renting or buying property rather than return and leave their positions to minority returnees. It is difficult to say anything about the private sector as much of it is in the grey economy and few if any reliable data are available. It is likely, however, that most appointments are made through connections, which would tend to exclude minority returnees.
Sometimes minority interviewees made comments about discrimination in other contexts. This suggests that people were hesitant to say that they themselves had experienced discrimination, but that many nevertheless believed there was discrimination on ethnic grounds in their communities. For example, some minority returnees mentioned that everyone, irrespective of ethnic background, should have a possibility to find employment when asked what would improve the situation of their households and communities. The World Bank study on social capital (World Bank, 2002) found that members of local minorities were more likely to mention discrimination as a main problem in relation to public services, although they perceived it to be a lesser problem than corruption. The UNDP Early Warning System found that 6.9% of minority respondents living in Bosniak majority areas, 13% of minority respondents in Croat majority areas and 7% in Serb majority areas said they have, in the past year in their place of residence experienced discrimination or felt they had fewer rights than others because of their ethnicity. The minority population in all three areas was approximately twice as likely to be aware of discrimination as the local majority (UNDP, 2005).
One rural majority interviewee stated that she never felt discriminated against on the basis of ethnicity, but often on the basis of gender. She complained that no one in her community asks women about their opinions and that women are not even invited to attend the MZ elections. She primarily framed the problem as a matter of an urban/rural difference, as women in the village were not educated and aware enough to demand influence. According to her, who is from a bigger town in the area, the other women in the village were mostly content with their situation and did not look beyond their households. The interviewee’s comments confirm analyses of gender roles in BiH, where the political sphere is commonly seen as male and women as belonging exclusively in the family sphere (Helms, 2003). No other interviewees made explicit references to gender issues, but their answers sometimes clearly reflected gender-differentiated spheres and
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roles. For example many expressed that they expected women to live with their husband’s families, to stay at home with children as long as they were small or to refrain from concerning themselves with matters outside of the household. It is striking that all returnee representatives we met and heard about were men, and so were all the representatives for the local authorities we had meetings with. There were exceptions to this pattern, such as two majority women interviewed who were active in political parties, but the few other women we met who were engaged in activities that had a more public scope were members of women’s associations with a very apolitical outlook. It is unquestionable that many women face discrimination on a double basis in BiH – both on the basis of ethnicity and on the basis of gender.67
Political aspects of return
Political representation Because politics in BiH is so closely linked to ethnicity, the formal political representation of local minorities at the municipal level can at least to some degree be measured through the composition of the municipal assemblies/councils. For some parties such an analysis is more problematic than for others, notably moderate FBiH-based parties like SDP and LDS/GDS and more recently NSRzB, because these also attract voters belonging to different ethnic groups than the ones the parties are normally associated with.68 The following table shows the composition of the municipal assemblies or contribution to the city council (in Mostar) for the locations visited:
Municipality/ Party represented Number of seats “Minority Representation Electoral district in council parties” of “minority presenting parties” candidates not elected Sarajevo Stari Grad SDA 14 HSS No SDP 6 SBIH 5 SDU 4 Mostar, former Koalicija (HDZ, 3 SDA, PDP, SDP No municipality South UHSP, HSP, HKDU, HNZ) Mostar, former SDA 3 Koalicija, NSRzB, No municipality North PDP Bosanski Petrovac SNSD 7 ZSD, NSRzB Yes, 9 seats SDA 3 SPRS 2 LDS 1 SBIH 1 SDP 1 Pensioners BiH 1 Ahmet Hidic 1 Kljuc SDA 13 SNSD, SPRS No
67 A UNHCR study on minority returnee women maps this dual discrimination (UNHCR, 2000). 68 See the annexed list of abbreviations for full names of parties.
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SBIH 7 SDP 3 LDS 1 Pensioners BiH 1 Brcko SDS 6 LDS, NSRzB, Yes, although SDP 6 SDU, BOSS difficult to SDA 4 make SBIH 3 distinctions SNSD 2 because of the NHI/HSS 2 particularities SPRS 2 of the District. HDZ 3 Brod SDS 7 SDA, HDZ Yes, 5 seats SPRS 5 SNSD 5 PDP 2 NHI/HSS 3 SDP 2 Pensioners RS 1 Derventa SDS 11 HSS, SDA, SDU, No SNSD 10 NHI, BOSS, SDP, PDP 4 HDZ SPRS 2 Modrica SNSD 11 SDA, SBIH, HDZ Yes, 1 seat SDS 11 PDP 1 SPRS 1 SDP 1 Table 20: Municipalities visited, composition of municipal/city/district assemblies A different way to measure political representation is through respondents’ answer to the question whether there is anyone in the municipality, elected or not, who represents their interests. Only 14% said that they felt represented by a formally elected official or other representative. 47% said that there was no one who represented their interests. 32% said that there was one or more representatives, but the respondents either did not know much about what the representatives were doing or said that they did not really represent their interests. 9% did not know whether there were any such persons. Due to a lack of comparable data, it is difficult to assess whether this percentage is low compared to the general population, but it is definitely low in absolute terms. Most interviewees referred to local representatives such as members of the MZ council members or return representatives rather than to municipal representatives. Minority households and rural households to a larger extent both knew about local representatives and assessed their representation positively. This is most likely because both minority and rural communities tend to be smaller, and because in minority communities local representatives have often been very much involved in the return process.
The return representatives (who sometimes are MZ representatives but sometimes are less formally elected or appointed leaders) generally do not receive much praise. There seems to be a feeling that their only function was to facilitate donations and now that there are hardly any donations left they only fulfil a formal function. Many suspect them of being
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corrupt and merely using their role to obtain benefits for themselves and their friends and relatives. Some pointed out that the fact that positions in the MZ were not paid effectively encouraged corruption. This assessment of the representatives probably says something both about the representatives and the interviewees. Many representatives probably never had any ambitions beyond obtaining reconstruction assistance and if possible other donations for themselves and other members in their communities. They seem to have seen their role as exhausted once the reconstruction process was completed and did not attempt a transition to a more political role - whether out of lack of interest or lack of ability. It is also possible, however, that some representatives in the locations visited continued their work also after the reconstruction process was completed but that this work is not appreciated by the members of the communities, who clearly seemed to expect representatives to produce more donations. Some assessed past and present representatives quite bluntly according to the amount of donations the community received while they were leaders. It is very likely that some representatives used their key position as providers of information and coordination for the agencies and the lack of transparency to obtain undue benefits for themselves. But on the other hand it is as previously remarked something of a national sport to suspect corruption anywhere. Interviewees also sometimes gave the impression of showing little gratitude towards the members of their community who had contacted potential returnees, met repeatedly with representatives of international agencies and local authorities and assessed and advocated for the needs of the community. One returnee in Rudenice said that he had been asked to replace the current MZ leader, but he did not want to “because I know I cannot satisfy people”.
Many say that they do not know what their current representatives do and that they are never asked about anything. Clearly in such small communities as many of the return locations are it should be simple for MZ representatives to visit residents or arrange community meetings. However, MZ representatives are generally not paid and have little influence in the municipality. Some of the representatives we met clearly had problems meeting the needs of their households, not to speak of the wider community. To a large extent this is a feeling one gets from many of the interviewees – that they are simply too busy to ensure the survival of their households to be much concerned with the rest of the community. Most even seemed to have difficulties identifying common interests of the community as such, beyond economic concerns that are common for almost all. Some of this lack of sense of community could be war related as well, as the break up of towns, villages and families may have decreased feelings of trust and common interest – also among people who belong to the same ethnic group. The World Bank social capital study noted that “Financial costs, physical exhaustion, and moral discouragement explain the low number of people willing to serve on MZ boards or attend citizens gatherings.” (World Bank, 2002).
“They don’t care about us! They send us to war and poverty.” Croat man, Cardak
“The representatives only worked for donations. They do nothing now. They change every month.” Serb woman, Bacevici
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“There are posters with Serb politicians, but they have no say. Representatives took some of the aid for themselves. I don’t know for sure, but from what you see they have a lot.” Serb man, Hodbina
“The MZ representative works mainly for himself. It’s always the same people who get assistance; those who are close to him.” Bosniac woman, Bjelaj
“There are positive results of the MZ’s work, but people will always complain.” Croat man, Boce
Political participation
Voting More interviewees voted in the last municipal elections than those who did not; 54% of all interviewees who were entitled voted.69 This turnout is actually higher than the countrywide turnout of 46.8%. The difference may be due to local variations in turnout, which were considerable.70 Minority interviewees had a significantly lower turnout than majority interviewees (42% compared to 77%), as had rural interviewees compared to urban (46% and 68% respectively). The differences across age groups are smaller. As in the rest of the country, the interviews revealed a decrease in participation in elections. Several interviewees said that they had voted before but not in the last elections. Not all explained their decision not to vote, but those who did overwhelmingly asked rhetorically whom they should vote for. The following statements are representative:
“Politicians change all the time but nothing changes.” Bosniac man, Dizdarusa
“It doesn’t make a difference who you vote for, they are all the same” Bosniac woman, Sarajevo
“I have lost faith in politicians” Serb man, Hodbina
“I would vote if they employed young people. (…) Politicians are thieves, no party is OK.” Croat woman, Bijelo Polje
“Many are tired of elections and many are not registered here because they want to maintain links with the municipality of displacement.” Bosniac man, Velika.
Even respondents who did vote shared many of these feelings and seemed less than enthusiastic about voting:
69 Only one interviewee was too young to vote. 70 In Brcko, for example, the turnout was 60.9%. In other places, such as Zenica, the turnout was barely above 20%.
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“You have to vote! But they are thieves, they don’t care.” Serb man, Kljuc
Some interviewees said their names were not on the election lists, but it seemed this was because they had not been aware of the need to register for the elections in advance rather than because of faulty voters’ lists. Some Croat minority interviewees in the Posavina area made comments such as “No one called us to vote”. Although these interviewees seemed to participate minimally in the life of their return municipalities, their comments also indicate a lack of effective and active political parties targeting minority returnees. All the ones who had voted did so in the municipality of return/residence. One minority returnee who had been displaced in Croatia said she had voted in Croatia as well. The practice noted in the beginning of the return process, of minority returnees continuing to vote in their municipalities of displacement instead of their municipalities of return, seems to have ceased in the areas visited.
More than half of those who voted chose not to say which party they voted for. This may have been because they voted for parties they believed “an international” (the interviewer) would not approve of, i.e. nationalist parties, but this is mere speculation. Some of the respondents explained their choice of party, which sometimes revealed only a partial understanding of or involvement in the political process. One woman who voted for the RS based SPRS explained this by her support for Zlatko Lagumdzija, who is actually the leader of the Federation based SDP. A Serb minority returnee declared that she had voted for Dragan Covic’s party (HDZ, the main Croat nationalist party) because he looked good on TV. One couple could not remember what they had voted, and explained that their daughter in law had told them who to vote for. A Serb minority returnee in Mostar said he voted for Serb candidates, regardless of their party belonging. Voting largely followed ethnic lines, but a few minority returnees voted for parties that are mainly associated with the ethnic majority in their place of return. The distribution according to ethnicity and ethnic status is shown in the table below. Because so few stated what they voted only percentages for those who did not vote and those who did not say who they voted for are provided (in brackets).
SDA BOSS SDP LDS HDZ HSS Pen SNSD SPRS Did Did Tot. sio not not ners say vote B 7 1 1 5 14 maj. (7) (36) B 4 10 8 22 min. (45) (36) C 1 2 1 4 maj. (50) (25) C 1 2 1 1 19 24 min. (4) (79) S 2 1 12 2 17 maj. (71) (12) S 1 3 1 3 11 19 min. (16) (58) Tot. 7 1 4 1 2 2 2 5 1 29 46 100
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Table 21: Interviewed households, voting The breakdown shows that especially Croat minority returnees abstained from voting, but that also Serb minority returnees had a low turnout. Serb and Croat majority interviewees, however, had a far higher turnout that the country average. Among Bosniacs there was no such difference between majority and minority interviewees. That minority interviewees vote to a lesser degree than majority interviewees, could in many areas be explained by the fact that there are few parties present locally representing minority groups, in large part because there are so few minority returnees. This could apply to the low turnout of Croats in the Posavina area. Another possible explanation is that minority returnees to a lesser degree than other groups identify with the ethnically defined parties. This explanation is supported by findings of the EWS system which observed that members of minority groups were much less likely than the majority to agree with the proposition that: “only ethnically oriented parties can ensure ethnic interests (…) Only 13% were willing to identify with an existing political party.” (UNDP, 2005). That Bosniac minority returnees in the areas visited had the possibility to vote for parties that are seen as less ethnically defined, such as notably SDP, might explain their higher turnout. Differences in turnout could also be explained by different “ideological attitudes” to return: Bosniac parties and leaders actively supported minority return from the beginning, contrary to Croat and Serb leaders. However, local conditions clearly are important. The low Croat turnout in Posavina is probably mainly explained by the proximity of Croatia and the strong ties the returnees maintain with their place of displacement, which allow them to meet most of their needs except for housing in Croatia.
Organisational activity The vast majority of the interviewees, 87%, stated that they were not members or active participants in any organisation. 5% were members of associations that primarily have economic aims, such as agricultural co-operatives and organisations that facilitate handicraft. Almost all of these associations seemed to have been internationally supported or even initiated. 4% were members of a political party and/or were elected MZ officials. 4% were members of associations of a more social or religious character, such as religious groups or hunters’ associations. Some interviewees had household members who were members of associations or parties, but the number was still quite low. The participation rate is much lower than the rate in the sample for the World Bank study on social capital, where nearly 1/3 of the respondents belonged to some type of voluntary association (World Bank, 2002). However, there is hardly any difference between majority and minority interviewees in this regard.
Not all who declared themselves members of an association were particularly actively involved in any activities. Especially some members of women’s associations were disappointed with the associations because they did not manage to obtain any credits or grants or had not been offered to participate in income generating activities lately. A few male interviewees (all minority returnees) said that they had been more politically involved before. Some of these interviewees stated that political membership was a key to credits and donations and that this had at least partially motivated them to join a party.
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Many interviewees, especially women, seemed surprised at the question about membership in a party or association, as if it was extremely unlikely or even funny that they should engage themselves socially or politically in the community.
These interviews confirmed two trends noted by analysts of local level institutions and NGOs. First of all, the participation confirms the gender patterns described above in the section on discrimination. Women tend to be members of apolitical associations engaged primarily with domestic activities, while men are more likely to politically active. There were exceptions to this pattern, but most of the interlocutors who were or had been politically active in any way were men. Secondly, the general impression from the interviews is that political or other organised activity is regarded as something you engage in only to obtain some kind of benefit for your household – either through memberships in NGOs, which organise economic activities for members (usually funded at least party by international actors), or through political connections that ensure that you are put on the list of potential beneficiaries for donations and credits. This motivation pattern was also observed in the World Bank social capital study, which notes that “In post-war Bosnia-Herzegovina, the main link between citizens and voluntary associations is not one of active participation, but most often one of individual requests for public services and social benefits.” (World Bank, 2002). Few expressed an interest in or understanding of organisational activity for a common good. This can probably be explained partly by the dire economic situation of most of the households interviewed that makes them focused on their immediate needs rather than on the community. It may also partly be the result of a weak civil society in BiH in general, which is still very donor driven and not based on the initiatives of ordinary citizens.
Freedom of expression and religion The vast majority of the interviewees, 94%, stated that they felt free to publicly express their opinions and practice their religion. 4% said that they only felt somewhat free in this regard and 2% did not know. Some seemed to find the question alien or funny, as if these issues were not at all among their concerns. This confirmed the impression of a sample population being overall mainly concerned with subsistence issues and the concerns of their household and only minimally involved in the wider community.
Some interviewees in Brcko and Brod mentioned incidents of vandalism of religious objects or conflicts related to religious objects. A few interviewees expressed their frustration at religious buildings being built instead of houses. At the same time, religious buildings were under construction in several return locations (Dizdarusa, Velika, Cardak), where other needs could arguably be said to be more urgent. These buildings were apparently funded largely with private contributions, probably mainly from the diaspora. Only a handful of interviewees mentioned concerns related to freedom of expression or religion.
“I don’t like to show off my religion. You need to be careful, especially when people celebrate something. Some people react badly, especially if they have lost someone in the war.” Croat woman, Brod
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“We hope the mosque next door is not reconstructed so we won’t have problems with drunk people near the house.” Bosniac couple, Brod
“We have to think about what we say.” Bosniac couple, Derventa.
“You know that people can’t talk freely. They are afraid.” Bosniac woman, Derventa
Presence and nature of conflicts 62% of the interviewees said that there were no conflicts between returnees and others (authorities or residents) that they knew of. A fourth of these, however, referred to problems that occurred shortly after return and were now largely overcome, such as verbal harassment, provocations, drunken brawls, stolen building materials or conflicts between the returnees themselves created by corrupt return representatives or non- transparent reconstruction procedures. 14% (almost all minority interviewees) mentioned current issues that could be understood as return related conflicts. Most mentioned conflicts that were mainly of an economic character, such as “nomads” grazing their cattle on the land of returnees, illegal logging in forests owned by returnees, alleged discriminatory allocation of public resources for infrastructure and other services and expropriation of property. A smaller part of the conflicts mentioned had more symbolic or religious connotations, such as disagreements related to (re)construction of religious objects or names of streets or public buildings. One minority returnee to Kljuc claimed that there were no conflicts because the returnees kept quiet because they feared for reprisals in case they were open about problems.
“There are no conflicts; Serbs keep quiet. People won’t tell about problems because they fear for reprisals.” Croat woman, Kljuc
Many interviewees clearly understood conflicts in terms of incidents such as fights and verbal harassment. Even when we stressed that we did not mean fights but rather disagreements over things such as infrastructure, resources, names or religious matters people seemed to have difficulties identifying conflicts of a more political nature.
“They organised provocations when we came, but we had no problems with the authorities.” Serb man, Hodbina
“Donations created conflicts between people because the representatives stole. They should have told people how much it cost. Some people got many donations.” Bosniac man, Hodbina
“The municipality has been very correct. It is easier to get documents and services here than in Serbia.” Serb woman, Bravsko
“There have been conflicts with IDPs about forests. Someone said he would throw a bomb at me. I buy wood and he cuts mine.” Croat man, Garevac
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Improvement for household and community The majority of the interviewees (60%) said that employment would be the most important improvement of the situation for their households and/or communities. Many elderly who were themselves past working age also stressed the need for employment, which would attract and keep younger people in the community, which again would improve the life of elderly people. 17% mentioned higher salaries or pensions, 15% infrastructure (electricity, public transport, ambulanta, better roads, streetlights), 13% (all rural interviewees) improved conditions for agriculture, 7% more donations, 6% political change, 3% social change and 2% better credit schemes. Many mentioned several needs. There were relatively small differences between minority and majority interviewees in this respect, but more rural than urban interviewees mentioned employment (29 percentage points). Several minority interviewees mentioned equal access for members of all ethnic groups in relation to employment.
Few of the interviewees specified how this improvement would take place or even which form it would take – especially how employment could be created. This reflects the statement of a returnee couple in Bacevici (not “Norwegian beneficiaries” but interviewed as former return representatives): “New businesses would improve the situation for the community, but we don’t really have ideas for new businesses, because we were all state employed before the war.” Some of those who mentioned better agricultural conditions were quite specific in their wishes and hoped for agricultural machinery (for themselves or for common use through cooperatives) and collection of milk and other produce from individual farmers. An interviewee who would have wanted better credit schemes said he wished there were credits tailored for farmers with pay back on a yearly instead of a monthly basis. Many interviewees had difficulties identifying the needs of the community.
“The financial situation has to improve. People here have no prospective for work. In the bigger factories there is preferential treatment for certain ethnic groups.” Serb man, Hodbina
“There should be more young people in government, more jobs, law, the nationalist parties should lose power and there should be no more building of religious objects.” Croat woman, Dizdarusa
“People should start respecting each other no matter which ethnicity they are.” Croat man, Derventa
Obstacles and incentives to return The present study is aimed primarily at studying the current situation of the beneficiaries of Norwegian funded housing and return projects in BiH. However, in order to draw lessons from the experience with these projects and seek to understand how return assistance can be as effective as possible, it is important also to assess what motivated
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those beneficiaries who returned to do so and why others did not return. In the following some tentative answers will be arrived at through an analysis of the interviewees’ answers to questions relating to the return process itself.
Stated reasons for return/remain Relatively few clear-cut responses emerged to the question of why the interviewees had decided to return. Many mentioned both push- and pull-factors as reasons for their return and their answers contained elements both of choice and lack of options. Some answers clearly reflected that the decision to return was the result of a balancing of negative and positive aspects of the place of displacement and the place of return – or in effect an assessment of where the household would have greater chances to live what they deemed to be a decent life. For example, interviewees whose main income was a pension or benefit and who returned from Croatia generally seemed to have judged that they could live better of their income in the place of return because necessities were cheaper.
“We could not realise anything there [because they did not own any property and were not considered real citizens], but we could here.” Serb woman, Bravsko
“It was more and more expensive to live in Croatia and pay rent. (…) Here it is cheaper.” Croat man, Brod
However, in many cases it was clear that return was not so much the result of a decision as much as of a lack of options. Many were evicted from occupied housing and due to a lack of a regular and sufficient income did not have the means to rent or buy housing. For these people, applying for reconstruction of their pre-war homes was probably often the only way to cover their housing needs. Others seemed to have had little say in the decision making, either because they felt obliged to take care of family members who were not able or did not want to be elsewhere or because they were overruled by other family members. From several interviews it transpired that the question of return had been so difficult that it had caused significant conflicts within families. A few men admitted that they had been more reluctant to return than other family members, while women to a larger degree said that they had returned against their will.
“I could have stayed in Sarajevo, but I returned because of my mother. She had moved too much.” Bosniac man, Velika
“I wasn’t for return and I still am not for it. I wanted to stay with my relatives in town. My husband wanted to return (…).” Serb woman, Lipovac
“I could have stayed in Croatia and lived of my husband’s pension, but my son insisted that I come here to take care of the farm.” Croat Woman, Donji Visnjik
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Pull‐factors 75% of the interviewees explained the decision to return or remain mainly or partially in terms of a positive valuation of the place of return or by mentioning their attachment to it (pull-factors). Most commonly, respondents simply said they wanted to go home, or to “their own”. Such an emotional attachment was often linked to the fact that the interviewees had been born or lived most of their life there and that their parents and grandparents were born and buried there:
“I wanted to live in my house – my father’s father’s house.” Bosniac woman, Brod
“I returned to live in my own property where my family has lived for generations. My parents died here.” Croat man, Garevac
Frequently interviewees used terms of ownership (“my house”, “our land”) in explicit or implicit contrast with a life in exile where they felt they did not belong and were regarded as foreigners. Being in their own house and town for many meant being secure in their right to live there and feeling a sense of belonging:
“You are freest on your own land.” Serb woman, Bacevici
“I returned so that no one could tell me to leave!” Bosniac man, Velecevo
“I feel I belong here.” Bosniac woman, Brod
Naturally the house and land represent an economic value, not only the emotional one that may be easier to talk about in an interview. It was clear that some returnees returned at least partly because getting a donation for their pre-war house was their only possibility to own their accommodation. Others mentioned the fact that they did not have to pay rent as one of the reasons they returned. A few stated that they felt best in the place of return because of environmental or climatic factors, but otherwise remarkably few objective or material advantages of the return place were mentioned.
“It was possible to get a donation here. If I could have built elsewhere I wouldn’t be here.” Serb man, Lipovac
“Here we don’t have to pay rent.” Croat man, Brod
“We wanted to drink our own water.” Serb man, Rudenice
Push‐factors 12% of the interviewees referred to negative aspects of the place of displacement as reasons for return. This was particularly evident in Hodbina, where many of the Serbs had been displaced in Nevesinje, which was universally described in negative terms. However, even those who had more positive opinions of their place of exile had often
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been uncomfortable with their status as IDPs or refugees. Considering that many were displaced from rural to urban areas, some of this sentiment may have been caused by the condescending attitude that townspeople in BiH often have about residents of rural areas. In many bigger towns in BiH it is common to hear pre-war residents talk in quite derogatory ways about rural IDPs. For some it may not have been so much the way they were treated or looked at by others as much as their own feeling of being a stranger in the place of displacement that made it difficult to stay there. Age is a factor here, as many older people had obvious difficulties adapting to a new environment. Many also felt materially disadvantaged in displacement or had difficulties meeting their housing needs.
“Nevesinje was horrible!” Serb man, Hodbina
“We would always have remained IDPs there, not real citizens.” Serb woman, Bravsko
“We didn’t have anything there.” Croat man, Zeravac
“I was in other people’s world and wanted to go home.” Croat woman, Garevac
The interviewees’ displacement history shows that push-factors are likely to be an important reason for return, possibly more important than many interviewees expressed. Almost half had been in more than one town during their displacement, and many had changed accommodation several times in each location. Only 19% rented accommodation in the last period of displacement, while the remainder stayed in occupied housing, collective centres or with relatives or other hosts. This means that relatively few of the interviewed households were able to meet their housing needs on their own while in displacement, and many of those who did, said they found it increasingly hard to pay the rent. This is linked to the fact that only 12% of the interviewees mentioned regular employment as one of their sources of income during the displacement.
“Ideological return” In some interviews it seemed that the returnees in addition to having other reasons for return also believed it was right for them to return in a normative sense. Their statements seemed to reflect or refer to policies promoted by the international community or politicians in BiH. Some of these interviewees said they believed everyone should go back to their own or stated that they had always known that they could not stay in other people’s property. Whether this attitude is a result of the international community’s insistence on property repossession and the right to return is of course difficult to say, but it is one of many signs of a general acceptance of return that was fought hard in many places in BiH. Others seemed to express their opposition to nationalist or segregationist politics and perceptions of collective guilt.
“Everyone needs to go to their own.” Bosniac woman, Boderiste
“No one will give you what belongs to others.” Bosniac man, Dizdarusa
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“I am not interested in the RS and “the people”, only in my house” Serb man, Hodbina
“I don’t understand the division between Croats, Muslims and Serbs. Yugoslavia remained in my heart”. Serb woman, Bravsko
“I returned because I am not guilty for anything and because this is mine and I am freest here.” Serb man, Rudenice
Return motivation among different groups of returnees Because of the mixed character of many of the responses provided, it is difficult to analyse which types of reasons are most common among different categories of returnees. However, there did seem to be some marked differences in the responses depending on the age of the interviewee. Interviewees younger than 40 to a much lesser degree than older interviewees (43 percentage points) expressed their decision by referring to pull- factors. Younger interviewees also felt more determined by relatives in their decision to return than older interviewees (17 percentage points). Similarly, younger interviewees expressed a greater sense of lack of alternatives (36 percentage points) and had to a larger extent made their decision based on an economic assessment (32 percentage points). This notably more reserved attitude to return confirms and explains the overrepresentation of older people in the return locations visited. Many of the interlocutors, including the interviewees themselves, pointed to factors relating to age when explaining (the lack of) return to their communities. In the words of one elderly interviewee in Derventa it seemed indeed to be the case that “Young people go all over the world to earn a living; old people go to their own.”
There were also some differences between minority returnees71 and majority returnees/residents. Minority interviewees to a larger degree than majority returnees (13 percentage points) explained their decision by reference to pull-factors and to a somewhat lesser degree expressed a sense of lack of alternatives (7 percentage points). However, they also referred more to push-factors (15 percentage points) and economic assessments (11 percentage points). There were only minor differences between rural and urban interviewees.
Comparison between displacement and return The interviewees’ comparisons between the place of displacement and the place of return shed further light on the ambiguity they expressed related to their decision to return. Most of the interviewees made mixed assessments of one or both places. The positive and negative aspects mentioned of both places are shown in the table further below.
45% of the interviewees made comparisons that were fully in favour of the place of return. 16% were most positive to the place of return, but also mentioned good aspects of
71 Persons who were minority returnees at the point of return, but who are not necessarily considered to belong to the local minority today. See the methodology section for a discussion on minority/majority returnees.
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the place of return or bad aspects of the place of displacement. 15% gave roughly equally positive or negative descriptions of the two places. 6% described the place of displacement more positively, but also mentioned good aspects of place of return or bad aspects of the place of displacement. Only 5% made comparisons that were wholly in favour of the place of displacement.
There were very small differences between rural and urban respondents in their assessments, whereas differences between majority and minority and younger and older interviewees were more distinct. Older interviewees generally gave a more positive assessment of the place of return compared to the place of displacement, as did minority returnees.
Positive aspects Negative aspects Place of Presence of other (younger) relatives Everything belonged to others displacement Easier life (no hard physical labour) Hard agricultural work without proper pay Better accommodation Could not pay rent Humanitarian aid Little space in accommodation Better social life Little space around house/apartment More possibilities for employment Expensive More opportunities Had to move all the time Closer to town Only emergency accommodation Better public transport Felt like IDPs/refugees/foreigners Better infrastructure Had to work all the time Order and cleanliness Bothered relatives/hosts More money and food “Our people” (with a similar mentality) Higher salaries Social assistance Place of return Own land, apartment/house No opportunities for work Being “at home” No social life/isolation Better climate, better water, nature Do not have anything Do not have to pay rent Full of IDPs with a different mentality Better social life Can work the land More healthy life More quiet Lower costs Do not bother relatives/hosts Table 22: Interviewed households, positive and negative aspects of the place of displacement and the place of return Many of the aspects mentioned illustrate the differences between urban and rural lives, as most interviewees were displaced in urban areas and returned to rural areas. In sum, life in (urban) displacement for many offered more services and opportunities, but little safety in terms of housing. Those who did not manage to get a steady income found themselves in a difficult situation as they were not able to rent when they had to vacate occupied housing. The major advantage of the (rural) place of return for many is exactly the safety of housing/property. Rural life also provides the opportunities for working the land and is perceived as more healthy, but on the other hand many are left with little more than their
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house and what they manage to produce in their kitchen gardens. Social and emotional aspects seem to tie interviewees to both places. Some had a better social life in displacement because they were less geographically isolated or were living with family, others have a better social life in the place of return among their former neighbours and value the feeling of being “at home”. Again differences in age became evident in the valuation of the aspects. Several interviewees pointed out that younger people tended to value the advantages of urban life more than those of rural life.
“This is mine – my garden and my house. What I make and repair is for me.” Croat man, Boderiste
“It is worse here than in displacement. There transport was nearby, there was more infrastructure, more social life. This is the worst life for old people.” Bosniac couple, Bjelaj
“Nothing was better there. Here we live badly but everyone does. Home, whatever it is like, is best.” Serb woman, Lijesce
“There we had “our people”. This town in full of people from Central Bosnia who have a different mentality. It was good there as long as I could work. It is cheaper to live here, which is important with our small pension.” Croat man, Brod
“We had a more comfortable life there, but the wish for return was bigger.” Croat man, Brod
“Nothing was better there, except maybe for work. Nothing is better than where you are born. Maybe life there is easier.” Croat man, Donji Visnjik
“There the standard was better, we worked less and earned more and my husband could work as well. But we were always refugees.” Bosniac woman, Derventa
Evaluation of return 79% of the interviewees believed they had made the right decision when they decided to return. 9% were not sure they had made the right decision and 6% believed they had made the wrong decision to return. Differences between minority and majority and rural and urban respondents in this regard are slight, but young interviewees are less certain than older interviewees that they made the right choice (13 percentage points) and to a larger degree believe they made the wrong decision (13 percentage points). Considering the rather limited options for many of the interviewees and their households, the “right decision” clearly means the right decision considering the rather bleak circumstances. This is reflected in the ambivalent answers of many of those who did think they made the right decision.
“We made a good decision because there was no alternative.” Bosniac couple, Bjelaj
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“It was what I wanted and I didn’t lose anything.” Bosniac man, Brod
“When I am angry I regret it, but other times I think it was right to return. It is difficult to live here and we work a lot for little pay.” Bosniac woman, Derventa
“Maybe not, because I left work in Sarajevo and here I have nothing to live of. It is much better only in Doboj. (…) You can get jobs there as a Bosniac.” Bosniac man, Velika
“I was so happy when I returned I couldn’t sleep.” Croat woman, Derventa
“I couldn’t have made a bigger mistake. The worst is that there is no work, but also the lack of social life is difficult.” Serb woman, Kljuc
Pressure and prevention in relation to return Half of the interviewees said they were neither pressurised to return nor prevented from returning. 17% said they felt that their looming evictions from the properties they were occupying in displacement constituted some form of pressure. 16% said that other IDPs in the place of displacement sought to dissuade them or even prevent them from returning. Almost all the returnees to Bosanski Petrovac and Kljuc who had been displaced in the RS (especially Prnjavor) mentioned that neighbours and officials there – mainly IDPs, and especially those from Vozuca72 - had tried to pressurise them to stay in the RS. Kljuc is a particular case in this context, as the leader of the vocal anti-return movement in the RS, Ostanak (Remain), originates from Kljuc. Interestingly, the returnees to Mostar who had been displaced in the eastern part of the RS, mainly in Nevesinje, did not mention such attempts to prevent them from returning. Only one of the interviewees stated that the residents in Nevesinje wanted to keep them there because they provided cheap agricultural labour. This kind of pressure was hardly mentioned at all by returnees who had been displaced in FBiH, which is not surprising considering the different official policies towards return in the two entities.
Only 7% said that representatives of the authorities, mainly the authorities in the place of return, had attempted to prevent them from returning. For example, a returnee to Brod said her house was occupied even after the donation and that the authorities permitted this. It is surprising that so few considered that they had been prevented by authorities in the place of return, as several of the interviewees had experienced demonstrations or security incidents related to their return that were often not addressed by the authorities. However, it seems that the interviewees understood initial security incidents and other obstacles rather as expected attempts at intimidating them and not at actually preventing them from returning. Most of the interviewees also returned after certain political shifts, notably the SNSD-led government in the RS in 1998, which entailed less open resistance to minority return. It could also be that the returnees themselves were not fully aware of
72 Vozuca, a large village consisting of several hamlets in Maglaj in FBiH, became a notoriously difficult place to return to, partly because it was to a large extent occupied by IDPs from Srebrenica.
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the resistance offered by local authorities in the place of return, as they had limited direct contacts with them.
2% said that they had felt some form of economic pressure to return. Minority returnees felt pressurised or prevented to a somewhat larger degree than majority returnees (8 percentage points). Unsurprisingly none of the majority returnees felt prevented by the authorities in the place of return. Minority returnees also felt prevented by other IDPs to a larger degree (22 percentage points) and where the only ones who mentioned economic pressure and obstructive authorities in the place of displacement.
“I lived in someone else’s house. The owner came and checked. This was some kind of pressure. No one prevented us.” Serb man, Hodbina
“Neighbours in Prnjavor protested because we wanted to return.” Serb woman, Bravsko
“Ostanak came to us and said it would be difficult to return, but my husband didn’t believe them. I understand what happened here, but we are not guilty. Otherwise we would not have returned.” Croat Woman, Kljuc
“No, but the IDPs prevented us from visiting our properties in the beginning.” Bosniac woman, Dizdarusa
“No, but the increased expenses were some kind of pressure.” Bosniac woman, Brod
“No, but people said: “Why do you return? Serbs rule there.”” Bosniac man, Brod
Preconditions Asked which preconditions they had set for return, i.e. what needed to be in place before they returned, 46% of the interviewees mentioned housing or reconstruction. Many used the expression “a roof over our heads”, which indicates that their housing requirements at the time were fairly basic. 35% said that they had not set any particular preconditions, which seems likely when one considers the conditions they returned to; collective housing for longer periods before their houses were reconstructed, a lack of basic infrastructure and several incidents of verbal harassment and threats. 9% (all minority returnees) mentioned security or freedom of movement, but it is likely that many of those who mentioned housing took security for granted. 4% mentioned infrastructure and 2% mentioned a source of income. One minority interviewee said that he had waited for other members of the community to return, one majority interviewee had wanted transport and one majority interviewee had waited for the school year to end.
More minority returnees than majority returnees mentioned preconditions for return (14 percentage points), as did younger returnees compared to older (10 percentage points). Rural returnees also had more preconditions for return than urban returnees (10 percentage points). These differences probably to some extent reflect the extent to which
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conditions were already in place for different categories of returnees and how difficult it was for them to return.
The lack of preconditions is probably linked with the low expectations many – with good reason – had to return. It also reflects the fairly desperate situation many were in. Many of those who admitted that they hoped for something more than security and housing upon return had clearly been let down, such as a returnee to Kljuc who had wanted electricity and phone connection and a returnee to Bravsko who had hoped to find a job.
“We only waited for return to start.” Serb woman, Bravsko
“I said I wanted electricity and phone before I returned, but we lived one year without both.” Croat woman, Kljuc
“The house was enough. We didn’t have any requirements. We only wanted basics, what we need for life.” Croat woman, Boderiste
Non‐return of other household members 50% of the households had members who lived in the household before the war, but who had not returned to the repaired or reconstructed housing unit. Most households who had not returned complete, were “missing” members in the age group of 21-40 years. This is not surprising, as this is the period most people establish their own households. However, as much as 20% of the households had also returned without middle-aged members (41- 60), which shows that many households split not only because of the young generation becoming adults but also because many working-aged members did not wish to return. There were many more split households among the minority interviewees than the majority interviewees (22 percentage points) and more among the rural than the urban households (9 percentage points).
The interviewees’ assessment of the reasons why other household members have not returned may obviously differ from these household members’ own. The reasons mentioned can be categorised as relating to employment, marriage, family, education, housing, opportunities and harassment. Some interviewees mentioned a combination of reasons. Employment was mentioned most frequently (by 29% of the interviewees), followed by marriage (23%), education (12%), housing (9%), other family related reasons (3%), opportunities (3%), fear or harassment (2%) and public services (1%).
Many more minority than majority interviewees (25 percentage points) mention employment as one of the reasons other household members have not returned. Among majority returnees employment ranks equal to marriage and seems rather one of many reasons than the clearly most important one, as is the case with minority households. More rural than urban interviewees (17 percentage points) mentioned education as one of the reasons their former household members had not returned and more also mention employment (15 percentage points).
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Many of the interviewees were displaced in bigger towns or more economically active areas than the return locations and middle aged and young people have been able to find work there. In fact, some interlocutors pointed out that there is a network of IDPs in many of these places that provides jobs to “their own”. Most of the return locations visited are less urban than the most common places of displacement. This means that return goes against the general ongoing urbanisation process in the country. Many of the interviewees said that even though it is often easier to provide a basic living for oneself in rural areas, especially younger people who have lived in urban areas for a few years find it difficult to adapt to a rural lifestyle. The World Bank study on social capital also noted that “Many IDPs mention loss of job and fear of unemployment as the main reasons they do not want to return. In the opinion survey, the main factors are age and level of education. Young people, who are more educated, more often do not want to return, while older people, mostly of rural origin and with a low level of education, want to return because they had difficulty adapting to their new environment. (…) The preoccupation with economic issues shows a change in attitude since 1999, when participants in the social assessment considered personal insecurity as a main obstacle to return.” (World Bank, 2002).
Especially for daughters, marriage with someone from another place was often mentioned as a sufficient reason for not returning. It is still common in BiH to see daughters as belonging primarily to the family of their husbands and to expect sons – whether they are married or not – to take care of their parents when they grow old. This expectation – as well as an element of wishful thinking – may be behind the assessment of some of the interviewees that their sons may return eventually, if not before then when they retire.
Education seems to be a problem primarily at the level of secondary education. One family had even returned while their children were in primary school only to leave again when they were about to start secondary school, partially due to the limited options for secondary education. In Bjelaj, for example, there is no public transport to the nearest secondary school and students therefore either rent rooms in town or stay with relatives elsewhere. Two interviewees indicated that it was also a question of the quality of the education offered or the range of options – for example the lack of a medical school.
Housing issues were mentioned primarily in the sense that there was not sufficient space in the reconstructed house for the entire family to return. This may be because only some members expressed an interest in return at the time of the project or because the family has increased since before the war. However, a few family members of the interviewees had also either been allocated a land plot or been able to buy a plot in the place of displacement.
One minority interviewee who was among the few who felt harassed in the place of return and whose son had moved to his father in the RS, indicated that the son had moved partly in order to escape harassment and partly to have more opportunities.
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From some interviewees we received information also about family members who moved out of the household before the war. This confirms the picture given above about the younger generation remaining in urban centres in BiH or abroad instead of returning. Those who work pay rent or have bought plots or houses. Others have sold or exchanged their pre-war property for property in their current place of residence. One interviewee claimed that his son moved back to the place of displacement again after having returned primarily because of employment and better access to education and health care but also because his wife was harassed by majority children in the neighbourhood. Another interviewee believed his grandmother was reluctant to return because her son (the interviewee’s uncle) was killed during the war.
There are many reasons why it is primarily the young and not the older generations that do not return. Elderly people have fewer needs than younger people in terms of for example employment and education. They also often have a stronger attachment to their pre-war home, possibly simply because they have lived there for a greater part of their lives than young people, for whom the 10-13 years of displacement may have created stronger geographical ties than their pre-war childhood and youth. It is also likely that younger people in BiH simply are less attached to places and more concerned about employment and other opportunities than older people. This is confirmed by statements by the younger interviewees who more often that the elderly interviewees stated that they would have liked to go somewhere else, in fact anywhere they could find employment. However, it is important to have in mind that although relatively healthy pensioners have fewer needs than younger people, the older they get the more likely they are to depend on other people’s assistance. In light of the absence of an affordable and acceptable public care model for elderly in BiH, this need is primarily met by the family. It remains to be seen how this will affect return – whether it will lead younger families to return to take care of their parents or whether the parents will move back to their sons and daughters in “displacement”.
Few mentioned social or political reasons for non-return, but a man visiting his elderly parents in Derventa who said that employment, health care and education were the main preconditions for younger people like him to return emphasised that the current social environment in the place of return also was significant: “It is also important that more normal people return. If they did, we would too.”
Reasons for other failed return 64% of the interviewees said they knew of empty houses in their neighbourhoods where the owners had not returned after the house or apartment was repossessed or repaired. 40% said they believed the reasons for this were economic, primarily that the owners had found employment and/or accommodation elsewhere. Only 3% said they thought the reasons also had to do with political or religious issues. The remainder said they did not know why the houses were empty.
Many minority returnees and a few majority returnees in remote locations, notably in Bjelaj, Brod, Derventa and Modrica, expressed concern about the survival of their
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communities and remarked that the returnee population consisted of too many old people and that it was already decreasing. Only in Bosanski Petrovac and Brcko did interviewees express optimism on behalf of the return communities and said that minority return was still ongoing. A municipal return representative in Modrica also provided a positive picture of Bosniac return to the municipality, in stark contrast to the failed Croat return.
“Here there are no empty houses. But there are split families, the older generation is back and the younger is in the RS. Young families don’t return, but they would have if there were work.” Serb woman, Bravsko
“No one sold here because no one will buy.” Bosniac woman, Bjelaj
“There are quite a lot of empty houses, but they are returning now. Some are trying to establish work shops here. It seems the young generation will stay in displacement. Students don’t have many options in secondary schools here so they stay to complete their education.” Serb man, Bare
“There (Croatia) they have accommodation, work, better living conditions. They are just waiting to sell.” Bosniac man, Brod
“In Velika all who got reconstruction assistance are here. But young and educated people don’t return – because of economic and political reasons. It bothers people that it is called Republika Srpska.” Bosniac man, Velika
“Young people don’t return because there is no work and they don’t want to deal with agriculture.” Croat man, Gornji Kladari
“The biggest mistake is that Croatia gave people social aid, medicines and everything.” Croat man, Cardak
“People who get the Croatian government donations get everything but they don’t return. Croatia doesn’t help those who have returned.” Croat woman, Garevac
Other factors impacting on return There may be many reasons for return that the interviewees did not mention when asked why they decided to return, for example because they were not conscious of taking them into account. The reasons mentioned by the interviewees in order to explain their decision to return were predominantly individual: Longing for one’s home, a lack of options, the prospect of owning property and not paying rent, the discomfort of IDP or refugee status. There are probably also many reasons of a more collective or structural nature that contributed to making return a more or less realistic option for the interviewees. Some such reasons that were mentioned by interviewees in reply to different answers or that otherwise emerged from the visits to the return locations will be briefly summarised below. Assessing the relative strength and combined effects of these factors is beyond the
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scope of this study and the following summary is mainly intended to provide a picture of the complexity of the return process.
Factors relating to the place of displacement As some interviewees mentioned, the conditions in the place of displacement impact significantly on return. IDPs and refugees who manage better in the place of displacement than they would have in the place of return have few incentives to return. To a large extent this factor can be seen on a collective level as well as in the case of individual households. There has been relatively little voluntary return from western countries, where refugees have often had the possibility to establish their lives and enjoy a higher living standard and more opportunities than they would in the place of origin. The same is the case for many refugees to Croatia, in particular Croat refugees, who were offered citizenship and significant assistance. This is probably the most important reason for the relatively unsuccessful Croat return to Posavina. The relative conditions in the place of displacement and the place of origin also hamper return to rural areas and small towns, as many were displaced to more urban areas than their respective places of origin. As mentioned earlier, return therefore often has to be achieved against the general trend of urbanisation that was probably hastened by the war.
In addition to socio-economic conditions, political conditions in the place of displacement can be influential. Bosniacs were to a large degree encouraged to return by their political leaders, many of whom saw return as a means to achieve political ends such as a more unified country or political influence in areas controlled by political opponents. Serbs and Croats were on the contrary often discouraged by leaders who saw their political interests threatened, such as the maintenance of ethnically concentrated territories and of the political power created on this basis. The successful return of Bosniacs to Brcko for example, is probably partially caused by the persistent Bosniac political interest in the town due to its strategic location and wartime history. The policy of “ostanak” (“remain”) of many Serb leaders, which was manifested for example in land plot allocations to IDPs such as in Derventa, probably contributed to decrease the interest in return to places such as Bosanski Petrovac.
The distance of displacement in both time and space may be one factor. Where displacement occurred late in the war, the displaced may have had stronger competition in the place of displacement and less time to integrate and lose hopes for return than those who were displaced early. This may have had a positive influence on the return to for example Bosanski Petrovac. Displacement to nearby areas has clearly made return easier in many locations, such as Brcko, where many did not even leave the pre-war municipality but fled to areas that were controlled by people of their ethnicity. Those who were displaced across such short distances could sometimes keep jobs and maintain other ties to the place of displacement even after return and therefore faced a much smaller disruption of their lives than others.
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Factors relating to the return process In many places the degree of initiative, resources and good organisation of the returnees has been highly instrumental to successful return. In the locations visited for this study, the effect of organisation was most visible in Bosanski Petrovac and Mostar, where collective return had clearly provided security and probably boosted numbers of returnees. However, the organisation created by return did not seem to have translated into lasting socio-political structures that could have furthered the sustainability of return and integration.
Factors relating to the place of origin/return Several traits of the place of origin and return may influence the return process. Where the (potential) returnees were part of the ethnic majority or at least a large group of the population before the war but not afterwards, minority return has often been met with much resistance from post-war authorities who fear that minority return will alter the demographic situation to such an extent that their position is threatened. However, this situation has also motivated returnees, who felt safer to return to areas where they are likely to live in large communities of their own and exercise political influence. This motivation has probably been important for return to Bosanski Petrovac. Other demographic factors may also contribute. Especially in the beginning of the return process it may be easier to achieve return to ethnically homogenous areas and rural and more remote areas, as they provide more physical and material security to returnees and may be less contested.
The wartime history of the place of origin is likely to impact on return. Atrocities committed by persons belonging either to the displaced or the remaining population can significantly hamper return. Some Serb returnees to Kljuc believed the atrocities committed by Serb forces in Kljuc created a significant obstacle to Serb return.
Although few majority authorities in BiH can be said to have actively encouraged minority return to their own territories, the levels of resistance varied. Some authorities were relatively pragmatic in practice although they did not publicly support return. For example, interlocutors in Mostar mentioned the important role of a local politician who had facilitated minority return covertly despite his and his party’s official stance. As mentioned the degree of obstruction of return could depend on the pre-war demography or the location of the return locations, but it could also be linked to the presence of groups of refugees or IDPs. In Derventa the presence of large numbers of IDPs from Bosanski Petrovac, who occupied the housing units of the potential minority returnees and had taken over their positions contributed to the resistance minorities met when they started to return.
Obviously the possibilities for returnees to obtain or access adequate housing, employment or other income generating activities, infrastructure, health care, education, pensions and social care in place of origin influence their decision to return. So do the prospects of enjoying civil and political rights such as non-discrimination, legal security,
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freedom of religion and expression and political influence. Arguably most of these needs – apart from housing – were far from fully met in the locations visited. In particular minority returnees, but also many majority returnees, had very limited access to income generation activities and public services and their civil and political rights were only partially realised. This situation is partly the result of a generally bleak situation and a displacement pattern that led people to urban and economically active areas but also of discrimination and ethnocentric politics aimed at entrenching the power of the ruling rather than improving the situation of the citizens. Only in a few of the areas visited, such as Brcko, did return seem to be partially caused by objectively favourable conditions in the place of return compared to the place of displacement, such as a better economic situation and a less ethnically exclusive political and administrative setting. In most of the other locations visited return seemed to be caused rather by a subjective connection to the place of origin and a lack of better options.
Influence over return related factors Most of the reasons mentioned above are probably beyond the control of return agencies and also the international community in general. Return agencies cannot influence pre- war demographics, wartime history and the time and place of displacement, they have little impact on the situation in displacement of their potential beneficiaries and on the policies of political leaders and they cannot guarantee the returnees’ enjoyment of human rights. This is not to say that the international community in BiH did not promote and assist return with some degree of success. The international community in BiH has discouraged local integration by seeking to limit the allocation of land plots and providing relatively little long term assistance to IDPs while in displacement, provided reconstruction assistance, security, infrastructure and other types of support to returnees, pressurised the authorities to return occupied property and accept minority return and generally sought to improve institutions and economic conditions in ways that would also benefit (minority) returnees. This involvement has failed to result in massive and sustainable minority return and the reversal of the post-war demography, but it has assisted many households who would have been much worse off without the assistance and it has firmly established the right of IDPs and refugees to return and to dispose of their pre-war housing units.
The multitude of factors influencing return and the limited ability of return agencies to influence them makes it vital for agencies to carry out a well-informed and thorough selection of project locations, target groups and individual beneficiaries and to offer those who do return the best possible assistance.
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Summary and conclusions
Norwegian housing and return assistance The present study has identified 72 projects that can be labelled “housing and/or return projects” funded by and/or implemented by Norwegian actors in BiH. These projects entailed the repair or reconstruction of 17883 housing units and were implemented by NRC, NPA, SSD, IOM and Caritas Norway. NMFA and NORAD funded 59 projects at a total cost of 355 380 571 NOK. 16218 housing units were repaired or reconstructed through these projects. The majority of the projects were carried out in the Federation and most of the housing units belonged to persons who belonged to the local ethnic majority. 31% of the projects included reconstruction of public infrastructure in addition to reconstruction of private housing and 24% included livelihood support or income generation assistance for beneficiaries of the housing reconstruction. The average occupancy rate for the Norwegian projects verified by HVM is 85%, which is above the countrywide average of 76%.
Findings in the field 101 households with a total of 294 members that had been beneficiaries of Norwegian funded projects in Stari Grad (Sarajevo), Mostar, Bosanski Petrovac, Kljuc, Brcko, Brod, Derventa and Modrica were interviewed. The sample consisted of both minority and majority households from all three constituent peoples living in both rural and urban areas, but had an overweight of minority and rural households. The vast majority of the households were returnees. Almost all claimed to live in the reconstructed housing units permanently. A little less than half were satisfied with the reconstruction assistance received, but 84% nevertheless said the assistance had been very important. Almost as many had carried out further works on the housing units with their own means after receiving the assistance. Satisfaction was highest among beneficiaries of projects that provided assistance in the form of cash, while those who received contracted assistance were less satisfied. Many complaints seemed to be caused at least partially by a lack of transparency. Differences in standards and methods applied by different implementing agencies also gave rise to dissatisfaction and tension. Half of the interviewees had received other forms of assistance in addition to housing reconstruction, such as livestock, seeds, household items or tools. Little of this assistance seemed to have generated a longer term income.
Sustainability of return Measuring the sustainability of return yields very different results depending on the indicator used. The occupancy rates are relatively high for most groups and locations
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except for Croat beneficiaries in Posavina and Serb beneficiaries in Kljuc. Occupancy rates among majority beneficiaries are generally far above the HVM countrywide average, whereas among minority beneficiaries they are well below. Relatively many interviewees said they would have left if they had the possibility, but fewer than among the BiH population in general. Consequently, the return to the locations visited can be said to be sustainable in so far as most houses are inhabited and the returnees are seemingly no less likely to stay in their current place of residence than the average population. However, the age composition of the interviewed households makes longer- term sustainability of the return population doubtful, as elderly are overrepresented, especially among minority returnees. Unless more and younger people return or the young people currently present give birth to extraordinary high numbers of children in the years to come, most of the return communities visited, especially the minority communities, will steadily shrink. Interviewees generally assessed the likelihood of further return to the housing units and communities visited as relatively low.
Assessing the sustainability of return in terms of the standard of life of the interviewees shows that despite many positive developments since return began, most struggle financially. Aspects related to security are overall positive and show that the security situation, especially for minority returnees, has improved vastly since return began. Despite the complaints about the reconstruction assistance all interviewees lived in houses that seemed to meet their basic needs for accommodation. However, especially in rural areas many had unsatisfactory or no access to several basic utilities. Very few had experienced problems obtaining documents or other services from their current municipality. All school aged household members attended school regularly and interviewees were largely satisfied with how students were treated and educated. Stated income levels are below countrywide figures. The overall unemployment rate was very high at 74%. 70% of the households received one or more pensions or benefits. Half of the households engaged in some agricultural activities, but only 11% produced agricultural products for sale. A third received remittances from relatives and a third had members who were irregularly employed. In 75% of the households all members were health insured, which is probably higher than the countrywide average and is likely to be caused by the high number of pensioners (who are health insured through their pensions) in the sample.
If sustainable return is understood as “the ability of returning refugees to secure the political, economic, [legal] and social conditions needed to maintain life, livelihood and dignity” as discussed above, the return of these interviewees can hardly be considered sustainable. However, a large part of the population in BiH faces the same type of problems as the interviewees. Whether their difficulties are of the same extent is difficult to judge because of a dearth of countrywide data. Differences between the interviewees and the general population also do not necessarily imply that return is a cause of socio- economic difficulties, as return projects are likely to have included members of the community who were disadvantaged even before return. In any event, the discrepancies in the living standard between different groups of interviewees are a cause for concern. Minority households, and to some extent rural households, are generally disadvantaged in
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relation to utilities, employment, income levels, the stability of income, health insurance and pensions or benefits.
Socio‐political effects of return Socio-political effects of return were assessed in terms of integration and political aspects such as political representation and exercise of civil and political rights. The degree of integration in the fields of commercial services, employment and education is relatively high, but was partly difficult to measure because there are relatively few minority households among the interviewed who have employed or school aged household members. A fourth of the students attended a school that was not the nearest to where they lived, sometimes but not necessarily for reasons related to ethnicity. Only one interviewee complained about current discriminatory treatment in school. Integration in the field of pensions and health care is lower and is hampered by the multiple legal and administrative systems applicable in BiH, which results in confusion, administrative barriers and different levels of service. The vast majority of both minority and majority interviewees described social relations between ethnic groups as good. Problems and tensions exist and contacts in many places are more limited than they were before the war, but relations generally seem to be marked by pragmatism if not friendliness. Very few said they felt harassed or discriminated against, but more minority than majority interviewees said they had felt so either recently or in the past.
Return seems to have had very limited political effects in most of the return locations visited except for Bosanski Petrovac and Brcko. Political interest and awareness was generally very low. Voter turnout was actually higher than the country average, but it was lower among minority than majority interviewees. All who voted, voted in the municipality of return. Less than a fourth was a member of any type of organisation. The vast majority said they felt free to practice their religion and express their opinion. More than half said there were no current conflicts of a political, economic, social or religious character between returnees and the authorities or other groups of the population. 14% mentioned current conflicts, which mainly were of an economic character. The majority of the interviewees believed that employment would be the most needed change for their households and communities.
Factors promoting and hampering return Interviewees referred mainly to economic factors and emotional attachment to their pre- war place of residence as factors determining their return. Economic factors were also their main explanation for the non-return of others. Because the return locations visited generally have few “objective” advantages over the most common places of displacement, those who returned mostly did so because they did not manage to establish themselves in the place of displacement or because they longed for their homes. For these people housing reconstruction was sufficient to make return the most attractive option and this was also the most frequently mentioned precondition for return. For many, the decision to return had clearly been a choice very much limited by a lack of options and by the decisions of other household members. Especially younger people seemed to have
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returned mainly because they did not have any alternative, whereas older people more often had returned because of their attachment to the place of return. Interviewees’ comparisons of the place of displacement and the place of return reflect that many were displaced more urban areas than their pre-war places of residence, which especially younger people appreciated but older people found it more difficult to adapt to. The vast majority believed they had made the right decision when they decided to return, but for many this must be seen in the light of their very limited options. Half of the interviewees said they felt to some extent pressurised to return or prevented from returning.
In their explanations of return and non-return interviewees mainly mentioned factors pertaining to the individual situation of each household rather than more structural or “collective” reasons. Such factors that may have framed the individual households’ decisions and made return more or less feasible were the political attitude to return and the assistance provided to local integration in the place of displacement, the degree of resources and organisation of the returnees, the pre-war demography and war time history of the place of return and the political attitude to return and socio-economic conditions in the place of return.
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Recommendations for further engagement with return
The following recommendations are written based on observations related to housing and return projects implemented in BiH and do not take into account that the procedures and practices of donors and implementing agencies may have changed since these projects. Nevertheless, the recommendations are intended to summarise the experience with (minority) return in BiH with a view to guide similar processes elsewhere.
Project conceptualisation and planning Projects that involve returnees should be conceptualised as “return projects” as opposed to “housing” or “reconstruction” projects. Repair or reconstruction may be the starting point and the most costly part of the project, but it should be clear from the outset that there are more preconditions for return than housing and that these also must be addressed to some extent by the project. Projects should contain integrated “social components” in the form of field work aimed at selecting good locations and beneficiaries, ensuring the inclusion of women, elderly persons and persons with disabilities in all phases of the project, maintaining regular contacts with beneficiaries and addressing economic and protection needs. These activities require adequately trained staff and they must be integrated with the other components of the assistance, such as the delivery of material assistance. Projects should reflect an awareness of protection issues, such as security and other basic rights, which are likely to arise in particular for minority returnees. These needs should be sought addressed either by the implementing agency or through other actors present, such as UNHCR. Projects should draw on existing policies and guidelines based on experiences from work with return, such as UNHCR’s Handbook for Repatriation and Reintegration Activities. Implementing agencies should provide clear information to potential and selected beneficiaries and local authorities about the criteria for selection, the extent and the amount of the assistance, the way the assistance will be delivered and mechanisms of control and complaint. Projects should be flexible and respond to changes in post- conflict situations and to the different needs of groups or individuals. Both donors and implementing agencies and donors should adapt objectives, funding and interventions as required by the circumstances on the ground.
Funding Funding should be timed in accordance with local conditions, such as construction seasons, school holidays and other time related factors that are likely to have a significant
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impact on results. Funding cycles should be longer than one year, as especially minority return usually requires sustained efforts over time. Many essential needs, such as economic survival, are difficult for both the returnees and the agencies to address during the reconstruction and a proper follow up may require a longer project period than the one often dictated by ordinary funding cycles. Donor interest must outlast major obstacles to minority return, which is unlikely to happen immediately after a conflict with strong ethno-religious aspects. A commitment to minority return presupposes sustained funding for several years after return begins. Funding should also be timed to support major processes closely linked to return, such as repossession of occupied property. Because (minority) return is such a difficult aim and requires both careful targeting of locations and beneficiaries and other kinds of assistance than material output in the form of reconstructed housing, more resources should be allowed for the selection of project locations and beneficiaries and for the follow up of beneficiaries and project activities. Donors should therefore be willing to accept a higher “administrative component” for field work. This is likely to “pay off” in terms of sustainable return.
Selection of project location Assistance should follow manifested interest in return. Agencies should select project locations where pre-war residents have persistently applied for return assistance, cleaned destroyed property, approached authorities and neighbours, stayed over night or spontaneously returned. If the place of return is inaccessible or very remote from the potential beneficiaries’ place of displacement, commitment to return can be proven for example through the use of temporary collective accommodation in adapted facilities in the place of return. Agencies should assess the viability of return to potential project locations and make assistance conditional upon basic conditions – such as security, roads and electricity connection – being in place or being realistically achievable within relatively short time. If the potential return location does not offer conditions for economic survival of returnees and the agency, alone or in cooperation with other actors, is not able to influence these conditions, other locations should be chosen. Agencies should concentrate efforts in fewer locations over time in order to increase the number of returnees in the project locations and thereby the chances of a sustainable community being (re)created. This also facilitates cooperation with local actors and economic and protection assistance to returnees.
Beneficiary selection The starting point for beneficiary selection should be IDPs’ and refugees’ interest in return and their needs in this regard, not the level of damage of their housing units. The intentions in relation to return and the needs of each potential beneficiary should be assessed through interviews and information from local sources or in co- operation with transparent and democratic representatives or groups of (potential) returnees. Agencies must be aware that some beneficiaries may have other options under consideration even though they claim they wish to return. Criteria for selection should
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include all of the following: documented ownership of or occupancy right to damaged or destroyed housing, pre-war residence, manifested interest in return, psychological and financial preparedness for return, lack of sufficient own means for reconstruction, no ownership of other habitable accommodation and no previously received major housing donation
Reconstruction model Beneficiaries should be involved in the reconstruction as much as possible, even if houses are reconstructed by contractors hired by the reconstruction agency. Active involvement, at least as “supervisors”, is likely to increase beneficiaries’ satisfaction, as they can ensure that their needs and wishes are taken into account as far as possible and also to some extent control contractors. The reconstruction model should be adapted to the situation of each household. Households consisting of persons who are not able to either carry out the reconstruction or to hire and supervise workers themselves should be offered contracted reconstruction. Self-help assistance is preferable for households able to carry it out, as it increases cost efficiency and the participation of the beneficiaries. This assistance can be provided in the form of materials, cash or a combination. Self-help recipients should receive funds for contractors if necessary, for example if they are not able to carry out the reconstruction themselves or with the assistance of relatives or neighbours and do not have own funds to hire contractors. Self- help assistance should be delivered in phases conditional upon construction being completed as agreed. This decreases waste because beneficiaries who do not use the assistance as agreed can be taken out of the project before they have received all the assistance. Agencies should control the quality of reconstruction, especially considering that the courts cannot necessarily be fully relied upon to settle disputes with contractors after the reconstruction project is completed. Such control should also be offered to beneficiaries of self-help projects. Reconstruction should be carried out in accordance with a basic but durable standard and allow for later improvements and expansions when and if beneficiaries are able to undertake them. Reconstruction should be flexible and pragmatic and adapt to the beneficiaries’ needs and wishes within the applicable standards. If owners have some funds (but not enough to cover the full costs of reconstruction) they should be allowed to invest these on top of a donation. Assistance can be provided as credit if beneficiaries have a regular income, as this encourages activity and partnership. However, it should be borne in mind that credit models are vulnerable to exploitation, especially where the judiciary cannot be relied upon to pursue those who do not pay back.
Project outputs not related to housing Returnees should be given support promoting their economic survival if beneficiaries are not able to support themselves financially upon reconstruction. Otherwise projects risk creating areas of concentrated poverty or beneficiaries will leave again in search of economic opportunities. Assistance should be based on the needs and capabilities of the
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beneficiaries, who may need to be trained to benefit from it. It should only be given to those who return. Economic support may be the basis for community building and reintegration – for example by including both majority and minority beneficiaries in income generation projects – and should be the main output in return projects in addition to housing and infrastructure. Direct assistance for social purposes is ineffective if the conditions for economic survival are not present. Preferably economic support should lead to income generation, which requires a focus on the community and its linkages with the wider region rather than merely on the individual household. It may be easier to provide such assistance in separate, development oriented projects. Credit models are appropriate, as the assistance creates income. Agencies may consider entering into agreements with local employers – including majority employers – and provide funding for business expansion on the condition that a certain number of returnees are hired as a result. Agencies without expertise in income generation should cooperate with specialised agencies.
Infrastructure should be provided conditional on local takeover after project completion, especially if it requires additional staff, such as schools and hospitals.
Co‐operation and co‐ordination Return agencies should exchange information and agree on priorities and standards for assistance. Co-ordination mechanisms should be used to exchange information on conditions in the field relevant for return projects as well as on the agencies’ respective planned and ongoing projects. Preferably coordination mechanisms should also include representatives of local authorities and returnees. Agencies should cooperate with local authorities in order to increase their ownership and partnership and reduces the risk of bad relations between authorities and returnees. Beneficiaries should also be encouraged to contact authorities themselves in order to register and obtain necessary documents in order to encourage integration from the beginning. Agencies can if necessary intervene on beneficiaries’ behalf. However, where the interests and attitudes of local authorities result in discrimination and obstruction of return, agencies may need to set some limits to the cooperation. In any case authorities should be kept fully informed of the agencies’ priorities and activities. Resistance to minority return can be prevented or decreased by also addressing the problems of the majority population, but the majority should not be allowed to dictate the terms of minority return. Return should be promoted as a right and not a privilege. Agencies should cooperate with returnees and their representatives in the selection of locations and beneficiaries as well as in the project implementation. Where associations and representatives are not transparent, inclusive or democratic their influence may need to be checked or limited or new structures formed. An alternative to elected representatives or boards is to establish groups consisting of beneficiaries who trust, vouch for and assist each other during the project implementation.73 Such groups can facilitate beneficiary selection, reconstruction and the inclusion of women and elderly
73 World Vision has used this model and many agencies used similar models for the reconstruction.
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or disabled persons and also be the basis for other forms for assistance, such as agricultural aid and credits.
Information management Information necessary for evaluation and learning should be included in final reports: project objectives and indicators, reconstruction model used, costs, other outputs than reconstruction, criteria and procedure for beneficiary selection and names/ethnicity/addresses of all main beneficiaries. Donors and agencies should produce and keep overviews over projects. Involving local actors in the collection and management of information early in the process is likely to increase the use and maintenance of information after it is handed over, but agencies should be aware that local authorities may not have sufficient capacity or interest in maintaining data shortly after a conflict. Overviews handed over to local authorities should be made in a simple format that does not require especially trained personnel for use and updating. Copies should be kept by a central international organisation mandated to deal with return and reconstruction in the country. Efforts should be made to record learning and best practices developed in the form of guidelines, standards and policies. In this way the vast amount of knowledge and experience with return acquired by the agencies and donors does not simply disappear from the organisations when individual staff members leave, but can be utilised for similar projects elsewhere.
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Bibliography
Allen, Tim and Morsink, Hubert (1994): When Refugees go Home, UNRISD, Geneva. Amnesty International (1997): “Who’s living in my house?”: Obstacles to the safe Return of refugees and displaced people, Amnesty International, London. Amnesty International (2000): Bosnia and Herzegovina - Waiting on the doorstep: Minority returns to Eastern Republika Srpska, Amnesty International, London. BiH Ministry of Human Rights and Refugees (2004): Realisation of BiH Strategy for Implementation of Annex 7 of the Dayton Peace Agreement, cited in Norwegian Refugee Council/Global IDP Project (2005): Profile of Internal Displacement: Bosnia and Herzegovina, NRC/Global IDP Project, Geneva. Black, Richard (2002): “Conceptions of “home” and the political geography of refugee repatriation: between assumption and contested reality in Bosnia-Herzegovina”, Applied Geography, no 22, 123-138. Black, Richard and Gant, Saskia (2004): Defining, Measuring and Influencing Sustainable Return, Development Research Centre on Migration, Globalisation and Poverty, Brighton. Cukur, Melita, Magnusson, Kjell, Molander, Joakim and Skotte, Hans (2005): Returning Home: An Evaluation of SIDA’s Integrated Area Programmes in Bosnia and Herzegovina, SIDA, Stockholm. European Commission (1999): Emergency Assessment of Damaged Housing and Local/Village Infrastructure July 1999, www.reliefweb.int/library/documents/KosovoAssessment99.pdf Federation of BiH Bureau for Statistics (2001): Living Standard Measurement Survey, http://www.fzs.ba/Eng/lsmse.htm Hastings, Lynn (2001): “Implementation of the Property Legislation in Bosnia Herzegovina”, in Stanford Journal of International Law, Vol. 37, No. 221. Helms, Elissa (2003): “Women as Agents of Ethnic Reconciliation? Women’s NGOs and International Intervention in Postwar Bosnia-Herzegovina”, in Women’s Studies International Forum, Vol. 26, No. 1, pp. 15-33. ICG (1997): Going Nowhere Fast: Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons in Bosnia, ICG, Sarajevo. ICG (1998): Minority Return or Mass Relocation?, ICG, Sarajevo. ICG (2000): Bosnia’s Refugee Logjam Breaks: Is the International Community ready?, ICG, Sarajevo.
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ICG (2002): The continuing challenge of Refugee Return in Bosnia & Herzegovina, Balkans Report No. 137. ICG (2003): Building Bridges in Mostar, ICG, Sarajevo. Ito, Ayaki (2001): “Politicization of Minority Return in Bosnia and Herzegovina – The First Five Years examined”, in International Journal of Refugee Law, Vol. 13, No. ½, pp. 98-122. Macrae, Joanna (1999): “Aiding Peace…and War: UNHCR, Returnee Reintegration and the Relief/Development Debate”, cited in Handbook for Repatriation and Reintegration Activities (UNHCR, 2004). Office of the High Representative (2004): Decision On The Implementation Of The Reorganization Of The City Of Mostar, http://www.ohr.int/decisions/mo- hncantdec/default.asp?content_id=31725 O'Higgins, Niall (1997): The challenge of youth unemployment, ILO, http://www.ilo.org/public/english/employment/strat/publ/etp7.htm#1.1. Philpott, Charles (2005): “Though the Dog is Dead, the Pig must be Killed: Finishing with Property Restitution to Bosnia-Herzegovina’s IDPs and Refugees”, in Journal of Refugee Studies, Vol. 18, No. 1. Progeco, Safege, PMO (2005): Functional Review of the Return Sector in BiH – Final Report, European Commission, Sarajevo. SchlumbergerSema (2002): Final report – Support to Return to Bosnia and Herzegovina, European Commission, Sarajevo. Skotte, Hans (2004): Tents in Concrete – What Internationally Funded Housing Does to Support Recovery in Areas Affected by War. The Case of Bosnia-Herzegovina, NTNU, Trondheim. Solberg, Atle (2002): A Study of the Norwegian Refugee Council Housing Programme in Bosnia and Herzegovina 1993-2002 – A documentation and Evaluation Report, Norwegian Refugee Council, Oslo. Tuathail, Gearóid Ó and Dahlman, Carl (2004): “The Effort to Reverse Ethnic Cleansing in Bosnia-Herzegovina: The Limits of Returns”, in Eurasian Geography and Economics, vol. 45, no. 6, 439-464. Ugland, Ole Kurt and Wallevik, Hege B. (2001): Stiftelsen Sandnes-Dubrovnik: A Review of the Kostres Project in Bosnia, Project Report No. 3/2001, Agder Research Foundation. UNDP (2005): Early Warning System: Quarterly Report. April – June 2005, UNDP, Sarajevo. UNHCR (2000): Daunting Prospects – Minority Women: Obstacles to their Return and Integration, UNHCR and UNHCHR, Sarajevo. UNHCR (2003): Statistical Yearbook, UNHCR, Geneva.
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UNHCR (2004): Handbook for Repatriation and Reintegration Activities, UNHCR, Geneva. UNHCR (2005): Update on Conditions for Return to Bosnia and Herzegovina, UNHCR, Sarajevo. Wikipedia: Brcko District, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brčko_District World Bank (2002): Bosnia and Herzegovina: Local Level Institutions and Social Capital Study, World Bank, Sarajevo. World Bank (2003): Social Insurance Technical Assistance Project: Report No. 25672, World Bank, Sarajevo. World Vision (2004): World Vision Bosnia and Herzegovina: Annual Review, World Vision, Sarajevo.
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Annex 1: Map of BiH
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Annex 2: Abbreviations AI Amnesty International BAM Bosnian Convertible Mark [currency] BiH Bosna i Hercegovina (Bosnia and Herzegovina) BOSS Bosanska Stranka (Bosnian Party) [Small Tuzla-based Bosniac party] ECHO European Commission’s Humanitarian Aid Department EWS Early Warning System GDS Gradjanska Demokratska Stranka (Civic Democratic Party) [Small, moderate, mainly Bosniac party] GTZ Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit HDZ Hrvatska Demokratska Zajednica (Croatian Democratic Union) [Main Croat nationalist party] HSS Hrvatska Seljacka Stranka (Croatian Peasants Party) [Small moderate Croat party] HVM Housing Verification and Monitoring Mission HVO Hrvatsko Vijece Odbrane (Croatian Defence Council) ICG International Crisis Group IDP Internally Displaced Person IEBL Inter-Entity Boundary Line IMG International Management Group INCOR Information and Counselling on Repatriation IOM International Organisation for Migration IPTF [UN] International Police Task Force JNA Jugoslovenska Narodna Armija (Yugoslav National Army) LDS Liberalno Demokratska Stranka (Liberal Democratic Party) [Small, moderate, mainly Bosniac party] LSMS Living Standards Measurement Survey MHRR Ministry for Human rights and Refugees MZ Mjesna Zajednica (Local Community) NGO Non-governmental organisation NHI Nova Hrvatska Inicijativa (New Croatian Initiative) [Small, moderate Croat party] NMFA Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs NOK Norwegian Krone [currency] NORAD Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation NPA Norwegian People’s Aid NRC Norwegian Refugee Council NSRzB Narodna Stranka Radom za Boljitak (National Party through Work to Prosperity [Small moderate mainly Croat party] OHR Office of the High Representative PDP Partija Demokratskog Progresa (Party of Democratic Progress) [Smaller, moderately nationalist Serb party] RRTF Return and Reconstruction Task Force
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RS Republika Srpska (Serb Republic) SBIH Stranka za Bosne i Herzegovine (Party for Bosnia and Herzegovina) [Moderate Bosniac party] SDA Stranka Demokratske Akcije (Party of Democratic Action) [Main Bosniac nationalist party] SDP Socijaldemokratska Partija (Social Democratic party) [Moderate and multiethnic, but mainly Bosniac, party] SDS Srpska Demokratska Stranka (Serb Democratic Party) [Main Serb nationalist party] SDU Socialdemokratska Unija (Social Democratic Union) [Small moderate and multiethnic, but mainly Bosniac, party] SFOR [NATO] Stabilisation Force SIDA Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency SNSD Stranka Nezavisnih Socijaldemokrata (Party of Independent Social Democrats) [Moderate Serb party] SPRS Socialisticka Partija Republike Srpske (Socialist Party of Republika Srpska) [Small moderate Serb party] SSD Stiftelsen Sandnes-Dubrovnik UNDP United Nations Development Programme UNHCR UN Refugee Agency ZSD Zavičajni Socijaldemokrati (Regional Social Democrats) [Small Drvar- based party]
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Annex 3: List of Norwegian housing and return projects Hou Agency sing Donor project unit Costs Project Donor project code Agency code Municipality Year s (NOK) type POL93-A344 & NMFA POL93-A264 NRC 53REHAT1 Tuzla, Zivinice 1993 141 12242315 IDP NMFA POL94-A286 NRC 46RehTZ3 Tuzla, Zivinice 1994 8496360 IDP NMFA/ UNHC Srebrenik, Tuzla, R POL94-A056 NRC 53REHAZU Zivinice 1994 95 5000000 IDP Maglaj, Fojnica (HVO controlled 94/YU/BSN/C and BIHA UNHC M/270(n§G03 controlled), Tesanj, R 1 NPA 22935 Travnik 1994 340 Majority 53REHAZU (together with UNHC 94/YU/BSN/C POL94- R M/270(k)2 NRC A056) Tuzla, Zivinice 1994 123 13352669 IDP Brcko, Gradacac, UNHC Lukavac, Kalesija, R NPA Kladanj 1994 53 IDP YU/B7/514/94 ECHO /0958BF NPA 180032 Maglaj 1995 85 2004794 Majority NMFA POL95-A266 NPA 180034 Travnik, Tesanj 1995 235 5000000 Majority NMFA/ IMG POL95-B088? NPA 180036 Zenica 1995 65 1121800 IDP GTZ NRC 46GTZ2S Banovici, Srebrenik 1995 41 591500 IDP GTZ NRC 46GTZ1Z Zivinice 1995 47 IDP NMFA POL95-A266 NPA 180049 Gradacac 1995 238 4999982 Majority ECHO ECHO/YU-/B7- NPA 180050 Lukavac 1995 150 6411541 Majority
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514/94/0959B F NMFA POL95-A308 NPA 180071 Banovici 1995 300 2060000 Majority NMFA/ UNHC R/SID Banovici, Lukavac, A POL95-A305 NRC 46RehaT4 Srebrenik, Zivinice 1995 324 22410202 IDP POL95-A421 & 61BA- Brod, Derventa, NMFA POL96-A207 NRC 46rehabBL Modrica 1995 164 9863382 IDP Doboj South, NMFA POL96-A219 NPA 180634 Tesanj, Travnik 1996 283 11632254 Majority NMFA POL96-A222 NPA 180657 Gradacac 1996 521 14443968 Majority NMFA POL96-A266 NPA 180658 Lukavac 1996 321 11169093 Majority Centar, Ilidza, Novo Sarajevo, Novi Grad, Stari NMFA POL96-A111 NPA 180673 Grad 1996 1095 8276686 Majority 61RN7BK1 NMFA POL95-A460 NRC 96 Bosanska Krupa 1996 684 4577785 Majority 61RN7CE1 NMFA POL96-A351 NRC 96 Kalesija 1996 42 2090321 Majority 61RN7HD2 NMFA POL96-A280 NRC 96 Donji Vakuf 1996 406 10874060 Majority 61RN7DV1 NMFA POL95-A461 NRC 96 Donji Vakuf 1996 249 5895325 Majority NMFA/ 61RN7BK2 IMG POL95-B119 NRC 96 Bosanska Krupa 1996 336 4429900 Majority 61RN7HT1 NMFA POL95-B088? NRC 96 Travnik 1996 200 9240699 Majority UNHC 96/YU/BSN/C 61RN7HT2 R M/270(a6 NRC 96 Travnik 1996 282 Majority Stari Grad NMFA BHZK7097 NPA 180702 (Sarajevo) 1997 310 8000000 Majority 61RN6SM1 NMFA BHZK7070 NRC 97 Sanski Most 1997 181 10240755 Majority NMFA BHZK7098 NPA 180703 Stari Grad (Mostar) 1997 146 4724901 Majority
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NMFA BHZK7170 NPA 180710 Mostar North 1997 101 5599993 Majority Stari Grad NMFA BHZK7831 NPA 180732 (Sarajevo) 1997 206 6098166 Majority Brod, Derventa, 61RN6RS1 Modrica, NMFA BHZK7072 NRC 97 Vukosavlje 1997 294 12284976 Majority 61RN7HK1 NMFA BHZK7140 NRC 97 Kljuc 1997 182 10997616 Majority Banja Luka, Brod, Derventa, Doboj, Modrica, Mrkonjić Grad, Novi Grad, 61RN5GL1 Ribnik, Samac, NMFA BHZK7163 NRC 97 Šipovo, Vukosavlje 1997 3946 1994961 Emergency 61RN6SM2 NMFA NRC 97 Sanski Most 1997 1 21139 Unknown NMFA NPA 180733 Zivinice 1997 52 800000 Minority NMFA BHZK7713 NPA 180738 Stari Grad (Mostar) 1997 119 5000000 Majority NMFA BHZK7712 NPA 180740 Mostar Southeast 1997 148 4620000 Mixed Brod, Derventa, Drvar, Gradiska, Jezero, Kotor- Varos, Kozarska Dubica, Krupa na Uni, Modrica, Mrkonjic Grad, Novi Grad, Prijedor, Ribnik, Samac, Srpska Kostajnica, Srpski 61RN5GL2 Sanski Most, NMFA BHZK7934 NRC 97 Teslic, Vukosavlje 1997 3255 1997205 Emergency RE/YOU/31/01 ECHO /97/SH/C NPA 180802 Brcko 1998 243 24387043 Majority NMFA BHZK8350 NPA 180815 Brcko, Brka, Ravne 1998 112 7771332 Mixed NMFA BHZK8347 NRC 61RN6PO1 Brod, Derventa 1998 192 10166620 Mixed
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98 61RN6US1 Bosanski Petrovac, NMFA BHZK8348 NRC 98 Kljuc 1998 124 9339471 Mixed ? NPA 180818 1998 1 Unknown YU/B7/214/97 61RN6ZS1 ECHO /0216 NRC 98 Gradacac, Modrica 1998 73 Mixed NORA D YUG99/048 SSD Brod, Derventa 1998 20 2612500 Majority UNHC 61RN6MR1 Prijedor, Sanski R NRC 98/298 Most 1998 145 Minority Stari Grad NMFA BHZK8349 NPA 180820 (Sarajevo ) 1998 87 3923863 Majority ECHO/TPS/21 ECHO 4/1999/01035 NRC BAFS0399 Prnjavor 1999 32 Minority Jablanica, Mostar North, Mostar NMFA BHZY9578 NPA 180918 South 1999 116 9275750 Minority NMFA BHZY9652 NPA 180919 Ilijas 1999 103 8143254 Mixed NMFA BHZY9651 NPA 180933 Modrica 1999 70 6978805 Minority NMFA BHZY9920 NPA 180936 Bugojno 1999 11 939000 Minority NMFA BHZY9651 NPA 180940 Maglaj 1999 19 1999935 Mixed Bosanski Petrovac, NMFA BHZY9199 NRC BAFS0299 Prnjavor 1999 65 7428050 Minority NMFA BHZY9159 NRC BAFS0199 Brod, Derventa 1999 74 5663847 Mixed NORA D YUG99/048 SSD Brod, Derventa 1999 45 3660000 Majority NMFA BHZY0628 NPA 181070 Modrica 2000 23 1975700 Minority NMFA BHZY0628 NPA 181071 Maglaj 2000 36 3999000 Mixed NMFA BHZY0157 NRC BAFS0200 Bosanski Petrovac 2000 34 3399662 Minority BHZY9159 (extension of NMFA BHZY0157) NRC BAFS0700 Brod, Derventa 2000 9 902290 Minority NMFA BHZY0157 NRC BAFS0100 Brod, Derventa 2000 53 5098198 Minority NMFA BHZY0606 NRC BAFS0500 Bosansko Grahovo, 2000 47 5329016 Minority
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Glamoc, Livno NMFA/Swedish government/Danish government/The Bosnian-Finnish association/Øvre Eiker kommune IOM R14-800 2000 37 5000000 Mixed NORA D YUG99/048 SSD Brod, Derventa 2000 18 2600000 Majority NMFA 2010039 NPA 180110 Maglaj 2001 75 5957423 Minority NMFA 2010038 NRC BAFS0101 Brod, Derventa 2001 37 3947357 Minority Bosansko Grahovo, Glamoc, Kupres, NMFA 2010038 NRC BAFS0105 Livno 2001 50 4974496 Minority NORA D YUG99/048 SSD Brod, Derventa 2001 5 1100000 Majority NMFA 2020025 NRC BAFS0201 Kupres 2002 44 6518658 Minority Banja Luka, Gradiska, Kotor Caritas Varos, Laktasi, NMFA 2020555 Norway 402-413 Prijedor 2003 72 472500 Minority
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Annex 4: Questionnaire for field study74
1. Background of interviewee a. Name: b. Gender: Male/ Female c. Year of birth: d. Ethnicity: Bosniac/Serb/Croat/Roma/Other: /Mixed: e. Years of education: f. Profession: g. Date of return: h. Place of return: i. Municipality of return: j. Current household members: Name Year of Birth Relation to interviewee Ethnicity
2. Displacement and return history a. When were you displaced? b. Where did you live while you were displaced? c. In what kind of housing did you live in the last period of displacement? Occupied/ Rented/ Collective centre/ With family/ Other: d. How did you provide for a living in the last period of displacement? Humanitarian aid/ Regular employment/ Irregular employment/ Agriculture/ Remittances/ Pension/ Other: e. Do you live here permanently? Yes/ No/ DK75 f. Are you registered as a resident here? Yes/ No/ DK g. Apart from the housing reconstruction, did someone help you in relation to return? No/ DK/ Municipality of displacement/ Municipality of return/ International organisation/ Return representative/Other: h. If yes, what kind of assistance did you receive? Transport/ Collective accommodation/ Household items/ Agricultural tools/ Livestock/ Infrastructure/ Other: i. Did you return as part of a group of organised returnees? Yes/ No/ Don’t know
3. Security a. Do you feel safe here? Yes/ Partially/ No/ DK
74 This interview guide is a graphically slightly compressed version of the one used in the field. 75 DK= Do not know
NORWEGIAN HOUSING AND RETURN PROJECTS IN BOSNIA AND 125 HERZEGOVINA b. Has the security situation changed since you returned? No/ Yes, improved/ Yes, worsened/ DK c. Do you trust the local police? Yes/ Partially/ No/ DK d. Are there minority police officers working in the area you live? Yes/ No/ DK e. Do you know who destroyed your house or carried out other war crimes in this area? Yes/ No/ DK Are they still here? Yes/ No/ DK f. Do you trust the court system? Yes/ Partially/ No/ DK
4. Housing, utilities and municipal services a. What kind of assistance did you get from *Norwegian organisation*? Materials/ Money/ Contracted reconstruction/ Household items/ Livelihood support/ DK/ Other: b. How many rooms were reconstructed with the donation? c. Did you carry out repairs with your own means as well? Yes/ No/ DK d. Are you satisfied with the repair or reconstruction of the house/apartment? Yes/ Partially/ No/ DK e. Do you have access to the following utilities? (If no, check if there was access before the war). Water (Yes/No), Electricity (Yes/No), Roads (Yes/No), Garbage collection (Yes/No), public transport (Yes/No), phone (Yes/No) No pre-war access to: f. Have you experienced problems obtaining documents or services from the municipality? Often/ Sometimes/ Never/ DK
5. Education a. If there are children/young people in the household do they attend school regularly? Yes/ No/ DK b. Do they attend the nearest school? Yes/ No/ DK c. If it is not the nearest school, why do they attend it? Curriculum/ Separate classes in national subjects/ Ethnicity of the teachers and students/ Other: d. Are you satisfied with the way the children are treated and educated in school? Yes/ Partially/ No/ DK
6. Employment and income a. How many household members are employed? Where (place & firm)?
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b. How many members would have liked to work and are actively looking for employment? c. Are they registered with the local employment office? Yes/ No/ DK d. How many work pensions does the household receive? And other pensions/ benefits? e. Which pension fund/institution pays them? FBIH pension fund/ RS pension fund/ Other: f. Where do you collect them? g. If not in the municipality of return, why? Complicated to transfer/Prefers relatives to collect it/ DK/ Other: h. In which other ways do you support yourselves? None/ Own business/ Irregular employment/ Agriculture for own use/ Agriculture, also commercial/ Remittances/ Other: i. What is the household’s average total income per month?
7. Health a. Are you health insured? Yes/ No/ DK b. If yes, in which fund? FBIH/ RS/ Other: c. How many of the other household members are insured? All/ Some/ None/ DK d. Have you experienced problems with regard to health care in the place of return? No/ Denied health insurance/ Denied health care/ Badly treated/ DK/ Other: e. Do you use medical services in the place of return? Yes/ No/ DK f. If no, why not? Denied insurance/ Does not trust personnel/ DK/ Other: g. Has your health condition changed since you returned? Improved/ Worsened/ Worsened due to age/ No/ DK
8. Political participation and life in the community a. Did you vote in the last elections? Yes/ No b. If yes, where? Return municipality/Other: c. (Optional) Which party did you vote for? d. Are you member of a political party or any other association or community? DK/ No/ Yes: e. Where do you usually shop, go out, get things repaired/maintained? Return municipality/Elsewhere:
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f. If elsewhere, why? Easier to access/ Cheaper, better/ Feel more comfortable/ DK/ Other: g. Have you ever felt harassed or discriminated against in the place of return? Often/ Sometimes/ Never/ DK h. Do you feel free to practise your religion and express your opinions in public? Yes/ Partially/ No/ DK
9. In depth questions about return/remain (Questions marked with * are for returnees only) a. Why did you decide to return/remain? Which of the reasons were the most important?
*b. Which conditions had to be in place before you returned?
*c. Did you feel pressurised to return or prevented from returning? d. Who else lived in your household immediately before the war (1991)? Name Year of Birth Relation to interviewee Ethnicity
Why did they not return? Do you think they will return? e. How important was the assistance you received from /Norwegian organisation/?
Would you have preferred another kind of assistance instead of the one you received?
Do you have other comments or complaints about the donation? f. Do you know of others in the community who received assistance but did not return (no need to mention names!)?
Do you know why? g. How are your relations with people in the municipality of a different ethnicity?
Have the relations changed since you returned and are they different than they were before the war? h. Are there any politicians, return representatives or others in the municipality that represent your interests? How do they represent you?
*i. Have there been disagreements or conflicts between the returnees and others in the municipality – for example about resources or political or religious issues?
NORWEGIAN HOUSING AND RETURN PROJECTS IN BOSNIA AND 128 HERZEGOVINA j. Over all, do you think it was the right decision for you to return/remain? Why/why not?
*k. Which aspects of life are better in the place of return than in the place of displacement? Which are not? l. Would you have moved somewhere else if you had the opportunity? m. What would need to happen for your present situation to improve? n. Is there anything you would like to add?