The small mining town of Omarska in Republika Srpska (the Serb part of Bosnia) epitomises the problems facing Bosnia, a country still very much divided. The Omarska iron mine was among the most notorious concentration camps in use during the Bosnian war. Thirteen years after the conflict it has been taken over by Arcelor Mittal, the world’s largest steel company, and is working again. Bosniaks have returned to settle and are campaigning for a memorial to those killed and tortured in the now-working mine. They want to turn the white house, one of the prisoner holding facilities, into a memorial centre, but are facing stiff opposition from the Serb authorities.
Denying history seems to be exactly what is happening in Republika Srpska and it is creating divisions. Milorad Dodik, the leader of Republika Srpska, is aggressively reversing a decade of reforms with control over his mini-state becoming more and more centralist and subject to serious accusations of corruption. He does not think Bosnia can survive and does not want it to, regarding Republika Srpska as a state in itself.
After 10 years of progress which made Bosnia the world’s most successful exercise in post-conflict reconstruction, there is a real threat of Bosnia breaking up again.
The Bosniak diaspora and returnees to Republika Srpska are putting money into the area and many of them are trying to establish new links with their Serb neighbours, some of whom victimised them during the war. They are trying to forgive, but not forget.
The point of the Omarska memorial is to acknowledge the past and move on from it, away from more ethnic division. How far they can persuade their Serb neighbours to do this only time will tell, and until then the region will stay volatile.
The capture of Radovan Karadzic was celebrated across Europe but there are warnings that the politics of the country he left behind are increasingly fractured.
Dom Rotheroe travelled to Bosnia to investigate for Al Jazeera.
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