Tito Era In Bosnia

! # " $ % % & & ' ( " & , " / 3 + ) ! * ) ! * ++ ++( . ++ ++( * 1 4 % " ! 4 %6 ! 1 . & 0 0 2 5 ++ 4 % 5 ++( * ! & . PREFACE Today, in 2012, it has been over 130 years since the attempt was made to establish Islamic religious hierarchies in former Yugoslavia region. Until now, the high positions were held by prominent leaders- alims, who, each with his personality and actions, according to the depth of his knowledge, the time in which he lived, and the personal religious and national affiliation, marked a period within the Islamic communities. The question of the inner spiritual organisation of the Islamic communities, their roles in the public life, and whose principles are based on hierarchy has been posed starting from 1878, the period of Austrian-Hungarian occupation. Until the Austro-Hungarian occupation of Bosnia, there was no islamic religious community as the Ottoman-Turkish state, which former Yugoslavia region was a part of, was in a certain way an Islamic theocratic state. Numerous works have been published on the establishment of the islamic spiritual hierarchy-based organisation in former Yugoslavia region as well as on its manifestation and very existance. However, this phenomenon, regarding the very role of the islamic community in the Muslim society and its role in tumultuous times for over one century and the role it is to have in the future, requires a more in-depth approach. This work is a monography on the above-mentioned hierarchy-based institutions and the various factors. It is also an attempt to increase the awareness of those interested, especially Muslims, on the numerous factors regarding the earliest historical development of The Office of Grand Mufties. This book also aims at to contribute to the awareness about the policies of New Western Colonialism targeted former Yugoslavia region alongside a wider domain in Europe, Africa and Central Asia, and implications of these policies on the functions of the Islamic Organizations in the countries of the former Yugoslavia region. x MUSLIM BOSNIA AFTER OTTOMAN PERIOD In addition to the interviews, and field searches completed by the author, in the former Yugoslavia region, the following sources are extensively used: 1. O. Naki evi , Istorijski razvoj institucije Rijaseta, 1996. 2. M. Imamovi , Istorija Bošnjaka, 1997. 3. M. Imamovi , Bosnia and Herzegovina, Evolution of its Political and Legal Institutions, 2006. 4. N. Malcolm, A Short History of Bosnia, 2002, 5. F. Kar i , The Bosniaks and the Challanges of Modernity, 1999. Mehmet Can International University of Sarajevo Hrasni ka Cesta 15 May 2011 CONTENTS 4. Tito Era in Bosnia 4.1 Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1941-1945 War 201 4.2 Bosnia and Herzegovina in the War of National Liberation and the Recreation of Yugoslavia 226 4.3 Bosnia and Herzegovina in Socialist Yugoslavia 245 4.4 1963 and 1974 Constitutions 355 4.5 Bosnian Muslims in Tito Yugoslavia, 1945-1989 258 4.6 The Islamic Community during the war 273 CHAPTER 4 TITO ERA Once Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria had joined the Triple Pact between Germany, Italy, and Japan, and with the Italian occupation of Albania, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was almost entirely surrounded by Pact powers. On 25 March 1941, in order to secure itself from this external threat, and under extreme pressure from Germany and Italy, the Čvetković-Maček government signed a protocol under the terms of which Yugoslavia, too, joined the Triple Pact.1 4.1 Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1941-1945 War Prince Pavle, and the Čvetković-Maček government hoped that this would enable the country to avoid being drawn into the war. Just two days later, on 27 March, a group of Yugoslav generals, backed by the British intelligence service, carried out a coup d’état, ousting the regent and the ČvetkovićMaček government. King Petar II, still a minor, was declared king, and a new government was formed with General Dušan Sirnović as premier. The coup d’état was accompanied by violent demonstrations, particularly in Belgrade and a number of other towns in Serbia. The events of 27 March also had repercussions in Bosnia and Herzegovina and elsewhere, albeit less violent than in Serbia. General Sirnović's government immediately issued a statement upholding the 25 March 1941 protocol; however, this was not good enough for Germany and Italy; which, along with their allies Hungary and Bulgaria, attacked Yugoslavia on 6 April 1941 without any advance declaration of war. In the war plans drawn up by the Yugoslav Royal Army's General Headquarters, Bosnia and Herzegovina was regarded as a fall-back area, on account of its central geographical position in the state and its mountainous terrain.2 As a result, no sooner had war broken out in April 1941 than the 1 M. Imamovic, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Evolution of its Political and Legal Institutions, “MAGISTRAT Sarajevo”, 2006, p. 335. 2 M. Imamovic, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Evolution of its Political and Legal Institutions, “MAGISTRAT Sarajevo”, 2006, p. 336. 222 MUSLIM BOSNIA AFTER OTTOMAN PERIOD king, government, and GHQ all took refuge first in Zvornik and then in Pale, near Sarajevo. The German assault was so massive and relentless that the Yugoslav Royal Army was completely routed within just a few days. The impact on Bosnia and Herzegovina, as a strategic fall-back area, was immediate. Communications between the majority of the country’s troops and GHQ in Pale were cut. Under the circumstances, the government resolved, at a session held on 13 April 1941, to quit the country it charged the Chief of Staff General Danilo Kalafatović, with signing either a ceasefire agreement or terms of capitulation on the part of the Yugoslav Army, as circumstances dictated, with the Germans, who were already in Belgrade. On 15 April 1941, the government and the king were flown from Nikšić airfield to the Middle East, under British protection. From there they later proceeded to London. Meanwhile, the German command in Belgrade rejected any idea of negotiating a truce, demanding unconditional capitulation by the Yugoslav army. Following the instructions he had received, General Kalafatović signed capitulation terms on 17 April 1941. The April war had lasted just twelve days, ending with the whole of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia occupied by foreign powers and no longer in existence as a state. Its border regions were shared out between Germany, Italy, Hungary, and Bulgaria; the status and disposition of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Montenegro were to be agreed subsequently by Germany and Italy. On 10 April 1941, before Italy had had time to decide on the disposition of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the leader of the Ustaša group in Zagreb, Colonel Slavko Kvaternik, a protégé of the Germans, proclaimed the Independent State of Croatia (NDH according to the local language), with Bosnia and Herzegovina also forming a part. By agreement with Germany, Italy ceded Bosnia and Herzegovina to the NDH. At the same time, a demarcation line was drawn between the German and Italian occupying forces, dividing their zones of interest. The line ran through Bosnia and Herzegovina, from Bosanski Novi in the north-west, via Sanski Most, Varcar-Vakuf, and Donji Vakuf thence running south of Sarajevo to Ustipraca and Rudo. The area south of the line fell within Italian occupied territory and to the north within German-occupied territory. Under the terms of the Rome Accords of 18 April 1941, the Ustaša government was compelled to give up much of Dalmatia and almost all the islands which Italy had arrogated to itself; or annexed.3 To secure its hold on Dalmatia, Italy maintained garrisons throughout its occupation zone, the immediate hinterland of Dalmatia, but ceded civilian rule to the NOH government. Germany ceded still greater civilian powers to the NOH government within its occupation zone. However, to ensure that it could exploit the country's mineral ores, forests, and other natural resources, it 3 M. Imamovic, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Evolution of its Political and Legal Institutions, “MAGISTRAT Sarajevo”, 2006, p. 337. CHAPTER 4 TITO ERA relocated one heavy division to Bosnia and Herzegovina, along with smaller units charged with securing the railway track that ran from Metković along the Neretva valley, to Sarajevo, from there along the Bosna valley via Zenica to Doboj, and thence via the Spreca valley to the railway terminus in Tuzla. This meant that Germany controlled the most important natural resources and communications in occupied Bosnia and Herzegovina. With German assistance, Ustaša rule was established in Bosnia and Herzegovina by early July 1941. A new administrative and territorial unit, the largest under the new regime, known as Velika Župa (grand county), was added to the existing municipalities and districts. There were six of these in the historic territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina: Vrhbosna (with Sarajevo as the county town); Usora and Soli (Tuzla); Glai, Pliva, and Rama (with Travnik as the county town); Sana and Luka (county town Banja Luka): Krbava and Psat (county town Bihač); and Hum (Masur). Some of these counties, Krbava and Psat, for example, extended beyond the borders of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and parts of the province were incorporated into grand counties of which the county towns lay outside Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosanska Posavina (the Bosnian part of the Sava basin), for example, became part of the county of Veliko Posavlje, of which the county town was Slavonski Bract. The names of the counties were those that they had borne in early feudal Croatia (Krbava and Psat) or, in the case of the remainder, were those of the counties and districts of the medieval Bosnian state. All this was designed to emphasize the alleged rights of the Croatian state to Bosnia and Herzegovina, which had neither been documented nor ever actually existed. The NDH's objective was to break up the historical, state, and political territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a legal entry. To this end, the Ustaša authorities issued an internal order to the press as a whole and to all offices of state requiring them, wherever possible, to use the names of the grand counties instead of that of Bosnia and Herzegovina.4 The genocide of the Bosnian Muslims in the NDH Integral to NOH policy was the determination to declare the Bosnian Muslims to be Croats, thereby depriving them of their historical and national identity.5 Efforts to this end were stepped up, in particular, following the arrival in Zagreb of the head of the Ustaša state, Dr. Ante Pavelić, on 15 April 1941. By 30 April, an Ustaša decree had already been promulgated declaring the "members of the Islamic faith" in Bosnia and Herzegovina to be of the Aryan race. To further his purposes, Pavelić concocted a propaganda catch phrase calling the Muslims "Croatian flowers," an 4 M. Imamovic, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Evolution of its Political and Legal Institutions, “MAGISTRAT Sarajevo”, 2006, p. 338. 5 M. Imamovic, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Evolution of its Political and Legal Institutions, “MAGISTRAT Sarajevo”, 2006, p. 338. 223 224 MUSLIM BOSNIA AFTER OTTOMAN PERIOD outrageous mockery of the Bosnian Muslims and of their faith and tradition. In effect, this constituted a form of genocide of the Bosnian Muslims. The Ustaša state did not restrict itself to this, but, during the war, actually physically eliminated many Bosnian Muslims, whom it regarded as obnoxious. One of the objectives of NOH policy in Bosnia and Herzegovina was to eradicate the Serbs, which was to be achieved in part by physically exterminating them, partly by relocating them to Serbia, and partly by forced or voluntary conversions to Catholicism. From the very outset, the Ustaša state pursued all three policies, with a major campaign of persecution of Serbs, Jews, Gypsies, and anti-Fascists of all types. Tens of thousands met their death in the Ustaša concentration camps of Jasenovac, Gospie, Stara Gradiska, Bosanska Dubica, and elsewhere. The result was resistance on the part of the Serb population, often taking the form of Četnik (Serb royalist) genocide against Muslims and others. During the 1941-1945 war, the Bosnian Muslims were once again the victims, in huge numbers, of genocide, as they had been almost without interruption since the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, perpetrated both by various Christian states and by their immediate neighbors, the Serbs and Croats. Serb Četnik genocide of the Bosnian Muslims has deep and sinister roots. It has been prompted on the one hand, by irrational religious hatred and intolerance, and, on the other, by the desire of Serb ideologues and politicians to create an ethnically "pure" state territory, whatever the cost. This is explicitly stated as a long-term programmatic principle in the writings of Stevan Moljević, one of the leading Četnik ideologues. In an article entitled "Homogenous Serbia," and in letters to other Četnik ideologues," he writes that the country must be cleansed of “all non-Serb elements" over an area extending from Vidin and Ćustendil in the east to the Virotivica-Karlovac-Karlobag line in the west. This was to be done by summary execution on the spot or by the forced expulsion of Bosnian Muslims to Turkey or Albania. The leader of the Četnik movement himself: Draža Mihailović issued numerous orders to officers under his command to exterminate the Bosnian Muslims.6 On three occasions during the war, Draža Mihailović's Četniks carried out major massacres of the Muslim population in eastern Herzegovina, eastern and western Bosnia, and parts of the Sandzak. The first wave of Četnik genocide of the Bosnian Muslims lasted from June 1941 to February 1942. The second took place in August 1942 and the third in early 1943. Large numbers of Bosnian Muslims died during these genocidal massacres, in Ljubinje, Avtovac, Bileca, Kulen-Vakuf, Koraj, Višegrad, Rogatica, Goražde, Čajniče, Vlasenica, Srebrenica, Bratunac, Nevesinje, Foča, Prozor, Jablanica, Pljevlja, Ustikoline, Gornji Birac, Prijedor, and many other places. 6 M. Imamovic, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Evolution of its Political and Legal Institutions, “MAGISTRAT Sarajevo”, 2006, p. 339. CHAPTER 4 TITO ERA In the worst genocide perpetrated against the Bosnian Muslims to that date, almost a hundred thousand of them lost their lives. After suffering a major defeat at the hands of the Partisans in Prenj in early 1943, the Četniks began to quarrel among them-selves, and attacks on the Bosnian Muslims eased up. Resistance to Ustaša policies and the Ustaša state From the very outset, the atrocities perpetrated by the Ustaša against the Serbs, Jews, and Gypsies gave rise to concern and condemnation among the Muslim citizenry of Bosnia and Herzegovina.7 By late summer and autumn 1941, the Bosnian Muslims were already openly distancing themselves en masse from the Ustaša policy of persecution and extermination of Serbs and Jews. The first to raise their voice in protest were the ilmija (the Muslim clergy), in a resolution adopted at the assembly of their association, ElHidaje ("guide to the true path") in Sarajevo on 14 August 1941. This was followed, from September to December 1941, by a series of similar resolutions adopted and published in Prijedor, Sarajevo, Masur, Banja Luka, Tuzla, Bijeljina, and Trebinje, bearing the signatures of a great many Muslim citizens, who condemned Ustaša atrocities and strictly distanced themselves from those individual Muslims who had participated in them. The resolutions ended by giving details of the persecution and tribulations of the Bosnian Muslims themselves and the inability and absence of will on the part of the NDH authorities to protect them, as citizens of the NDH state. In several places, Bosnian Muslims came out in defense of the so-called White Tziganes (Arlija) of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Several memoranda were drawn up on the sufferings of the Muslims and their status as second-class citizens in the NDH and were sent through secret channels to Egypt and the West, to acquaint the Allied governments with the difficult position they occupied. Bosnia and Herzegovina's position during the 1941-1945 war As early as 1942, increasing discontent with NDH policies on the part of the Muslim citizenry led in exorably to questions concerning the position of Bosnia and Herzegovina within the NDH.8 In November 1942, those Muslim political leaders who were opposed to the Ustaša state issued a memorandum calling on the German government to detach Bosnia and Herzegovina in whole, or in greater part, from the NDH and to treat it as an autonomous body as a German protectorate. To protect the Bosnian Muslim population, they also called for a Muslim legion to be formed, to be armed, equipped, and trained by the German army. The Germans did not agree to these demands, nor were they willing at that time either to back the idea of autonomy for Bosnia and Herzegovina or to provide effective protection for 7 8 M. Imamovic, Ibid p. 340. M. Imamovic, Ibid p. 341. 225 226 MUSLIM BOSNIA AFTER OTTOMAN PERIOD the Bosnian Muslims. Rather, they turned the Bosnian Muslims' readiness to take up arms in their own defense against them, exploiting it to set up an SS division of Bosnian Muslims, such as those they had already deployed in Estonia, Belgium, Moldavia, among the Crimean Tatars, and in Albania. The poverty and misery to which the occupying forces, Ustaša, and Četniks had reduced many of the Bosnian Muslims had their effect, enabling the Germans, by persuasion or coercion, to organize some of them into the 55 division known as the Handier (Scimitar) Division. In early August 1943, the division was sent for training, some troops going to Saxony, others to southern France. On completion of the ir training the Handžar Division was sent back to Bosnia, where it was used in combat against the Partisans, not to protect the Muslim population. During 1944, the Handžar Division effectively fell apart, and many of its members surrendered to the Partisans and joined their ranks. The Muslim civic politicians' plans concerning the status of Bosnia were overtaken by the fact that, meanwhile, a powerful national liberation movement had emerged in Bosnia and Herzegovina, led by the Yugoslav Communist Party (CPY). 4.2 Bosnia and Herzegovina in the War of National Liberation and the Recreation of Yugoslavia When the Kingdom of Yugoslavia fell in April 1941, the illegal Yugoslav Communist Party emerged from the shadows. Although at one time finding itself in a dilemma between directives from the Comintern in Moscow and its own assessment of the situation in the country, the CPV decided to launch an armed insurrection against the Fascist powers occupying and dismembering Yugoslavia.9 From the very outset, under Josip Broz Tito's leadership, the National Liberation Movement (NOP in the local language) set four clear goals for itself: The first and fundamental goal was to fight the occupying powers and all those collaborating with them, all "local traitors". The second was, in so doing, to prevent any kind of genocide, or as it was then called, "fratricidal war". In this regard, there were problems with the Četniks in the early months of the insurrection. Some Communist cadres, particularly in Bosnia and Herzegovina, were in favor of cooperating with the Četniks in the belief that "Serbs cannot be traitors". On his arrival in Bosnia in early 1942, Tito dealt firmly with this view, disclosing the full extent of' Četnik betrayal and collaboration with the occupying powers. This also saved a great many Bosnian Muslims from genocide. The third aim running parallel with the armed struggle was without delay to bring down the old civilian authorities and introduce a new government by creating a national liberation committee and, later, national anti-Fascist Committees. The fourth and final goal was to 9 M. Imamovic, Ibid p. 343. CHAPTER 4 TITO ERA pave the way for a new Yugoslavia, to be structured on federative principles. The Yugoslav Communist Party was of the view that this was the only way to resolve the national issue, which had been a constant source of destabilization in Yugoslavia. The insurrection in Bosnia and Herzegovina As the central South Slav land and province and, geopolitically, the central province of Yugoslavia at that time, Bosnia and Herzegovina was also the central focus of the War of National Liberation (NOP, in the local language) for much of the war, both militarily and politically. Almost all the major battles and most significant events of the NOP were fought or took place on Bosnian soil. By June and July 1941, there were already isolated outbreaks of armed resistance against the occupying forces and the NDH armed forces in occupied Bosnia and Herzegovina. The NDH armed forces and occupying troops stationed there proved incapable of preventing these incidents, which grew into a full-scale insurrection. Gradually, the actions of the National Liberation Movement leadership led to the emergence of four areas, or central war zones, as the focus .of the insurrection: the Bosnian Krajina or border region, Herzegovina, eastern Bosnia, and Sarajevo.10 Sarajevo joined the War of National Liberation Sarajevo was of particular importance to the National Liberation Movement and the War of National Liberation. The Germans entered Sarajevo on 15 April 1941, and, on 24 April, an Ustaša authority was established there. At that time, there were about 180 members of the Yugoslav Communist Party and some 500 members of the League of Communist Youth of Yugoslavia in the city Until October 1941, the headquarters of the CPY's Provincial Committee were in Sarajevo, as were the General Headquarters of the National Liberation Partisan detachment for Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was in direct charge of the insurrection throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina. Throughout the War of National Liberation, Sarajevo was an important stronghold for members of the National Liberation Movement and the focus of heavy fighting against the powerful occupying and Ustaša forces and authorities concentrated there. All of the Partisan courier communications ran through Sarajevo, particularly once the Supreme Command was in place in Bosnia and Herzegovina in January 1942. As a result, almost thirty different German and other secret services operated in Sarajevo during the war. Sarajevo provided 2,500 combatants for the National Liberation Army, of whom 645 were killed. Ten thousand Sarajevans died as victims of Fascist terror. 10 M. Imamovic, Ibid p. 344. 227 228 MUSLIM BOSNIA AFTER OTTOMAN PERIOD Bosnia and Herzegovina as the military center of the National Liberation Movement Via the Sandžak, Tito and the Supreme Command had already reached eastern Bosnia, and thence in short order the immediate environs of Sarajevo, by late December 1941. There, in Ivančići, close to Srednje near Sarajevo, consultations were held on 7 and 8 January 1942 with the NOP provincial leadership for Bosnia and Herzegovina, to address the latter's vacillations and conciliatory stance towards the Četniks. At the same time, pursuant to a special Supreme Command ordinance, the Voluntary Yugoslav Army was set up. The order related to Bosnia and Herzegovina, but allowed for similar units to be formed in other Yugoslav countries. This "anti-sectarian move" was designed by the Supreme Command to retain for the NOP those among the Serb peasantry who were under Četnik influence but did not want to follow their officers in serving the occupying forces or taking part in a fratricidal, or civil, war. When the Supreme Command left eastern Bosnia with the majority of the Partisan brigades, the Voluntary Army broke up. The Supreme Command and Chief of Staff spent thirty of the war's fifty months' duration in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was there that the two fiercest battles of the War of National Liberation were fought, the battles of the Neretva and Sutjeska. From July 1943 on, following the break-through from Sutjeska, the Supreme Command shifted the focus of operations of the Yugoslav National Liberation Army to the Italian-occupied zone. The reason for this was that the western Allies had just carried out an assault on Sicily also in July 1943, and Tito's assessment of the situation was that Italy would soon surrender (which it did, on 8 September 1943). This would mean that Italian arms in Yugoslavia would largely fall into the hands of the Yugoslav National Liberation Army. At the same time, there were offensives throughout the region, during which the whole of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with the exception of Sarajevo and a few other urban centers, as well as German strongholds along the major lines of communication, was liberated. The Yugoslav National Liberation Army's greatest success during these offensives was the liberation of Tuzla, on 2 October 1943. This was the largest city the Partisans had yet managed to enter since the outbreak of war. In liberating it, a large quantity of arms, ammunition, and sundry equipment fell into their hands. During the autumn of1943, combatants joined the Partisan troops en masse. At the end of1943, the National Liberation Army and Bosnia and Herzegovina's Partisan detachment had two corps (the lit and 2nd Bosnian Corps) with seven divisions, twenty-four brigades, and twentyfive Partisan detachments.11 11 M. Imamovic, Ibid p. 345. CHAPTER 4 TITO ERA Bosnia and Herzegovina as the political center of the National Liberation Movement Bosnia and Herzegovina was also the political center of the National Liberation Movement. It was here that both war-time sessions of AVNOJ the Anti-Fascist Council of the National Liberation of Yugoslavia were held. The headquarters of the Yugoslav Communist Party Central Committee were in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as were, later, the Presidencies of AVNOJ and the Yugoslav National Communist Youth. In the months following the second AVNOJ session, the organizational development of the Unified National Liberation Front, a pan-national mass political organization, began In Bosnia and Herzegovina. On 3 July 1944, the Front's constituent conference for Bosnia and Herzegovina was held in the village of Zdena, near Sanski Most; here the Front's Main Committee for Bosnia and Herzegovina was elected and steps were taken to hold elections for local committees. Although the Front brought together many different strata among the people, in essence, it operated on behalf of the Yugoslav Communist Party where the Party itself was either reluctant or unable to act openly itself: Other similar organizations were the Anti-Fascist Women's Front of Yugoslavia, which held Its constituent conference in Bosanski Petrovac on 6-8 December 1942, and the United League of Anti-Fascist Youth of Yugoslavia, which held Its constituent congress in Bihač on 27-28 December 1942. Many other National Liberation Movement institutions were also set up in Bosnia and Herzegovina, many of which transferred their headquarters to the island of Visin the summer of 1944 and from there to Belgrade when the city was liberated in late October that year.12 Peoples' Liberation Committees At first the replacement of the old authorities with new did not proceed in uniform fashion in every region of Yugoslavia. What was common to all was that, along with the armed resistance waged by the Yugoslav Communist Party, Peoples' Liberation Committees were established throughout the country as an integral part of the resistance and one of its goals. The Committees differed from place to place and in the way they came about. They also differed in many instances in name, extent, and nature of operations. There were basically two types, as regards their origins and formation. One was the illegally-constituted committees of the National Liberation Front which, with the liberation of certain towns or areas automatically became active as the civilian authority: The other, which soon became the rule, was the direct formation of Peoples' Liberation Committees (NLCs) in liberated areas. As a rule, there were rural, municipal, county and district Peoples' Liberation Committees. At the end of 1941 and early 1942, too, main or provincial NLCs were set up in Serbia, Slovenia, and Montenegro, but these were the only province-level NLCs to be set up. 12 M. Imamovic, Ibid p. 346. 229 230 MUSLIM BOSNIA AFTER OTTOMAN PERIOD Given the existing battle conditions, the process by which new authorities emerged in parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina was distinctive in form and degree. In the early days of the War of National Liberation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, new authorities cropped up with various titles: "local political authority;" "national tribunal," and even "municipal commissariat," "commission of the interim Partisan station," and the like. Later, in Bosnia and Herzegovina as elsewhere, these new authorities acquired the single title of National Liberation Committee. At first there were mainly rural and municipal NLCs in Bosnia and Herzegovina, with higher-level Committees emerging only later. Following early experiences in the development of these new authorities, the National Liberation Movement leadership concluded that the structure and operations of the NLCs should be regulated uniformly throughout the country. To this end, on 19 October 1941, the publication Borba, which was being issued in Ufice at the time, published a directive article by Edvard Kardelj setting out the guidelines and directions for the constitution of NLCs as interim, non-party authorities. Their task was to organize the background, ensure that the population had enough food, maintain law and order, meet the various needs of the Partisan troops, and generally to ensure that the NLCs themselves were financially able to operate. 13 The Foča ordinances The principles set out in Edvard Kardelj's article served as the basis for the first ordinances on the NLCs. They were issued by the Supreme Command of the Yugoslav National Liberation Army while it was based in Fota in February 1942, hence the popular name of February, or, more commonly, Foča, ordinances. The ordinances consisted of two acts. The first dealt with the mission and structure of the NLCs; the second provided an explanation and directions for the operation of the NLCs in liberated territory. According to the ordinances, the NLCs were interim electoral authorities’ of which the basic mission was to activate and unify the people as a whole in the "struggle against the occupying powers and their local henchmen". Furthermore, they were to constitute a single people and bring together all its patriotic forces in combating Fascism. The second act dealt specifically with certain issues that were enacted into law by the first part of the ordinances-the question of the election and operation of the NLCs and the formation of national liberation funds. These funds were based mainly on the requisition of cattle and other property and goods from wealthy individuals and the confiscation of the property of those "identified as enemies of the people". These were used to provide the National Liberation Army, poor families, and refugees with food and clothing. The act also dealt with the means of combating theft, looting, 13 M. Imamovic, Ibid p. 347. CHAPTER 4 TITO ERA burglary, and disorderly conduct, and of resolving disputes between individual citizens. The NLCs were, thus, also accorded judicial authority in the liberated territories. In this regard, it was emphasized that the NLCs must conduct themselves like true national authorities, strictly upholding the law in their own operations and avoiding any arbitrary exercise or abuse of power. This constituted a certain distinction between the "old" and the "new" authorities. Anything that was on the side of the occupying powers and against the War of National Liberation and the National Liberation Movement constituted the "old authorities". The "new" national liberation authorities were to be set up under new regulations and with a national structure. At a time of war and revolution, this national structure was usually accelerative and was thus, in the strictly legal sense, merely declarative. Nonetheless, in the context of a major struggle against Fascism, it was not without legitimacy. Quite the contrary, it affirmed its legitimacy with a series of legal acts, of which the Krajina ordinances were first in a logical sequence establishing the new authorities.14 The Krajina ordinances In September 1942, somewhere in the Bosnian Krajina, the Supreme Command issued new ordinances on the NLCs confirming them as the genuine, permanent and sole national authorities. These ordinances are known, after the month in which they were promulgated, as the September ordinances, or, after the region where they were issued, as the Krajina ordinances. The Krajina ordinances prescribed nothing new as regards the mission and jurisdiction of the NLCs, nor did they amend the Foča ordinances in this regard. In fact, they consisted of two orders from the Supreme Command. The first governed the way NLCs were to be elected, and the second dealt with the military rearguard authorities. Both documents, and orders, along with an accompanying letter from the Supreme Commander, Tito, were published at the time in a special brochure entitled Organization of National Authority. Tito's letter noted that the purpose of issuing these new regulations on the NLCs was to confirm that they were no longer interim bodies but had become the permanent national authorities. This was the outcome of major National Liberation Movement successes and the affirmation of the work to date of the NLCs. The Krajina ordinances enacted into law universal and equal franchise whereby all men and women aged 18 or over were entitled to vote and to be elected. In addition to the existing rural, municipal, and county NLCs, these ordinances introduced district NLCs as well. Later, major district NLCs were also to emerge in some places, including three in Bosnia and Herzegovina, between the autumn of 1943 and the autumn of 1944: the Bosnian Krajina, eastern Bosnia, and Herzegovina NLCs. 14 M. Imamovic, Ibid p. 348. 231 232 MUSLIM BOSNIA AFTER OTTOMAN PERIOD Finally, under the terms of the Krajina ordinances, military rearguard authorities were set up: command regions, command centers, and Partisan or rural guards. These were charged with mobilizing manpower for the National Liberation Army and the Yugoslav Partisan detachments, ensuring that the army had adequate provisions and supplies, [raining military workshops and organizing public works and rearguard sanitary services, taking care of troop communications and transport, maintaining law and order and exercising judicial authority, organizing of the intelligence service, and cooperation with the NLCs. The formation and first session of the National Anti-Fascist Liberation Council of Yugoslavia (AVNOJ) The promulgation of the Krajina ordinances, turning the NLCs into permanent authorities, was clear evidence that the country had a potential organization of state, though one still lacking a central National Liberation Council as the supreme executive body. The numbers of NLCs on both liberated and occupied territory, their organization jurisdiction authority, and efficiency in implementing decisions showed clearly that, by the autumn of 1942, they had already evolved into a uniform system of governance. Then again, with the creation of the National Liberation Army and the Yugoslav Partisan detachments on 20 November 1942, the Partisan forces acquired all the features of a regular army with about 150.000 men deployed in detachments, brigades, divisions, and corps, with a proper officer corps drawn from all strata of society, created and trained in battle. All this pointed to the need for a clear demarcation between the military and the political, with affairs of state separate from military matters. This, in turn, made it vital to set up a central representative body with supreme powers and a government as its executive arm.15 As a result, at the initiative of the National Liberation Movement's militarycum-political leadership, preparations were set in hand to convene a general Yugoslav assembly of the War of National Liberation's most prominent combatants and supporters, without regard to their national, religious, or political affiliations. The assembly was held in Bihač, the center of free territory at the time, on 26 and 27 November 1942. It was attended by 54 delegates from throughout the country. This marked the formation of the Anti-Fascist Council of the National Liberation of Yugoslavia. AVNOJ was constituted as the pan-national, pan-political representative body of the National Liberation Movement. In light of international circumstances, the formation of a government as its executive arm was temporarily put on hold. Instead, an AVNOJ Executive Committee was set up, with several areas of jurisdiction (ministries): administration, economy and finance, health, social affairs, religion, and propaganda. All that was lacking were foreign affairs 15 M. Imamovic, Ibid p. 350. CHAPTER 4 TITO ERA and national defense, which remained within the jurisdiction of the Polit Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia and the Supreme Command of the National Liberation Army and Yugoslav Partisan detachments. Dr. Ivan Ribar was elected chairman of the Executive Committee, with Nurija Pozderac, Dr. Pavle Savić, and Edvard Kocbek as vice-chairmen. The members of the Executive Committee, with responsibility for the various areas of jurisdiction, were Mile Peruničić, Ivan Milutinović, Dr. Sima Milošević, Orthodox priest Vlado Zećević, Dr. Mladen Iveković, and Veselin Masleša. Resolutions on the formation and organization of AVNOJ were passed at the session, and a Proclamation to the peoples of Yugoslavia was adopted. Apart from running general political affairs and coordinating the work of the NLCs, one of the basic tasks of AVNOJ and its Executive Committee was to set up national Anti-Fascist Committees in each of Yugoslavia's provinces.16 The formation and first session of the National Anti-Fascist Council of the National Liberation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ZAVNOBiH) The decision to set up national anti-Fascist Committees in each of the provinces of Yugoslavia marked the beginning of the final stage in the implementation of one of the four basic goals of the National Liberation Movement, to order the future Yugoslavia on federative principles. This was a decision that had matured after lengthy debate over several years within the Yugoslav Communist Party, at the end of the 1930s, just before the outbreak of war. The decision, designed to resolve the national issue, was highlighted in the resolutions of the CPY's fifth national conference, heldillegally-in Zagreb from 19 to 23 October 1940. From the very start of the war, the military-cum-political leadership of the National Liberation Movement began issuing decisions and resolutions that pointed towards the internal disposition of the future Yugoslavia. The first such decisions were adopted at the military-political conference held in Stolice near Krupanj (a town in western Serbia) on 26 September 1941. A new military organization would be created, with the former General Headquarters of the national liberation and Partisan detachments to become Supreme Command. Each of Yugoslavia's provinces would have its own Chief of Staff. This decision marked the inception of future Yugoslav federalism. Pursuant to this decision, a General Headquarters of the National Liberation detachments of Bosnia and Herzegovina was set up. This, along with the Yugoslav Communist Party's Provincial Committee for Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was already in existence, explicitly denoted the future position of Bosnia and Herzegovina and its peoples in the state union that gradually came into being during the war. 16 M. Imamovic, Ibid p. 351. 233 234 MUSLIM BOSNIA AFTER OTTOMAN PERIOD The decision to set up national anti-Fascist Committees was just part of the process of making the Yugoslav Communist Party's entrenched view on the equality and right to self-determination of each of the Yugoslav peoples a reality. The National Anti-Fascist Council of the National Liberation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ZAVNOBiH) was the last of the national antiFascist Committees to be set up. The reason for this was partly the almost uninterrupted hostilities in Bosnia and Herzegovina and partly the discussions and debate among the Yugoslav Communist Party leadership on the status of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the future Yugoslav union. Representatives of the Yugoslav Communist Party's Provincial Committee for Bosnia and Herzegovina, with Avdo Humo and Rodoljub Colakovic in the fore-front, were of the opinion that previous positions on autonomy alone for Bosnia and Herzegovina had become obsolete and that it should become the sixth federal unit on an equal footing with the other five. Some members of the Yugoslav Communist Party's Central Committee were opposed co this, bur Tito and Kardelj finally came down firmly on the side of those who held the view that Bosnia and Herzegovina should be equal in all regards with the other members of the federation." Finally, on 25 and 26 November 1943, the first, constituent assembly of ZAVNOBiH was held in Varcar-Vakuf (Mrkonjić Grad), attended by 274 delegates from throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina, 173 of whom were elected as ZAVNOBiH councilors. At this first session, ZAVNOBiH was formally constituted as the general political representative body of the National Liberation Movement of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but, in practice, it operated as the supreme governing body. The councilors adopted the ZAVNOBiH Resolution and the Proclamation to the peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina, both of which stipulated that in future Bosnia and Herzegovina and its peoples could be represented at home and abroad only by ZAVNOBiH and AVNOJ. The seats also expressed the will of the peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina that their country, which was neither Serb, nor Croat, nor Muslim, but both Serb and Muslim and Croat, be a fraternal community in which the full equality of all Serbs, Bosnian Muslims, and Croats would be guaranteed. A delegation of 58 members to represent Bosnia and Herzegovina at the second AVNOJ session was elected at the assembly. At the same time, the ZAVNOBiH Presidency was constituted, consisting of 31 members, with Dr. Vojislav Kecmanović, a physician from Bijeljina, as chairman.17 The second AVNOJ session The second AVNOJ session was held in Jajce on 29 and 30 November 1943, attended by 142 of the 268 elected delegates from all parts of Yugoslavia. A number of delegates were prevented by distance and the war from reaching 17 M. Imamovic, Ibid p. 352. CHAPTER 4 TITO ERA Jajce to attend the session. At this session, AVNOJ was constituted as Yugoslavia's supreme legislative and executive representative body. It was also decided that a National Committee for the Liberation of Yugoslavia be set up as AVNOJ's executive arm, with all the attributes of an interim government. These were the first clauses in the Declaration of the second AVNOJ session, all of which were subsequently reformulated as separate resolutions. As the supreme legislative and executive authority, AVNOJ consisted of a Council and Presidency. The Presidency was the representative on behalf of the Council of the "national and state sovereignty of Yugoslavia and performs all its functions, legislative and executive, in the period between Council session, to which it is accountable for its work". The Presidency consisted of a chairman, five vice-chairmen, two secretaries, and a minimum of forty members. The Presidency was headed by Dr. Ivan Ribar, with, as vice-chairmen, Mosa Pijade, Antun Augustintit, Josip Rus, Marko Vujatić, and Dmitar Vlahov, and, as secretaries, Rodoljub Čolaković and Radonja Golubović. The Presidency appointed the National Committee for the Liberation of Yugoslavia. Josip Broz Tito was appointed as chairman of the Nell’: simultaneously holding the post of leader of the National Defense Commission. Edvard Kardelj and Vladislav Ribnikar, the latter also heading the Information Commission, were appointed vice-chairmen; the third vicechairman was Bofidar Magovac. Foreign affairs were run by Dr. Josip Smodlaka and home affairs by Vlado Zećević, the Education Commission by Edvard Kocbek, the Commission for National Economy by Ivan Milutinović, transport and communications by Sreten Zujović, national reconstruction by Todor Vujasinović, social affairs by Dr. Anton Krfišnik, the Justice Commission by Franc Frol, the Commission for Food by Mile Peruničić, the Commission for construction by Dr. Rade Pribičević, and the Mining and Forestry Commission by Sulejman Filipović.18 From the legal point of view the fundamental decisions were those on structuring Yugoslavia on federal principles and on removing the rights of the legal government of Yugoslavia from the so-called Yugoslav government abroad, and prohibiting King Petar II Karađorđević's returning to the country. In this regard, it was left to the people to express, through general elections and a constituent assembly to be held once the country was liberated, whether they wanted a monarchy or a republic. AVNOJ and its Presidency issued a number of other important decisions, too. AVNOJ adopted a decision recognizing and acknowledging the role of the National Liberation Army and, in association with this, a decision introducing the rank of Marshal of Yugoslavia. Pursuant to this, the Presidency awarded this title to Josip Broz Tito. The Presidency also confirmed the decision of the Slovenian main NLC and ZAVNOH to make the Slovenian coastal region and other Slovene lands part of Slovenia and Istria, Rijeka, Zadar, and the islands were returned to Croatia, all thus becoming part of Yugoslavia. 18 M. Imamovic, Ibid p. 353. 235 236 MUSLIM BOSNIA AFTER OTTOMAN PERIOD Finally, a decision was adopted to set up a Commission to identify crimes by the occupying powers and their local collaborators.19 The Sandzak ZAVNO As part of the federal state-building process, with the entities enjoying internal autonomy, political representatives of the National Liberation Movement in the Sandzak held a session in Pljevlja on 20 November 1943. At that meeting, they set up the National Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation of the Sandzak (ZAVNO Sandzak). At this session, the war parliament of the Sandzak, the Executive Committee that also exercised governmental powers was elected, to act as the highest authority in the Sandzak between National Council sessions. The assembly in Pljevlja adopted a resolution on the organization of the Council and issued a proclamation to the people of the Sandzak calling on them to join the National Liberation Movement. Sreren Vukosavljević, a prominent sociologist and professor at the University of Belgrade who was active in politics and had at one time been a national deputy to the Assembly of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, was elected as chairman of the Sandzak ZAVNO. Until his election in 1943, he had been living since 1925 in Prijepolje, in retirement, but also engaged in journalism. In mid-1944, pursuant to a decision by the Yugoslav National Liberation Movement leadership, he was sent to London as a minister in Dr. Ivan Subašic's newly-formed government in exile. Formally, he also remained chairman of the Sandzak ZAVNO. Murat ef. Šećeragić, a high court Sharia judge in Skopje, was elected as vice-chairman of the Sandzak ZAVNO. At its second session, held on 29 March 1945 in Novi Pazar, under pressure from the top political echelons of Montenegro, Serbia and Yugoslavia, the Sandzak ZAVNO adopted a decision on its own dissolution and the consequent re-partitioning of the Sandzak between Serbia and Montenegro. As chairman of the Sandzak ZAVNO, Professor Vukosavljević was the only person publicly to oppose this decision at the highest political levels in Serbia, albeit without success, and to refuse to sign the decision on the dissolution of the Sandzak ZAVNO. The development of the federal state and Bosnia and Herzegovina’s place within it The most significant political decision with legal implications for the state taken at the second AVNOJ session was the decision to structure Yugoslavia on federative principles. Statehood of this type was designed to resolve the national issue within Yugoslavia and was conceived as introducing the 19 M. Imamovic, Ibid p. 354. CHAPTER 4 TITO ERA principle of the sovereignty of its peoples and ensuring that they were fully equal in law. It was, therefore, resolved to structure Yugoslavia on federative principles "that will ensure the full equality of Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Macedonians, and Montenegrins, being the peoples of Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Each federal entity acquired this status within Democratic Federative Yugoslavia on the basis of the national criterion. Each of the then five officially recognized peoples belonged to its own federal national entity; albeit with a number of national minorities or other ethnic groups among its population. The exception was Bosnia and Herzegovina, which acquired its status within the Yugoslav federation not on the basis of the national criterion, but as the historical entity of the three peoples who had lived there together for centuries. During the debates on the status of Bosnia and Herzegovina conducted between members of the Yugoslav Communist Party s Central Committee ahead of the second AVNOJ session, there were those who were of the view that it should be no more than an autonomous province. However, were it to be merged With either Serbia or Croatia, the result would be constant distrust among the Bosnian Muslims and no less constant disputes and discords between Serbs and Croats. This led to the idea that it should form a separate entity within the federation. The discussions on the issue revealed that the idea of autonomy as expressed at the fifth national conference during the War of National Liberation had become obsolete. Bosnia and Herzegovina had already made an immense contribution to the War of National Liberation, which realistically meant that it had won the right to full equality with every other province within Yugoslavia. During the war, as people then saw it, brotherhood and unity had been achieved as had freedom and equality of footing between Serbs, Bosnian Muslims, and Croats, which was a tremendous contribution to bringing about brotherhood, equality, and close bonds between all Yugoslavia's peoples and ethnic groups.20 The major factors, then, that led the National Liberation Movement leadership to the view that Bosnia and Herzegovina would be part of federal Yugoslavia as an equal federal entity were, first, the fact that Bosnia and Herzegovina had long enjoyed its own statehood and political tradition, and that, as a result, it also had a long tradition of autonomy in both theory and practice. Furthermore, its population consisted of three peoples, Bosnian Muslims, Serbs, and Croats, along with numerous national minorities. Given this patchwork population, merging it with anyone of the other federal entities would be a politically unacceptable solution with unpredictable consequences. The partition of Bosnia and Herzegovina was also unthinkable, since it would result in its peoples also being partitioned. These facts gave Bosnia and Herzegovina its distinctive position within the 20 M. Imamovic, Ibid p. 356. 237 238 MUSLIM BOSNIA AFTER OTTOMAN PERIOD Yugoslav federative state created by the decision of the second AVNOJ session. The second ZAVNOBiH session In order to carry forward the process of constituting the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a federal entity within the Yugoslav federation, a second ZAVNOBiH conference was convened, held in Sanski Most from 30 June to 2 July 1944. Eleven decisions were adopted at the conference, the most important of which were the decision to constitute ZAVNOBiH as the supreme legislative and executive body of federal Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the Declaration on the Rights of the Peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The remaining decisions were mainly of a technical legal nature, approving the work of Bosnia and Herzegovina's delegation to the second AVNOJ session, adopting ZAVNOBiH's rules of procedure, and the like. The Decision Constituting ZAVNOBiH as the Supreme Governing Authority stated that it was constituted as the supreme legislative and executive national representative body "on the basis of the freely expressed will of the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina" and pursuant to the AVNOJ decisions. This made it the supreme governing authority of Bosnia and Herzegovina, an equal federal entity within Democratic Federative Yugoslavia. Under the terms of the decision, ZAVNOBiH exercised its legislative powers directly at its plenary sessions, while between sessions these powers were to be exercised by its Presidency. Executive powers were to be exercised through the National Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Until such time as a government was formed, these powers, too, would be exercised by the ZAVNOBiH Presidency. In line with this, on 6 July 1944 the Presidency set up departments, or in sense ministries, of national economy, national health and social welfare, Reconstruction, justice, and food. The Declaration on the Rights of the Peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina was essentially of a constitutional character. This declaration, adopted at the second ZAVNOBiH session, guaranteed the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina the basic human rights expressed in every democratic constitution: national equality (with Muslims, Serbs. and Croats explicitly named), freedom of conscience and religion, freedom of assembly and agreement, freedom of association and of the press, individual security of person and property, freedom of private initiative in economic life, equality of the sexes in all domains of social live, the active and passive right to vote on attaining 18 years of age, the right of appeal, the principle that "no one may be convicted without trial," the introduction of military service for all able-bodied male citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina, etc.21 21 M. Imamovic, Ibid p. 357. CHAPTER 4 TITO ERA The decisions of the second ZAVNOBiH session essentially constituted Bosnia and Herzegovina as a federal entity within the state of Yugoslavia. These decisions, which constituted Bosnia and Herzegovina as a civic state, represented the political essence of its thousand-year-long history and experience as a state. Law during the War of National Liberation From the start of the War of National Liberation, various military and civilian authorities issued their own regulatory measures and ordinances, which, along with the new organization of governance, constituted the foundations of a certain legal order. These nonnative activities were imposed by the war, and designed basically for defense and the consolidation of law and order in the free territories. The chief carrier of these normative activities was the Supreme Command of the National Liberation Army and Partisan Liberation detachments, with their numerous orders, directives, and other regulations. At the end of 1942 it was joined in this role by the AVNOJ Executive Committee. In addition, lower military headquarters and Peoples' Liberation Committees, from county to district and major district level, issued various regulations governing sundry national issues, which were often radicalized in these circumstances of war and revolution. These normative and regulatory activities, as a whole, were guided by the pragmatic principle that only that which served the interests of the War of National Liberation was lawful, and everything that damaged them was unlawful. 22 Systematic work on constructing the new legal order began with the decisions of the second AVNOJ session. These included a decision on the endorsement of decisions, orders, and statements by the AVNOJ Executive Committee and the Supreme Command of the National Liberation Army and Partisan Liberation detachments. This decision was constitutional in nature, since it accorded to previously adopted acts, with varying titles and formulations, the force of state legislation or legal norms. This formally proclaimed that there was no internal legal continuity between the old and the new Yugoslavia. Law and the judiciary in Bosnia and Herzegovina The organization of normative activities intended to develop the new legal order in Bosnia and Herzegovina began with the decisions of the second ZAVNOBiH session. The basic principles and purposes of this normative order were set out in the Decision on the Structure and Operations of the Peoples’ Liberation Committees and the Declaration on the Rights of the Peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina. These decisions required the Peoples' Liberation Committees to ensure, through their judicial councils, that their citizens enjoyed legal security and to provide them with proper legal 22 M. Imamovic, Ibid p. 358. 239 240 MUSLIM BOSNIA AFTER OTTOMAN PERIOD protection. The Declaration on the Rights of the Peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina guaranteed every citizen the right of appeal and objection to every state authority and also guaranteed that "no one maybe convicted without trial". In October 1944, continuing the process of developing the legal order, the Justice Department of the ZAVNOBiH Presidency issued Directives for the Organization and Operations of National Courts. Pursuant to these directives, in exercising their functions the courts were to make use of the decisions, laws, and legal provisions of AVNOJ and ZAVNOBiH. They could also refer to the peoples' customary law, but only to the extent that these customs conformed to the "democratic legal understanding of our peoples". These directives made no explicit reference to the possibility of applying legislation that had been in force in Bosnia and Herzegovina prior to the war. No doubt the provisions of such legislation could be applied by the courts if they were in line with the legal understanding of the peoples and were not contrary to the principles formulated during the War of National Liberation. The legal vacuums encountered by the courts when ruling on the various disputes that arose in everyday life were frequently filled by local customary law or the prevailing feeling and understanding of the people as to what constituted justice.23 Although the new authorities constantly emphasized in their various directives that "the old law is no longer in force." in judicial practice it was increasingly applied. This assumption, as it were, of old law was based on the fact that more and more qualified lawyers were becoming involved in the work of the Peoples’ Liberation Committees and courts in the liberated territories. In the absence of new positive legislative provisions, they found a logical solution in the application of the law they were familiar with and had used until then. It was a matter of legal necessity, when the old rules had to be applied in court as subsidiary law or as an ancillary source of law. This led to considerable inequalities in administrative and court practice. This prompted the AVNOJ Presidency to adopt a special decision, on 3 February 1945, which unconditionally annulled and set aside all legislation and regulations introduced by the occupying forces and their collaborators. All legislation and regulations that were in force at the time of the enemy occupation were also annulled to the extent that they were contrary to the achievements of the War of National Liberation and the legislation passed by the new authorities. The third ZAVNOBiH session and the formation of the Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina The third and last ZAVNOBiH session by that name was convened and held after Partisan troops entered Sarajevo on 6 April 1945. The session was held 23 M. Imamovic, Ibid p. 359. CHAPTER 4 TITO ERA in Sarajevo on 26 to 28 April 1945. The decisions issued by ZAVNOBiH at that session marked the completion of the system of governance of federal Bosnia and Herzegovina. Under the terms of the Law Amending the Decision Constituting ZAVNOBiH, the body was transformed into the National Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina. At the same time, the Law on the National Authority of Bosnia and Herzegovina established the government of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The government was formed by special Decree on the Appointment of the Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina, issued by the Presidency of the National Assembly. Rodoljub Čolaković was appointed Prime Minister and Dr. Zaim Šarac Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Local Transport and Communications. Ðuro Pucar was named Minister without Portfolio. Colonel Ilija Došen was appointed Interior Minister, Dr. Hamdija Ćernerlić as Justice Minister, Professor Ante Babić as Education Minister, Hasan Brkić as Finance Minister, Pašaga Mandžić as Minister of Trade and Supplies, Ćazim Ugljen as Minister of Industry and Mining, Major-General Vlado Šegrt as Minister of Agriculture and Livestock, Professor Ante Martinović as Ministry of Forestry, Dr. Nedo Zec as Minister of Public Health, Dr. Cvijetin Spužević as Construction Minister, and Orthodox priest Novak Mastilović as Minister of Social Affairs. On 28 April 1945, with the formation of this government, Bosnia and Herzegovina acquired its own national government for the first time since November 1918.24 The Bosnian Muslims and Ustaša Movement On right, Bosnian Muslim Džafer-beg Kulenović was the Vice-President of the NDH Ustaša regime from 1941 to 1945. The NDH Ustaša regime committed genocide against Serbs, Jews, and Gypsies during the Holocaust. Claims About the Bosnian Muslim Role in the Ustaša and Nazi Genocide Bosnian Muslims were part of the political leadership of the Ustaša Naziallied state during the Holocaust. The Bosnian Muslims are complicit in the genocide committed against Serbs, Jews, and Gypsies. Bosnian Muslim political, military, and religious leaders played a major role in the genocide against Serbs, Jews, and Gypsies. Historians have falsified, distorted, and covered-up the Bosnian Muslim role in the Holocaust and the genocide committed against Serbs.25 Bosnian Muslim political, military, and religious leaders were integral parts of the NDH leadership and government. The Vice-President of the NDH was a Bosnian Muslim, Džafer-beg Kulenović. The Foreign Minister of the NDH 24 25 M. Imamovic, Ibid p. 360. The Bosnian Muslim Role in the Ustasha and Nazi Genocide website 241 242 MUSLIM BOSNIA AFTER OTTOMAN PERIOD was also a Bosnian Muslim, Mehmed Alajbegović. The Bosnian Muslims were in the NDH Ustaša Domobrans, the regular army, and security and police forces. There were 11 Bosnian Muslim political leaders who served in the NDH Ustaša Parliament or Sabor. The following Bosnian Muslims were part of the Government of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH): The Vice-President of the NDH (Ministar-potpredsjednik): Osman Kulenović (April 16, 1941 to October 7, 1941), Džafer-beg Kulenović (Oct 7, 1941 to May, 1945) Minister of Foreign Affairs (Ministar vanjskih poslova): Mehmed Alajbegović (May 5, 1944 to May, 1945) Minister of Transportation and Public Works (Ministar prometa i javnih radova): Hilmija Beslagić (July 1, 1941 to October 11, 1943) Minister of Supply for War-Ravaged Areas (Ministar skrbi za postradale krajeve): Mehmed Alajbegović (October 11, 1943 to May 5, 1944), Meho Mehicic (May 5, 1944 to May, 1945) Ustaša Commissioner for Tuzla, Bosnia-Herzegovina Hakija Hadzic Ustaša Commissioner for Eastern Herzegovina Alija Suljak Mehmed Alajbegovic was also the General Consul of the NDH in Munich, Germany from January, 1942 to October, 1943. Alajbegović met with Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler and Joachim Ribbentrop when he was the NDH Ustaša Foreign Minister. He was arrested and tried for war crimes after the war. He was found guilty of war crimes and sentenced to death. He was executed in 1947 for war crimes. Osman Kulenović was arrested and tried for war crimes in Yugoslavia after the war. He was found guilty and was executed for war crimes in 1947. Ademaga Mešić was a high ranking Bosnian Muslim member of the Ustaša Party. Mešić was a Doglavnik, a deputy leader in the Ustaša Party. Bosnian Muslim Muhamed Pilav had been a member of Ante Pavelić’s Ustaša terrorist group in Italy based on a 1937 Yugoslav report. Bosnian Muslim Hasan Huskic had been a member of the Ustaša Janka Puszta camp in Hungary before the war. Bosnian Muslims were part of the Axis Nazi forces that invaded and occupied the Soviet Union. Bosnian Muslim troops were part of the 369th NDH Croat Reinforced Infantry Regiment which fought at Stalingrad as part of the German Wehrmacht during Operation Barbarossa. In September, 1942, the German Iron Cross 2nd class was awarded to Bosnian Muslim Sergeant Džafer Babović, a member of the NDH Regiment, by the German Army for his role during the Stalingrad campaign. Hakija Hadžić was a prominent Bosnian Muslim political leader in the NDH, born in Bileca on January 1, 1883. Along with Bosnian Muslim Ademaga Mešić, Fehim Spaho, Mehmet Handžić, Hadžić was active in the CHAPTER 4 TITO ERA NDH regime. Educated in Vienna and Jena, during World War I he was a soldier in the Austro-Hungarian Army and became a POW in Russia. He later formed a Bosnian Muslim wing of the HSS, Moslemanska Organizacija Hrvatske Seljacke Stranke). Hadzic joined the Ustaša Party when the NDH was proclaimed on April 10, 1941. He served in key NDH political posts during the Ustaša regime. He was the Head Trustee of (Izvanredni Povjerenik) for the GUS (Glavni Ustaški Stan, the Ustaša High Command) for the municipality of Tuzla in eastern Bosnia. He was subsequently made the Head Trustee for Sarajevo. He later was appointed the Head Trustee for the entire area of the former Drinska Banovina. Bosnian Jews and Croatian Jews had to wear a yellow armband in the NDH. Bosnian Serbs and Croatian Serbs had to wear a blue armband. Hadžić advocated vociferously for the creation of a Greater Bosnia. Historians have covered-up and censored any accounts of a Greater Muslim Bosnia. Bosnian Muslim leaders such as Hadžić argued the Raška or Sandzak region of Serbia should be annexed to a Greater Bosnia, a Greater Islamic State. Hadžić worked to have the NDH annex the Novi Pazar district of Serbia, the Raška or Sandzak area. In late 1942, Hadžić was appointed Ambassador in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the NDH. On July 11, 1944, he was appointed the NDH Ambassador to Hungary. Hadžić advocated and supported the NDH Ustaša extermination and genocide campaign against the Serbian population of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Krajina, and Croatia. Hadžić openly incited genocide against the Serbian population and was actively involved in the systematic planning and organization of the genocide committed against Serbs.. He fled to Austria with other Ustaša NDH leaders after the collapse of the NDH government on May, 1945 to escape capture and to avoid prosecution for war crimes and genocide. Like Džafer-beg Kulenović, Hadžić fled to a Muslim country in the Middle East where he received sanctuary, Syria, where he lived as a wanted war criminal. Hadžić died on January 1, 1953 in Damascus. Bosnian Muslim Alija Suljak was the Ustaša commissioner for Eastern Herzegovina and was the personal aide to Poglavnik Ante Pavelić. In July, 1945 it was reported in a CIA document from 1946 that he personally gave a Memorandum to the Turkish Embassy and to the Afghanistan and Iran Legations in Rome in which he placed blame for the alleged killings of Muslims in Bosnia on the Serbs. Suljak coverer-up the major role Bosnian Muslims had played in the extermination and genocide committed against Serbs. 243 244 MUSLIM BOSNIA AFTER OTTOMAN PERIOD In “Bosnia-Herzegovina at War: Relations Between Moslems and NonMoslems” from Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Yeshayahu A. Jelinek noted that Bosnian Muslims were part of the NDH government and that Bosnian Muslims participate in the genocide committed against Serbs, Jews, and Gypsies: “During the Second World War, Bosnia and Herzegovina were a part of the Independent State of Croatia, a German–Italian satellite The ruling Ustaša movement wished to remove Serbs, Jews and Gypsies from Croatian soil The Moslem inhabitants of the region were categorized as Croats by the regime who claimed to grant them all rights and privileges. Moslems participated in the bloodbath which the Ustaša initiated against the proscribed minorities. “ Ante Pavelić with Ismet Muftić, the Mufti of Zagreb since 1919, at Islamic services for the opening of the “Poglavnik mosque”, Poglavnikova džamija. Bosnian Muslim Ademaga Mešić, Ibrahim Proho, Nikola Mandić, the president of the NDH, and Ivan “Ico” Kirin, an Ustaša Colonel who headed Paretic’s personal security detachment, also attended the NDH Ustaša ceremony. The highest ranking Bosnian Muslim religious leader in the NDH, Ismet Muftić, supported the Ustaša NDH regime and the genocide committed against Serbs and Jews and Roma, Gypsies. Muftić traveled to Karlovac to greet Ante Pavelić when he returned from exile and proclaimed the NDH on April 10, 1941. Muftić and the Muslim community of Zagreb had proposed that the Serbian Orthodox Church on Preradović Square in Zagreb be taken over and converted into a mosque. Ustaša leader Slavko Kvaternik designated Muftić a member of the Croatian State Leadership in 1941. He conducted Islamic prayer services on behalf of the NDH regime and officiated at the opening of the Ustaša Poglavnik mosque that Ante Pavelic constructed in Zagreb in 1944. Muftić endorsed the NDH Ustaša genocide committed against Serbs. Muftić was arrested, tried, sentenced to death, and executed by hanging after the war for war crimes. The Bosnian Muslim religious leader in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Fehim Spaho, the Reis-ul-Ulema, supported the Ustaša NDH regime and the genocidal programs against the Serbs. Džafer-beg Kulenović was the highest ranking Bosnian Muslim political leader in the NDH. He had been the President of Yugoslav Muslim Party, which had been the largest Bosnian Muslim political party, succeeding Mehmed Spaho, who died in 1939. Kulenović was born in Rajnovici on February 17, 1891, having served as president of the Yugoslav Moslem Organization (JMO). He had been a minister in the government of Yugoslavia before World War II. After the end of the war, he was one of the most wanted Ustaša war criminals. When the NDH regime collapsed, Kulenović escaped to Syria. His CHAPTER 4 TITO ERA brother Osman was arrested, tried for war crimes, sentenced to death, and executed in 1947. He managed to escape prosecution for war crimes in Bosnia by fleeing to Syria where he died on October 3, 1956 in Damascus. The Bosnian Muslim role in the Ustaša genocide committed against Serbs and in the Holocaust has not been documented. This falsification, distortion, and manipulation of history have created an erroneous impression or image of Bosnian Muslims as “victims”. Bosnian Muslims were not victims. Bosnian Muslims played a role in the genocide against Serbs, Jews, and Gypsies during the Holocaust.26 Ismet Muftić (hanged 1945 in Zagreb) He became mufti of the Croatia in 1917 after the Islamic community was reformed there. His main task was to attempt to build a permanent mosque in the city. Due to lack of funds, the community was not able to achieve this on its own. Plans to build a mosque at Zelengaj in the 1930s did not pan out. However, after the Independent State of Croatia was formed, the ruling Ustaša party sought to better accommodate the Croatian Muslims. Muftić and the Muslim community put forth a proposition to turn the Orthodox Church on Preradović Square into a mosque. In the end, it was decided that the Meštrović Pavilion would take that role. To that effect, three minarets were added to the building. In 1945, at the end of the Second World War, Muftić was hanged by the Yugoslav Partisans in front of the very mosque which he had sought for nearly three decades. Three years later the Pavilion's minarets were taken down, and the building returned to its old usage. Islamic religious organization of Croatia has the see in Zagreb. Current president is Mufti Ševko Omerbašić. A mosque used to be located at the Žrtava Fašizma Square, but it was relocated to the neighborhood of Borovje in Pešcenica.27 4.3 Bosnia and Herzegovina in Socialist Yugoslavia The Development of Government and the Legal Order on the Basis of State Socialism Bosnia and Herzegovina's casualties and losses, 1941-1945 The peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina played a major part in the War of National Liberation, and they paid a high price for doing so, with heavy 26 27 The Bosnian Muslim Role in the Ustasha and Nazi Genocide website website 245 246 MUSLIM BOSNIA AFTER OTTOMAN PERIOD casualties both military and civilian.28 The end of the war in 1945 found Bosnia and Herzegovina in a state of near-ruin, with huge human and material losses. The estimated numbers of those killed and massacred in Yugoslavia as a whole during the 1941-1945 war are between 1,014,000 and 1,027,000, of whom from 316,000 to 382,000 were from Bosnia and Herzegovina. The majority of these are reckoned to have been Serbs, between 164,000 and 209,000, followed by Bosnian Muslims, with 75,000 casualties, Croats (between 64,000 and 79,000) and Jews, with ten thousand lives lose, five thousand Roma, a thousand Germans, and Poles, Russians, and Czechs a thousand each. A conservative estimate is that of the total number of 316,000 killed or massacred: 174,000 were civilian casualties, victims of Četnik, Ustaša, and Nazi genocide. Of these, 89,000 met their death in the country’s towns and villages, mainly in their own homes, and 85,000 10 various camps. Those killed in battle amounted to 142,000 citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina, of whom 72,000 belonged to the ranks of the partisans, and the remaining 70,000 to Četnik, Ustaša , or other quisling groups.2 Bosnia and Herzegovina suffered the highest number of human casualties in the tragic balance-sheet of World War II in the former Yugoslavia.29 Material losses in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1941-1945 Bosnia and Herzegovina bore the brunt of the cost of supplying the National Liberation army and Partisan Liberation detachments during the war, which left it with enormous material losses. Most of the country was in ruins, almost all its housing stock gone along with its public buildings and schools. Of some 820,000 buildings in Yugoslavia that were destroyed or damaged to a greater or lesser extent almost 400 000 or virtually half, were in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The economy also suffered badly. About 150 business enterprises and mines were destroyed, and much of the people’s wealth and resources was looted. More than 1,100 schools were demolished or left in ruins. The country's load and rail communications, particularly the latter, were almost entirely demolished or left unserviceable. The country's farm livestock, too, was almost completely destroyed. Entire towns such as Vlasenica, Rogatica, Višegrad, Prozor, Glarnoc, Bosanski Petrovac, Drvar, and others, were set on fire and laid waste. The situation was still further exacerbated by the fact that Bosnia and Herzegovina was already lagging behind the other regions of Yugoslavia in regard to its development. In 1946, it achieved a mere 6.9% of pre-war industrial production. In 1947, there were no more than 165,000 people working, or 6.7% of the population, of whom only 51.000 were employed in industry. Industrial production accounted for only 13% of total domestic 28 29 M. Imamovic, Ibid p. 361. M. Imamovic, Ibid p. 362. CHAPTER 4 TITO ERA product and agriculture for 36%. In the first post-war year, there were only 147 surviving school buildings in the whole of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 220 doctors, and 2,000 hospital beds. The March 1948 census figures revealed that 45% of the population over the age of ten was illiterate; it was against this background that the reconstruction of the new Country and its constituent republics had to begin. As if this were not enough, there were many unresolved matters of state including, primarily, the international recognition of the new state.30 International recognition of Democratic Federative Yugoslavia The second AVNOJ session and the decisions adopted there concerning in view, the Allies put pressure on the National Committee for the Yugoslavia marked, de facto, the creation of the new state with its system of state authorities from the lowest to the highest levels. At the base of the pyramid of governance were the municipal and county NLCs, above them were the National Anti-Fascist Councils of each of the federal entities, and at the apex were AVNOJ, its Presidency, and the National Committee for the Liberation of Yugoslavia, as the interim government. The new state did not gain internal recognition at the-time it came into being, although in 1943 the Allies recognized the National Liberation Army as a military partner and ally. The western Allies, including the Soviet Union, also continued to recognize the royal government-in-exile in London. As a result, the country had two governments as far as the outside world was concerned: one the internationally-recognized government-in-exile, which had no actual authority within the country and which AVNOJ had stripped of its legitimacy, and, the other, the National Committee for the Liberation of Yugoslavia, which exercised full authority within the country but was not internationally recognized. Under the circumstances, the new real government, the National Committee for the Liberation of Yugoslavia, was faced with the major challenge of winning international recognition and, thereby, consolidating the achievements of the War of National Liberation. The significance of international recognition and of maintaining the legal statehood of the Yugoslav state lay in the fact that this would automatically confer on the new Yugoslavia the status of an Allied country, with all the rights and privileges that this entailed. First and foremost, this would mean the right to membership in the United Nations (UN), the right to international aid through the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) set up as an interim agency on 9 November 1943 to provide aid to 30 M. Imamovic, Ibid p. 362. 247 248 MUSLIM BOSNIA AFTER OTTOMAN PERIOD countries devastated by the war, and the right to seek reparations from the defeated Axis powers.31 For their part, the western Allies, with Great Britain foremost among them, were aware of the reality of the newly-emerged state and of relations on the ground. However, they sought to secure their own interests in the Balkans by finding some kind of compromise that might save the monarchy in Yugoslavia, or at least ensure that the old civic structures and forces retained some political influence. With this in view, the Allies put pressure on the National Committee for the Liberation of Yugoslavia, which for pragmatic reasons expressed its readiness to enter into negotiations with the government-in-exile, on condition that it be headed by a figure who had not been compromised during the war. Under British pressure, Dr. Ivan Šubašić, former leader of the Croatian Banate, was appointed Premier of the government-in-exile. With British mediation, he immediately made contact with the National Committee for the Liberation of Yugoslavia to embark on negotiations for forming a united government. The talks took place on two occasions, first in Vison16 June 1944, and then in Belgrade, where the TitoŠubašić Agreement setting up a united government was signed on 1 November 1944. Since, by decision of AVNOJ, King Petar II was banned from returning to the country, regency was appointed to exercise formal royal power until such time as the Constituent Assembly had decided what should finally become of the monarchy. On 7 March 1945, pursuant to the Agreement, a united government was formed, with Tito as Prime Minister and Dr. Ivan Šubašić as Foreign Minister. The official title of this government was the Interim Government of Democratic Federative Yugoslavia. Under the terms of this act, the state acquired the official title of Democratic Federative Yugoslavia (DFY). The de facto existence of parallel governments and of the international representation of Yugoslavia was thereby brought to an end. The continuity of the new state was fully assured under international law, as was the assumption of such treaties with the Allies and neutral powers as were in the country's interests. In this regard, the new, united DFY government began by adopting the decision already issued by the government-in-exile that Yugoslavia should be one of the UN's founding members. A delegation was sent to the UN inaugural conference in San Francisco on 26 June 1945. 32 The abolition of AVNOJ and the establishment of an Interim National Assembly The abolition of AVNOJ and the establishment of an Interim National Assembly charged with preparing for elections to the Constituent Assembly 31 32 M. Imamovic, Ibid p. 364. M. Imamovic, Ibid p. 364. CHAPTER 4 TITO ERA formed an integral part of the Tito- Šubašić agreement. To this end, the third and final AVNOJ session was held in Belgrade on 7 to 10 August 1945. In line with the recommendations of the Yalta (Crimea) conference attended by the "big three:' Roosevelt. Stalin and Churchill, on 4 to 11 February 1945, AVNOJ was to be expanded to include a number of older-generation civic politicians and, thereby, to develop into an interim national assembly at its third session, AVNOJ adopted a decision to increase its numbers by118 in order to comply with the Yalta recommendations. During the political negotiations on the expansion of AVNOJ, it was agreed that none of the newly-appointed members or deputies should have been compromised by collaborating with the occupying forces during the war. In line with this criterion, AVNOJ coopted 36 deputies from the last complement of the Assembly of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, who had won their seats in the 11 December 1938 elections. Another 69 new members joined AVNOJ by agreement between the various political parties and groups. Finally thirteen non-party figures were invited to join the expanded AVNOJ as individuals. This completed the constitution of AVNOJ as an Interim National Assembly, with a total of 486 members -368 AVNOJ councilors and 118 new deputies. The Assembly began its work on 10 August1945. A large majority of deputies to the Interim Assembly stood for the unified political platform of the National Front, for the preservation and defense of the achievements of the War of National Liberation. However, a number of newly-appointed deputies acted as the opposition against National Front policies. The Interim National Assembly was charged primarily with passing laws under the terms of which elections to the constituent assembly would behold. The adoption of these laws on 28 October 1945 brought to an end the work of the Interim National Assembly.33 Elections and work of the Constituent Assembly Elections for the Constituent Assembly were held on 11 November1 945. Under the terms of the law adopted by the Interim National Assembly, the Constituent Assembly was bicameral, consisting of the Federal Assembly and the Assembly of Peoples, as was appropriate to the federal structure of the state. There were two lists of candidates running in the elections. The first was the Yugoslav National Front list, and the second the opposition list, with no formal title. In the elections for the Federal Assembly, the National Front list officially won 6,725,047 votes, or 90.48% of the electorate, and the ballot-box without a list, known as the "blind box," won 707,422 votes or 9.52%. The percentages were similar for the elections to the Assembly of Peoples, where the National Front list won 6,574,975votes or 88.69% of the electorate, and the blind box 839,239, or 11.31% of the votes. 33 M. Imamovic, Ibid p. 365. 249 250 MUSLIM BOSNIA AFTER OTTOMAN PERIOD Both houses of the Constituent Assembly met on 29 November 1945, which was the second anniversary of the second AVNOJ session. At this first session, the Constitutional Assembly adopted its first act, the Declaration on the Proclamation of the Federal National Republic of Yugoslavia. After a brief historical introduction and reference to the War of National Liberation and its achievements, the declaration concluded that, in conformity with the freely expressed will of all the peoples of Yugoslavia, the Constitutional Assembly, meeting in joint session of both houses, had "resolved in the name of the people and pursuant to legislative decisions" that "Democratic Federative Yugoslavia be proclaimed a national republic under the name Federal National Republic of Yugoslavia" (FNRY). Finally, it stated that "with this decision, the monarchy in Yugoslavia is finally abolished in the name of all the peoples of' Yugoslavia, and Petar II Karađorđević and the entire Karađorđević dynasty is deprived of all the rights that belonged to him and the Karađorđević dynasty". After adopting these decisions, the Constituent Assembly continued working on the adoption of a constitution. The Constitution of the Federal National Republic of Yugoslavia and of Bosnia and Herzegovina While working on the constitution. the Constituent Assembly received from the general public various proposals and suggestions for certain constitutional provisions and their wording.34 Referring to this, the Minister for the Constituent Assembly, Milovan Ðilas, said: "A typical suggestion from a Muslim was that a sixth flambeau should be added to our national armorials", The reason given was that the Bosnian Muslims formed the sixth Yugoslav nation, along with the Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Macedonians, and Montenegrins, and that the national coat of arms should therefore include a "sixth flambeau as the symbol of Muslim nationality". The proposal also noted that the Bosnian Muslims approved the draft Constitution in every other regard. Ðilas went on to say that the Constituent Assembly could not debate whether the Bosnian Muslims were or were not a nation, since it was a "theoretical question" that could not be resolved "by decree". What could be debated, he said, was whether a sixth flambeau was to be added as the symbol of the sixth federal republic. But if the point was that each nation should have its own flambeau, in any case, there should be only five. However, as Ðilas noted in conclusion, he was not denying the "distinct features of the Muslims".' On 18January 1946, Husein Husaga Ćišić, a delegate to the Constituent Assembly from Mostar, reacted polemically to Ðilas' words, openly objecting to the Presidency of the Constituent Assembly that the Constitution did not refer to the Bosnian Muslims along with the other Yugoslav nations. None of the other deputies from Bosnia and Herzegovina backed Ćišić, but he persisted in his views and was the only 34 M. Imamovic, Ibid p. 368. CHAPTER 4 TITO ERA deputy to vote against the Constitution on the grounds that there was no reference in it to the Bosnian Muslims as a nation. The vote on the Constitution of the Federal National Republic of Yugoslavia on 31 January 1946 was the final act of the Constituent Assembly, which immediately continued operating as the regular National Assembly of FNRY: The National Assembly retained the existing bicameral structure, with the Federal Assembly renamed the Federal Council and the Assembly of Peoples henceforth known as the Council of Peoples.35 The Constituent Assembly and the Constitution of the Peoples' Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina Given that, in the meantime, the National Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina, or rather the presidency thereof had enacted the Law on the Constituent Assembly of the National Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina on 13 October 1946 elections for the Constituent Assembly of PRBiH were held. At its first session, held on 11November 1946, the Constituent Assembly ratified all the decisions of the second ZAVNOBiH session, followed by all the acts adopted by the National Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina and its presidency between 26 April 1945 and the convening of the Constituent Assembly. At sessions held from 28 to 31 December 1946, exactly eleven months after the promulgation of the first Constitution of FNRY the Constituent Assembly adopted and promulgated the first republican Constitution. Following the adoption of the Constitution, the Constituent Assembly continued working, with the same composition as the National Assembly of the Peoples' Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.36 Under the terms of this Constitution, Bosnia and Herzegovina, as a "national state of republican configuration," was organized internally in line with its existing economic structure' and its social and political situation and relations. The Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina was similar to those of the other federal entities, expressing the republic's sovereign rights and statehood within the united socio-economic and political system of Yugoslavia. The National Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina enjoyed such sovereign rights as had not been ceded to the Federal National Republic of Yugoslavia. It had its own state territory, which could not be altered without its consent, while the people had expressed its will through its freely elected representatives. Unlike the ZAVNOBiH decisions, the Constitution did not enumerate the peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but merely included a 35 36 M. Imamovic, Ibid p. 368. Imamovic, Ibid p. 369. 251 252 MUSLIM BOSNIA AFTER OTTOMAN PERIOD provision to the effect that "within the National Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, its nationalities shall be equal before the law in all things, n and that" national minorities shall enjoy the right to and protection of their cultural development and the free use of their own language".37 The Communist Information Bureau and the clash between Stalin and Tito The Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers' Parties was set up in Warsaw in September 1947 in the presence of representatives of the Communist Parties of Bulgaria, Italy; Yugoslavia, Hungary; Poland, the Soviet Union, France, Czechoslovakia, and Romania, later joined by Albania. The Bureau was setup as a means of exchange of experience and coordination of activities by these parties by mutual agreement. The true aim was for Stalin to achieve total control, not only of the parties, but also, in effect, over the entire global Communist movement. Belgrade was designed as the permanent headquarters of the Communist Information Bureau, but, after its attacks on Yugoslavia, its headquarters were shifted to Bucharest. Since Tito, a man with the experience and authority of one of the great World War II military leaders and victors, had no intention of becoming subordinate to Stalin's dictate, the latter drew up a Resolution on the State of Affairs in the Yugoslav Communist Party issued in the summer of 1948, with which he launched a fierce attack on Yugoslav policy as a whole. The Resolution was adopted at an Information Bureau session in Bucharest, which Yugoslavia did not attend. This marked the start of a major propaganda campaign against Yugoslavia, accompanied by constant hostilities and provocations along the Yugoslav borders.38 The Information Bureau Resolution and the clash between Tito and Stalin had a painful and long-lasting impact on the state of affairs and internal relations in Yugoslavia itself. The clash was not confined to the inter-state and international level, but led to a rift within the Yugoslav Communist Party. This, in turn, influenced circumstances as a whole throughout the country, the consequences of which were still being felt when Yugoslavia broke up and the repercussions of which are still visible to this day. After the issuance of the Information Bureau Resolution, widespread persecution began within Yugoslavia of all those who had backed it, i.e., those who had come out in favor of Stalin and against Tito -Cominform supporters, as they were known. From the official Yugoslav point of view at that time, they could be regarded only as a united opposition front. They were not few in numbers some estimates put their numbers as high as about twenty percent of the entire Yugoslav Communist Party membership.' The Yugoslav Communist movement had always been as diverse in nature as Yugoslavia 37 38 Imamovic, Ibid p. 369. Imamovic, Ibid p. 373. CHAPTER 4 TITO ERA itself: The Cominform supporters, thus, represented and expressed a diversity of influences and interests, historical, national, centralist, autonomist, and much more besides. The rift within the Yugoslav Communist Party caused by the Information Bureau Resolution was merely the culmination of years of factional infighting within the Party during the 19205 and 19305, which continued in latent form even during the 1941-1945 war. This rift showed that the national question had always played a dominant role in Yugoslav politics. It is fair to say that the Cominform supporters, who had powerful foreign support, failed to bring Tito down not because they were few in number, but because they had their own internal dissensions and lacked a united program. Tito, and those who stood by him, was fully aware that they could win the battle against the Cominform supporters only at the cost of the ir harsh repression. The Yugoslav Communist Party leadership was trying to avoid being led down the Soviet blind alley, but, instead of opting for multi-party democracy and private business initiative, they chose the "Yugoslav path in socialism," which meant self-management, decentralization of the economy, and other unsuccessful political and economic experiments. After Stalin's death in March 1953, Soviet-Yugoslav relations were restored to normality in 1955. The Communist Information Bureau was officially dissolved in April 1956.39 4.4 1963 and 1974 Constitutions The authorities merged all these processes normatively, elevating them to the level of formal constitutional principles, by adopting a new Constitution on 7 April 1963, as part of the regular parliamentary procedure. This Constitution conferred on the FNRY the new title of Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY), which it would retain until its dissolution in 1992. Selfmanagement was posited as an organizational and functional principle of the political disposition of the Yugoslav socialist state. New Constitution on 7 April 1963 This/Constitution defined SFRY as the free associated labor and self.management of workers and citizens, with the right of decision-making on matters of production with social resources and other forms of labor and distributing the product in the domain of social activities (health care, education, etc.). It also guaranteed private ownership of land and labor resources by agricultural workers and free ownership by artisans engaged in production and services of various kinds. 39 Imamovic, Ibid p. 374. 253 254 MUSLIM BOSNIA AFTER OTTOMAN PERIOD The 1963 constitution was adopted in the conviction and on the assumption that the national question in Yugoslavia had been resolved by the 1941-1945 war and revolution and by the policy of brotherhood and unity. However, self-management had led to new processes acting on national and political relations within the Yugoslav federation and, thereby; within Bosnia and Herzegovina. The policy and practice of self-management came into direct conflict with the forces of Serbian-greater-state hegemony and the stronghold of which was the State Security Service (popularly known as UDBA), personified by its leader, Aleksandar Ranković -His dismissal in July 1966 made room for the qualitatively new political, cultural, and historical affirmation of certain hitherto suppressed peoples, first and foremost the Bosnian Muslims, but also the Bosnian Croats. It was the selfmanagement organization of all sectors of society, from the municipality via the republic to the federation that made this affirmation possible. Even at the municipal level, self-management meant autonomy of decision-making and in the organization of the corresponding independent resources in matters of common interest, including the national interest. Although all selfmanagement entities had their appropriate place in the wider "macrocommunity," they were able to act independently over a range of issues, without seeking the opinion of "higher authorities". At the local level, this led to many initiatives that contributed to the national affirmation of certain nations or peoples. However, self-management, like any other policy, had its own scope. In practice, it soon became obvious that the entire system of self-management had, from the outset, been bureaucratized. In essence it was merely a mean of transmission by the Party state which, through Party committees, retained control over everything. Although it produced certain results initially, as time passed, the system became the very cause of country's general economic and political crisis. This was the direct consequence of the ambivalence of the processes.40 The 1974 Constitution The 1974 Constitution was the outcome of one of the most severe and complex political crises-one that also had legal implications for the statefaced by Yugoslavia between 1945 and its dissolution in 1991-1992. This Constitution was Tito's last great political victory, and, in the full meaning of the word his political testament, which he outlived for less than ten years. 41 In the mid-l960s, with the country sinking into an ever-worsening economic crisis, the outlines of a comprehensive reform of the Yugoslav economy were drawn up, based on the market economy and free competition. Although it was the Communist League of Yugoslavia itself that instigated 40 41 Imamovic, Ibid p. 377. Imamovic, Ibid p. 380. CHAPTER 4 TITO ERA the reforms, as a result of the crisis, the entire process was inhibited by various Party committee members, who realized that the implementation of the project would deprive them of the controlling authority they had hitherto exercised in matters of the economy. The existing economy was centralized, with the expansion of the great economic systems, as they were known, centered on and headquartered in Belgrade. With the development of the tourist industry in the 1960s, the Croatian Adriatic coast became the most profitable area, economically speaking, for investments from Belgrade. Along with this went the entire roads network, filling stations and other services. The great economic systems known as reexporters, based in the center of the state, were not confined, of course, solely to the Adriatic, but extended into every region of SFRY, into every area of the economy. This provoked resistance of various kinds, political polarization, and aggressive separatism and unitarism. When the political crisis this provoked was at its height, as usual it was Tito who issued the verdict. At the Party plenary held at the end of 1971, he simply dismissed the entire Croatian leadership (Dapčević, Tripalo, Pirker), followed in short order by the proponents of liberalism in Serbia (Nikezić, Perović, and others). 42 The polarization and conflict was mainly along Croatian-Serbian lines, since these were the two main constituents of Yugoslavia. A party political nucleus took shape in Croatia (Savka Dapčević, Miko Tripalo, and others), which instigated a mass political mobilization designed to force through amendments to the Constitution of SFRY, intended to transform Yugoslavia both de jure and de facto from a federation to a confederation. Under the terms of this project, Vojvodina and Kosovo, the two autonomous provinces forming part of Serbia, would gain equal status with the republics as constituent entities of the Federation. The counterweight to this came from the Serbian liberal leadership of the day (Marko Nikezić, Latinka Perović, and others), who were not opposed to redefining the federal state, but rejected any changes to the status of the autonomous provinces of Serbia. The balance of power in SFRY at the time was such that, in November 1971; the constitutional amendments were carried in the Federal Assembly de facto transforming Yugoslavia from a federal to a confederal state. Their removal from the political scene made way for the adoption of the new Constitution, based on the idea of self-management as embodied in the assembly system and associated labor. The new (and last) Constitution of SFRY: incorporating all the 1971 amendments was adopted in late February 1974, and SFRY became, in essence, a confederation. Under the terms of this Constitution, the republics were "states based on the sovereignty of the 42 Imamovic, Ibid p. 381. 255 256 MUSLIM BOSNIA AFTER OTTOMAN PERIOD people". Consensus among all the members of federal state was required for any amendments to the provisions of this Constitution governing the position of the republics and their relationship with the federation. Under the terms of Article 400, the procedure to amend the Constitution could not initiate without the prior assent of the assemblies of all the republics. In this regard, Article 402 stipulated that amendments to the Constitution would be regarded as adopted once the assemblies of all the republics had accepted the text of the amendments as previously voted on by the Assembly of SFRY. From the very outset these provisions came under attack from the Serbian establishment which saw the 1974 Constitution as the main impediment to maintaining its own hegemony and kept demanding that it be revised. In the mid 1980s, these demands became extremely aggressive, with complete disregard for the equality of rights and interests of others.43 The system of the 1974 Constitution Under the terms of the 1974 Constitution, the system and the basis of the constitutional order consisted of the assembly system, as it was called, based on the delegate, or self-management principle. In line with this principle, local wards, associated labor organizations, and socio-political organizations were the source of territorial authority in its entirety. All these bodies formed their own delegations by electing their representatives, whom they sent as delegates to the next higher government authorities, specifically to the municipal assemblies. These assemblies, therefore, consisted of three councils: the local ward council, the associated labor council, and the sociopolitical council. On the same principle, the municipality, in turn, elected a delegation, which it sent to the republican assembly that assembly had the same structure, consisting of municipal, associated labor, and socio-political councils. Above this again, at the highest level, was the Assembly of SFRY; with its Federal Council and Council of Republics and Provinces. A separate Jaw governing associated labor was enacted in 1976 to supplement the Constitution. Under the terms of this law associated labor was the theoretical link between current and past labor, on the basis of which communities of so-called self-managing organizations; were set up in various areas of social life. These communities’ of self-managing organizations had their own assemblies, which elected their own delegates in the various politico-territorial communities. They also each had their own executive, bodies that were bureaucratized from the outset and set in authority over the "associated" labor that they were supposed, under the terms of the law, to serve. 43 Imamovic, Ibid p. 381. CHAPTER 4 TITO ERA The entire Constitution and Associated Labor Law were based on the premise that the Communist League of Yugoslavia would continue indefinitely to enjoy a monopoly of' political power. The Constitution thus stipulated that the state would be run by a nine-member Presidency: one representative of each of the six republics and two provinces, and the Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist League of Yugoslavia. In practice, the entire thing collapsed, mainly over the issue of political rights. Human and civil rights in the 1974 Constitution In principle, the Constitution enshrined a very wide range of civil rights, which fell into three basic groups: (1) the right to self-management and socio-political activity; (2) citizens' individual rights and freedoms; (3) socio-economic rights. The Constitution also imposed certain duties on the country's citizens, alongside these rights.44 (1) The first group of rights enshrined in the Constitution included the very loosely-defined right to self-management, which encompassed in principle, freedom of association, freedom of speech and expression, and the freedom to manifest national affiliation and religious belief: In principle, this also included freedom of thought, or of moral and philosophical choice. (2) Individual, personal rights included the right to life, to citizenship, to freedom of movement and residence, the right to the inviolability of the home, the right to privacy of correspondence, the right of inheritance, environmental rights, and the like. (3) Whereas the first two groups of rights were based, more or less, on political declarations, the socio-political rights of Yugoslavia's citizens had been a genuine reality ever since the 1946 Constitution. The 1974 Constitution fully corroborated and amplified this. Naturally at each stage these rights had been dependent on 'the economic potential of a developing country. For example, although housing rights were guaranteed by the Constitution, in practice it was difficult to exercise them as a general principle. On the other hand, every labor-based right was respected in full. The 1974 Constitution stipulated that the working week should not exceed 42 hours for any worker. Every employee had the right to daily and weekly breaks. In addition, all employees enjoyed full social insurance, which guaranteed all rights, both during their lifetimes and in the event of death (Inter vivos, mortis causa). 44 Imamovic, Ibid p. 383. 257 258 MUSLIM BOSNIA AFTER OTTOMAN PERIOD In this regard, health insurance and health care were particularly extensive and applied as such. Article 186 of the 1974 Constitution even stipulated the cases in which citizens who had no right to free health care based on employment should nonetheless enjoy free treatment. This merely sanctioned the practice established during the 1950s whereby free health care actions were organized in Yugoslavia to eradicate the many widespread diseases of that time, such as tuberculosis (then known as consumption), trachoma, mycosis, endemic syphilis, goiter, and so forth. The next two articles, 187 and 188, of the Constitution stipulated special care for mothers, children, and juveniles, and for combatants, war invalids, and the family members of fallen soldiers. Again, this merely confirmed a practice that had been in existence since 1946. In addition all these rights were assured by the appropriate instruments of judicial protection, dealt with not only by the regular judicial authorities but also by special associated labor courts and self-managing public attorneys.45 Article 175 of 1974 Constitution guaranteed to all citizens of SFRY the right to education. Under the CCARs of this article all citizens were granted equality of opportunity to acquire the knowledge they required, and education appropriate to doing so. The state or, as it was then known in Constitutional terminology the “social community” was required to provide the material and other conditions so that schools and educational establishments at all levels could be set up and operate. Again, in effect, this confirmed the practice of free education introduced in 1945, thanks to which the next few decades saw a complete transformation of the education system and, as a result, of the intellectual structure of former Yugoslavia. This free education free in both senses of the word -saw the emergence in the years following 1945 of generations of intellectuals from hitherto repressed peoples or nations. These Intellectuals became aware of the standing of their own nation and, as educated peoples, were in a position to formulate and advance it as a political or constitutional issue. All this met with high-handed opposition from greater Serbian forces from the early 1970s on, and particularly following the adoption of the 1974 Constitution. This in turn led to a new crisis and, ultimately to the dissolution of SFRY. 4.5 Bosnian Muslims in Tito Yugoslavia, 1945-1989 Tito is often given great credit for having brought internal peace and reconciliation to Yugoslavia after the Second World War.46 It is true that peace came, and that the wounds of the war gradually healed; it is true also that Tito gave some thought to balancing the conflicting claims of Yugoslavia's peoples and regions. But power was more important to Tito than reconciliation, and Communist power was imposed on Yugoslavia at a 45 46 Imamovic, Ibid p. 384. N. Malcolm, Bosnia, A Short History, McMillian 2002, p. 193. CHAPTER 4 TITO ERA very heavy price. What has now become the best-known instance of this was the treatment meted out to the remnants of various anti-Partisan forces (and associated civilians) who had taken refuge in Allied controlled Austria in April and May 1945: Slovene 'home guards', Ustasa soldiers, and Serb and Muslim Četniks. Bosnian Croats, Serbs and Muslims were thus all present in this great mass of defeated soldiers. More than 18,000 were sent back to Yugoslavia by the British at Tito's insistence; most were massacred within hours of their arrival on Yugoslav soil. Altogether it has been estimated that up to 250,000 people were killed by Tito's mass shootings, forced death marches and concentration camps in the period 1945-6. One report on the situation in Yugoslavia sent by an American official in February 1945 observed: 'Propaganda and organized "spontaneous" demonstrations, forced labor, high-handed and summary requisitioning, arrests and punishment [and] a sense of intimidation are all too reminiscent of occupation. Tito's secret police, the 'Department for the Protection of the People' (OZNa), was zealous in rounding up real or imagined political enemies. In Tito's own words, the purpose of OZNa was 'to strike terror into the bones of those who do not like this kind of Yugoslavia' -and there were many of them." The lucky ones became a source of labor on the country's many new construction projects; and their work was complemented by the efforts of the foreign volunteers who came to work on the 'youth railways', the first of which was built in 1947 from Sarajevo to Samac (on the Bosnian-Croatian border). As one observer has noted: 'The paved highway from Belgrade to Zagreb, one of the proud accomplishments of the period, was built not only by volunteer youth brigades, as advertised, but also with extensive use of prison labor, especially that of "class enemies" from the bourgeoisie, which may be one reason why it is so badly built.47 Once Stalin had expelled Yugoslavia from Cominform (the successororganization to Comintern) in 1948, Yugoslav history was soon being rewritten to show that Tito had always pursued an independent, liberalminded and anti-Stalinist line. The truth is that before the break with the Soviet Union, and for several years after it, Tito's policies were closely modeled on those of Stalin." Even the Yugoslav federal constitution, proclaimed in January 1946, was simply a direct imitation of the Soviet constitution promulgated ten years earlier. It contained the usual mixture of fine-sounding declarations and logical black holes, proclaiming, for example, that each constituent republic was 'sovereign', but also eliminating the right to secede by declaring that the peoples of Yugoslavia had chosen to live together forever." Needless to say, the constitution made no mention of the Communist Party, from which all power actually flowed. Tito followed the method, similar to that used in other East European countries, of camouflaging the Party in a 'Popular Front' to begin with, until all political 47 N. Malcolm, Bosnia, A Short History, McMillian 2002, p. 194. 259 260 MUSLIM BOSNIA AFTER OTTOMAN PERIOD pluralism could finally be eliminated. An excessively ambitious Five Year Plan was announced in 1947; and in 1949, after the break with Stalin, a rapid collectivization of agriculture was forced through, with the consequence that grain production plummeted and the major cities were threatened with starvation in the following year," One of the most typical features of this period of Stalinist policies was the campaign against religion. The Catholic Church was treated with special harshness, in view of the collaboration of some of its clergy with the Ustasa in Croatia and Bosnia. Some churches were destroyed, and monasteries, convents and seminaries were closed down. The Orthodox Church fared a little better, even though its institutions came under strong pressure during the first three or four years. Some of its senior clergy had cooperated with the quisling regime in Serbia, but there were also several 'progressive' young priests who had served as chaplains in Tito's army. So-called associations of such priests were encouraged within the Church, as a way of allowing the Communist Party to exercise indirect control." As for Islam, it seems to have suffered a double disadvantage in the eyes of the new Yugoslav rulers: first, it was seen (correctly) as a type of religion which involved not only private beliefs but also social practices, and secondly it was viewed as backward and Asiatic. There was also a sense of old scores being settled at the end of the war, as Muslim activists were later to recall: 'The most severe losses were inflicted at the time by the Communists when military units entered villages. All potential opponents, mainly people of higher social standing and intellectuals known to be believers, were simply put to death without any judicial proceedings or investigation.'10 The 1946 constitution did of course contain usual clauses proclaiming that Yugoslavia would maintain the freedom of belief and the separation of Church and state; events were to suggest otherwise.48 The courts of Islamic sacred law were suppressed In 1946; a law forbidding women to wear the veil was issued in 1950; in the same year the last of the mektebs, elementary schools where children acquired a basic knowledge of the Koran, were closed down, and 1952 all the tekkes in Bosnia were shut down, and the dervish orders were banned. According to some reports, Muslims doing military service or working in so-called volunteer labor brigades were forced to eat pork, and Communist officials were warned not to have their sons circumcised. The Muslim cultural and educational societies, Gajret, Narodna Uzdanica and others were abolished; only one official (and, from 1947, state-controlled) Islamic association was permitted, together with its one carefully supervised medresa for the training of Muslim clergy. The Muslim printing house in Sarajevo was also closed down, and no Islamic textbook was allowed to be issued in Yugoslavia until 1964. Some of these measures were covertly resisted, however: Islamic texts continued to l circulate, children were taught in mosques, the dervish orders kept i up their 48 N. Malcolm, Bosnia, A Short History, McMillian 2002, p. 195. CHAPTER 4 TITO ERA practices in private houses, and one students' organization, ) the 'Young Muslims', resisted the campaign against Islam until several hundred of its members were imprisoned in 1949-50. The Muslim community had already suffered severe material damage during the war: it has been calculated that in the whole of Yugoslavia 756 mosques had been destroyed or badly damaged. Many were rebuilt by local initiative, but by 1950 there were still 199 disused mosques in Bosnia, some of them awaiting repair, others converted by the Communist authorities into museums, warehouses or even stables. The body which administered the vakufs was put in effect under state control, and instructed to hand over many of its most valuable properties (including the first modem office-block in Sarajevo) to the local authorities. Many Muslim graveyards were turned into parks or building-sites for offices and houses; true, the Reis ul-ulema Čaušević had suggested something similar before the war, but he had not .imagined that it would be done without the consent of the Muslim community. And the final blow to the vakufs, whose properties had already been whittled down by the expropriation of agricultural land, came with the nationalization of rental property in 1958. The great charitable foundations which had operated for 400 years or more, such as that founded by Gazi Husrev-beg in the 1530s, were now defunct. The general conditions of religious life in Yugoslavia improved after 1954, when a new law was passed guaranteeing freedom of religion (again) and placing the Churches under direct state control. There was a vigorous program of restoring Orthodox monasteries from 1956 onwards, partly for touristic purposes, and partly because a slightly more cosy relationship had now been established between the senior Orthodox clergy and the state. But the general treatment of Islam improved in the late 1950s and 1960s for a very few special reasons: Yugoslavia's Muslim community was now being used a tool of Tito's self-styled 'non-aligned' foreign policy. Like many of Tito's widely acclaimed achievements, this was a policy into which he had stumbled almost by accident. Having been ejected (to his surprise) from Cominform, and having become heavily dependent on Western loans, subsidies and diplomatic support, he needed an ideology which would make this awkward position look purposive and at the same time enable him to justify keeping the embarrassingly helpful Western democracies at arm's nationally undeclared' (or 'undetermined'). This gave the Bosnian Muslims a chance to demonstrate just how reluctant they were to be either Serbified or Croaticized: 72,000 declared themselves as Serbs and 25,000 as Croats, but 778,000 registered as 'undeclared'. The next census, in 1953, produced a similar result. This time, the official policy was to promote a spirit of 'Yugoslavism': the category 'Muslim' was removed 261 262 MUSLIM BOSNIA AFTER OTTOMAN PERIOD from the census altogether, but people were allowed to register as 'Yugoslav, nationally undeclared'. In Bosnia, 891,800 did so.49 It was in the 1960 that the official policy began to change, and it is not altogether clear why this happened. For the first fifteen to twenty years after the war, the senior official posts in Bosnia were dominated by Serbs: in the 1940s the Bosnian Communist Party membership was 20 per cent Muslim and 60 per cent Serb. The policy of the Bosnian republican government was very subservient to Belgrade, with a tendency to treat the republic as little more than an outer province of Serbia. With the stepping down of the Serb Djuro Pucar as Bosnian Party boss in 1965 this influence was weakened; and with the dismissal from the Yugoslav Central Committee of Aleksandar Ranković, Tito's brutal Serb security chief, in the following year, there was a general relaxation of policy towards the non-Serb peoples of the whole country. Yet the shift towards recognizing the Bosnian Muslims as a nation was already under way before these events. Probably it arose from a conjunction of two causes: the decision to drop the policy of' integral Yugoslavism' and strengthen republican identities instead in the early 1960s, and the belated rise of a small elite of Muslim Communist officials within the Party machine in Bosnia.50 The first sign of a change came with the 1961 census, where people were allowed to call themselves 'Muslim in the ethnic sense'. Then the 1963 Bosnian constitution referred equally in its preamble to 'Serbs, Croats and Muslims allied in the past by a common life implying, but not stating, that they were equally to be regarded as nations. This was regarded as a decisive step, and from now on it became common in Bosnia to treat the Muslims as a national grouping on a par with the others; one reflection of this change was that the documents for the election of officials of the Bosnian League of Communists in 1965 simply listed people as either 'Serb', Croat' or Muslim.20 But still the designation of the Muslims as a nation had not been officially made, and a number of academics and officials (under the intellectual leadership of Professor Muhamed Filipović, and with the assistance of Communist functionaries such as Atif Purivatra) continued to campaign for 'the capital M' -in other words, for 'Musliman' as the term for a member of a nation, rather than 'Musliman' as the word for a religious believer. There was residual resistance to this in the Party, which expelled Professor Filipović in 1967. But success finally came at a meeting of the Bosnian Central Committee in May 1968, where a communiqué was issued containing the following statement: 'Practice has shown the harm of different forms of pressure . . . from the earlier period when Muslims were designated as Serbs or Croats from the national viewpoint. It has been shown, and present socialist practice confirms, that the Muslims are a distinct nation. Despite fierce objections in Belgrade from Serbian nationalist Communists 49 50 N. Malcolm, Bosnia, A Short History, McMillian 2002, p. 198. N. Malcolm, Bosnia, A Short History, McMillian 2002, p. 198. CHAPTER 4 TITO ERA such as Dobrica Ćosić, this policy was accepted by the central government. And so, on the 1971 census form, for the first time, the phrase appeared: 'Muslim, in the sense of a nation.51 The other source of opposition to this policy was the Communist Party hierarchy in Macedonia. The Macedonians themselves had only been recognized, belatedly, as a nation in 1945, and did not like: the idea that their own sizeable Slav Muslim minority might now detach itself in a similar way from Macedonian nationality.23 But the comparison with Bosnia in fact enables us to see why the Bosnian policy, though strange-sounding, made sense. In the case of a Macedonian Slav Muslim, it is possible to talk about religion as a kind of surface layer which can be peeled back to reveal the ethnic or national substratum underneath. Remove the layer of Islam, and you are left with a Slav who can be identified as 'Macedonian' by criteria of language and history. But in the case of a Bosnian Muslim, what is one to call the substratum? One can call it 'Slav' or 'Bosnian', and one might call it 'Serbo-Croat'; but to call it either Serb or Croat would be wrong, for two reasons. First, because no such distinct 'Serb' or 'Croat' identities existed in Bosnia in the period before Islamization; so it would be false to talk about a 'Muslim Serb' as if to imply that his ancestors were Serbs before: they became Muslims. And the second reason is that when Bosnian Christians began, at a very late stage, to identify themselves as Serbs or Croats; they did so purely on grounds of religion. (Thus the descendants of Catholic Hungarian or German settlers who came to Bosnia in the AustroHungarian period have come to identify themselves as 'Croats', and the descendants of Orthodox Romanian Gypsies have identified themselves as 'Serbs'.24 Many of the Orthodox Bosnians may have been descended from Serb immigrants or Vlachs, as we have seen; but there had been so many influxes and effluxes of populations, as well as conversions, that few individuals can have been certain of the ir precise ethnic genealogy. For centuries the language, history and geographical location of these two sorts of Bosnian Christians had been the same -which 'means that in most important respects the substratum which lay beneath their own religious identities was one and the same. The artificial move, in other words, was the move made by Orthodox or Catholic Bosnians in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when they started to call themselves by the ethnic labels of Serbs and Croats. That they did so is historically understandable, as we have seen. But once they had made that move, it became impossible for the Muslims to take the logical course, which would have been to describe their religion as Muslim and their ethnic substratum as Bosnian. That would have had the effect of setting up 'Bosnian' as a third term in contradistinction to 'Serb' and 'Croat' which would be like the use of 'Muslim' as a third term, only even more 51 N. Malcolm, Bosnia, A Short History, McMillian 2002, p. 199. 263 264 MUSLIM BOSNIA AFTER OTTOMAN PERIOD divisive, since at least the three groups can now still be referred to as Bosnian Muslims, Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Croats.52 The drive for recognition of the Muslims as a nation in the late 1960s and early 1970s was not an Islamic religious movement. On the contrary, it was led by Communists and other secularized Muslims who wanted the Muslim identity in Bosnia to develop into something more definitely non-religious. Two quite distinct trends can be seen in Bosnia during this period: this movement of secular 'Muslim nationalism', and a separate revival of Islamic religious belief.25 What later became the best-known product of the latter revival was a short treatise written (but not published) in the late 1960s by Alija Izetbegovic, the Islamic Declaration.26 The arguments of Izetbegović's treatise (which will be discussed in the next chapter) were not merely distinct from those of politicians such as Purivatra, but positively contrary to them: concerned not with the problems of Bosnia but with the situation of Islam in the whole world, Izetbegovic wrote of nationalism as a divisive force and of Communism as an inadequate system. This anti-Communist religious revival was a small phenomenon at first, though the effects of Tito's non-aligned policy made it easier for Bosnian Muslims to make contact with the wider Muslim world and thereby stimulate the study of Islamic theology in Bosnia. More Bosnians were allowed to study at Arab universities in the 1970s, and in 1977 a Faculty of Islamic Theology was even set up (with Saudi Arabian money) at Sarajevo University.53 Such developments were far from what campaigners such as Purivatra had been striving for. Their concerns were that the Muslims of Bosnia were under-represented politically in the Communist administration of the republic, and that the republic as a whole was regarded as somehow lower in status than the other republics of Yugoslavia. This inferior treatment had come about, they felt, because Bosnia was seen as containing not a distinctive nation but merely fragments of two other nations (Serbs and Croats) and a non-nation. It was an analysis which contained a great deal of truth. Bosnia did punch below its weight in the Yugoslav federal system, and its economic development lagged far behind those of its more powerful neighbors. There had been a brief spurt of development after the break with Cominform in 1948, when Tito, preoccupied with thoughts of a Soviet invasion, had decided to locate armaments factories and other strategically important industries in the more inaccessible parts of Bosnia. This phase of planning had quickly passed, and Bosnia had been left with what one analyst has described as 'new (and often unfinished) factories established in splendid isolation from markets, roads or skilled manpower'. Relatively to the rest of Yugoslavia, Bosnia stagnated and declined during the 1950s and 1960s, with its per capita social product falling from 79 per cent of the Yugoslav average in 1953 to 75 per cent in 1957 and 69 per cent 52 53 N. Malcolm, Bosnia, Ibid, p. 200. N. Malcolm, Bosnia, Ibid, p. 201. CHAPTER 4 TITO ERA in 1965. In 1961 much of Bosnia was officially declared an under-developed region. Out of all the Yugoslav republics, Bosnia had the lowest rate of economic growth over the entire period 1952-68; Bosnia's national income, which was 20 per cent below the national average in 1947, had fallen to 38 per cent below average by 1967.29 The social statistics tell a similar story, revealing problems which were partly symptoms of economic backwardness and partly causes. By the early 1970s Bosnia had the highest infant mortality rate of any part of Yugoslavia except Kosovo; the highest illiteracy rate (except Kosovo again); the highest proportion of people whose only education was three years of primary school (except Kosovo); and the smallest proportion of people living in towns (except Kosovo). It also had by far the largest rate of net intra-Yugoslav emigration -roughly 16,000 people every year throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Most of these emigrants were Serbs going to live in Serbia. It was partly as a result of this that the Muslims overtook the Serbs in Bosnia as the largest component of the population in the mid-1960s.54 The establishment of Muslim nationhood in the late 1960s played some part in the revival of republican pride which helped to turn the Bosnian economy around. Several changes to the federal constitution during this whole period, starting with the new constitution of 1963 and ending with another rewriting of the constitution in 1974 also gave more scope for the pursuit of development policies by the individual republics; during the 1970s the Bosnian authorities were promoting some grandiose industrial projects and adding large new tower-block suburbs to their major towns. By 1980 one observer could report that Sarajevo 'appeared to be a huge public works project. The city plumbing system was being redone. main streets downtown were being dug up and repaired, tram lines were being tom up to be replaced by wider tracks', and so on.:" The immediate cause of all such activity in the Bosnian capital was of course the scheduling of the Winter Olympics there for 1984. But this new development was merely the most dramatic example of a type of work being carried out in many other parts of the republic, mainly on borrowed money. The trend towards the decentralization of Yugoslavia, which reached its high point in the constitution of 1974 was nevertheless creating more problems than it was solving. Just enough of a principle of separate national political identities was conceded to whet the appetite for more. History suggests that federations of different national entities can work successfully only if they are based on a genuinely democratic political system; but this was not the case in Communist Yugoslavia, where any striving for greater national autonomy was bound to absorb like blotting-paper all the bitter political dissatisfaction which was flowing through the whole system. It is easy to persuade one nation that it is being oppressed or connived against by another, when the whole political system in which both nations arc locked is 54 N. Malcolm, Bosnia, Ibid, p. 202. 265 266 MUSLIM BOSNIA AFTER OTTOMAN PERIOD undemocratic and intrinsically oppressive and the natural breeding-ground for all kinds of discontent is a weak and malfunctioning economy something which was also guaranteed under the Yugoslav Communist system. Indeed the malfunctioning grew generally worse as a result of the decentralizing measures of the 1960s and 1970s, since there were now redundant duplications of industries and infrastructure projects between the republics. The very worst kind of competition is the sort which happens when the competitors are operating on politically arranged loans and subsidies, and the competition itself is not made subject to the real discipline of a market.55 There were many revivals of resentful national feeling during the period from the mid-1960s to the late 1980s, some brandishing better justifications than others. The most important were those in Croatia and Serbia. In the late 1960s a number of different Croatian complaints and discontents began to coalesce: complaints about the development of an official version of the Serbo-Croat language which was dominated by the Serbian forms of words about the hold which Belgrade-based banks had on the tourist economy of Dalmatia and about a range of other economic and demographic problems." This movement to insist on the rights of Croatia, which became combined with a campaign for greater liberalization of the Yugoslav political system, was known in the West as the Croatian spring. It was essentially directed against the Serbs, but it carried over the fight onto Bosnian territory too. By 1971 a Croatian journal published an analysis of the ethnic identities of all the officials in the Bosnian administration, which demonstrated that the Croats were thoroughly under-represented. Although they were more than 20 per cent of the population, they hardly featured in important media posts such as the directorships of Sarajevo Radio and Television; all presiding judges were Serbs, and none of the directors of the various republican agencies was a Croat. Senior Bosnian politicians such as Hamdija, Pozderac replied that it should not matter what nationality an official was, provided that he worked for the benefit of the whole of Bosnia. But the competition between Croatian and Serbian nationalist concerns over Bosnia was already too strong to be fobbed off with such arguments. Already in 1969 a Serbian writer, Josip Potkozorac, had published a book arguing that the entire population of Bosnia (and of Dalmatia too) was 'really' Serb. As these arguments sputtered on through the 1970s, Croatian and Serbian nationalists started to talk openly of carving pieces of 'ethnic' territory off Bosnia and incorporating them in Croatia and Serbia respectively. No attempt was made to show that the policies of the Bosnian authorities were actively anti-Croat or anti-Serb during this period; purely statistical oppression on the one hand, and bogus ethnic history on the other, were sufficient. The only effect of these statistical arguments on the way things were done in Bosnia was that a cumbersome Quota system developed of proportional or 'one-of-each' 55 N. Malcolm, Bosnia, Ibid, p. 203. CHAPTER 4 TITO ERA appointments to public jobs, a small further contribution to economic and administrative sclerosis. The growth of Serbian nationalism was, in the end, to prove fl more destructive. On the face of it, Serbia had fewer reasons for l\ discontent than any other Yugoslav republic during the first twenty years of Communist rule. The country was governed from Belgrade again; Serbs dominated the Party and the armed forces; and for those who had lived through the war there was a strong sense that Serbia's record was morally superior to Croatia's. But Tito's post-1945 settlement had not given Serbia the sort of territorial rewards which were the customary gains of war. The whole territory of Yugoslav Macedonia was turned into a separate republic; although it had a non-Serb population, it had been conquered by Serbian armies in 1912-13 and incorporated into the Serbian kingdom under the made-up title of 'Southern Serbia'. So the change in 1945 was seen by nationalist Serbs as a theft of Serbian territory. The northern region of Vojvodina, where Serbs were less than 50 per cent of the population, had become part of the Yugoslav kingdom in 1918; Tito gave it the status of an 'autonomous province' within Serbia. This was also seen as an anti-Serbian act by some Serbs, even though Vojvodina had never been Part of Serbia itself, and the region of Kosovo with its Albanian majority, also conquered by Serbia in 1912-13, was declared by Tito to be an 'autonomous region' of Serbia. These changes rankled .with many Serbs, and outweighed in their minds the territorial gain which Serbia 'had made when Tito gave it Srem, the large eastern tip of the Croatian territory. (Tito made no change whatsoever to the historic borders between Serbia and Bosnia, which remained as It had been m the1 late Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian periods.)56 Conditions were ripe for a conspiracy theory which argued that, Tito the half-Croat, half-Slovene, had plotted against Serbia's historic interests. And such feelings grew stronger during the 1960s and early 1970s, as the frequent alterations to the constitution gave more and more administrative autonomy to Vojvodina and Kosovo until, in the 1974 constitution, they had some (but not all) of the powers of full republics, including their own representation on the main federal bodies. After the fall in 1966 of Tito's security chief, Aleksandar Ranković, who had ruled Kosovo with a rod of iron and a large number of Serb officials, the situation there changed dramatically. First there was a backlash of local Albanians against local Serbs, with anti-Serb riots in 1968 and other reported incidents of violence, and then there was a rapid 'Albanianization' of the province, during which the Serbs in Kosovo became uncomfortably aware of their own status as a small minority of the province's population. Thousands of Serbs left the province for Serbia proper; some were fleeing because they felt threatened, but many were looking for work and/or taking part in that general drift of 56 N. Malcolm, Bosnia, Ibid, p. 205. 267 268 MUSLIM BOSNIA AFTER OTTOMAN PERIOD outlying populations towards their national heartlands which, as we have seen, was affecting Bosnian Serbs too during the same period.57 The situation in Kosovo, which by the early 1980s had reached a state of permanent crisis and mi1itary occupation, became the main focus for the revival of Serbian nationalism. As early as 1968, Serbian nationalist Communists such as Dobrica Ćosić were complaining about the reversal of policy in Kosovo after Ranković's fall. 'One could witness even among the Serbian people a reignition of the old historic goal and national idea -the unification of the Serbian people into a single state', he said. This statement phrased as a warning but issued in the spirit of a threat, caused Ćosić to be expelled from the Central Committee. The fact that Ćosić also bitterly opposed the granting of national status to the Bosnian Muslims is not coincidental. Because the Kosovo Albanians were predominantly Muslim, anti-Islamic sentiment became an ever more important feature of Serbian nationalism; it had long been part of baggage of Serbian literary culture, but was now expressed in much stronger forms, as in the fiercely anti-Muslim novel Nož ('The Noj, Knife'), published by the radical nationalist Vuk Drašković in the early 1980s. The Serbian Orthodox Church also saw its opportunity to revive the sense of religious identity in the literary and political culture of the country; and the Serbs' obsessively possessive claims about Kosovo were indeed partly based on the fact that some of the Serbian Orthodox Church's oldest monasteries and church buildings, including the patriarchate itself, were located in the province. Together with a revival of Orthodoxy, there was also a revival of interest in the forbidden topic of the Četniks during the Second World War. And just as -indeed, because -the Communist policy had been too damn all the Četniks uncritically as fascist collaborators, also now the reaction of Serb nationalists was to praise them almost equally uncritically. The regime would have reason to regret its long-lasting suppression of objective historical studies of the war. Dobrica Ćosić published a novel in 1985 which featured a sympathetic portrait of the Četnik ideologist, Dragiša Vasić; and in the same year a book about the Četniks by the historian Veselin Djuretić was launched at a party hosted by the Serbian Academy of Sciences. This event was an important turning-point, a signal that Serbian nationalism could now be openly embraced by the intellectual establishment in Belgrade. In January of the following year two hundred prominent Belgrade academics and writers signed a petition which referred in hysterical terms to the 'Albanian aggression' and 'genocide' in Kosovo. All the old Serbian resentments now came to the surface: 'a rigged political trial of the Serb nation and its history has been going on for decades' it complained.58 Later in 1986 a 'Memorandum' was drawn up by then Academy of Science (or at least, by a committee of it, whose membership is known to have 57 58 N. Malcolm, Bosnia, Ibid, p. 205. N. Malcolm, Bosnia, Ibid, p. 206. CHAPTER 4 TITO ERA included Ćosić), in which grievances about Kosovo were combined with the open accusation that Tito's policies had aimed at the: weakening of Serbia. 'Nationalism', it complained, had been 'created from above’. This was a reference not to Serbian nationalism, of course, which these writers were busily helping to create from their own vantage-point, but to the national identities of Croats, Slovenes, Macedonians, Montenegrins and Bosnian Muslims. The Memorandum claimed that a sinister program of assimilation was under way in Croatia, designed to turn the Serbs there into Croats, and it also complained that ethnic Serb writers in places such as Montenegro and Bosnia were being described as writing not Serbian literature but 'Montenegrin' or 'Bosnian' literature instead. The fundamental argument of the Memorandum was that the 'Serb people' throughout Yugoslavia was a kind of primary entity, possessing a unitary set of rights and claims which transcended any mere political or geographical divisions: 'The question of the integrity of the Serb people and its culture in the whole of Yugoslavia poses itself as a crucial question for that people's survival and development. It was the pursuit of that 'integrity' which would eventually destroy Yugoslavia, and bring about the destruction of Bosnia too.59 With this climate of opinion developing in Serbia during the 1970s and early 1980s, there was an increasing sensitivity on the part of the authorities in Bosnia towards any expressions of the Muslim religious revival which might seem to have political implications. The Bosnian republican government was not acting, it must be said, in the new spirit of anti-Muslim Serbian nationalism. On the contrary, it was trying to preserve the official Communist policy which aimed at the eventual withering away of any religious element in national identity. It was therefore as much alarmed by any signs of religiously-motivated politics among the Muslims as it was by the new alliance of nationalism and Orthodoxy among the Serbs and could see that any growth in the former would supply ammunition to the latter. Members of the Muslim clergy in Bosnia were becoming more outspoken in their criticisms of the Communist system; and after the Iranian revolution of 1979 there were stories of pictures of the Ayatollah Khomeini being seen posted in Bosnian windows, which caused an extra frisson of alarm. Although it was their own 'non-aligned' policy which had lifted Islam out of the doldrums in Bosnia and increased its contacts with the rest of the Muslim world, the authorities now decided to act against any further growth in popularity of the Islamic faith. In 1979 one Muslim Communist, Derviš Šušić was encouraged to publish in the Sarajevo newspaper Oslobođenje a series of extracts from a book he was writing which exposed the collaboration of senior members of the Muslim clergy with the Ustaša and the Germans during the Second World War. When Šušić was attacked for this by the official publication of the Islamic community, Preporod, he was publicly defended by one of the leading spokesmen of official policy on 59 N. Malcolm, Bosnia, Ibid, p. 207. 269 270 MUSLIM BOSNIA AFTER OTTOMAN PERIOD religion, Professor and Muhić of Sarajevo University. The most senior Muslim Communist politician, Hamdija Pozderac, also joined the fray, launching several public attacks on what he called 'Pan-Islamism'.60 It was against this background that the most famous clampdown on Muslim activists in Bosnia took place: the trial in Sarajevo in 1983 of thirteen people charged with 'hostile and counterrevolutionary acts derived from Muslim nationalism'. The leading defendant was Alija Izetbegović, an administrative official with the Bosnian railways, who had completed his Islamic Declaration thirteen years previously. He and three others of the accused had all been members of the 'Young Muslims' organization which had opposed the Communist attack on Islam at the end of the Second World War. This was raked up against them, and they were accused of reviving the aims of a 'terrorist' organization. Izetbegović was also accused, for good means, advocating the introduction of Western-style parliamentary democracy. The main piece of evidence was the text of the Islamic Declaration, which according to the prosecution was a manifesto for the creation of an ethnically pure Muslim Bosnian state. Izetbegovic pointed out that the text said nothing about making Bosnia ethnically pure, and indeed that it contained no reference to Bosnia at all; but such details did not detain the court, which sentenced him to fourteen years' imprisonment, reduced on appeal to eleven years. This crackdown had an intimidating effect on Muslim religious activism in Bosnia, and for a while strengthened the position of the senior Muslim Communists, such as Hamdija Pozderac, who could be content with the idea of Muslim national identity so Ion as it remained essentially secular. But it was not long before this form of Muslim politics was also undermined, by a spectacular business scandal which brought about Pozderac's own downfall. The scandal involved an enterprise in the north-western comer of Bosnia, called Agrokomerc, which started off as a poultry-farming business in the 1960s and grew from there. Indeed, under its charismatic director, Fikret Abdić, it grew so much that by 1987 it was employing 13,000 people in the region and was one of the thirty largest enterprises in Yugoslavia. The secret of its growth was that it had issued promissory notes, at high rates of interest, without the backing of any collateral -something which was possible so long as the notes were endorsed by the official stamp of the local bank. (The stamp had apparently been handed over to Agrokomerc, to save the bother of having to take the notes to the bank.) This was not an untypical story of the way things were done in Yugoslavia: the only unusual thing about it was the sheer scale of the operation, involving as it did promissory notes worth as much as $500 million. As one senior Belgrade banker put it, 'All the top bankers and politicians must have known that Agrokomerc was overspending. What Abdić did is done everywhere. His only mistake was in going too far.. Equally, everyone knew that senior members of the Bosnian 60 N. Malcolm, Bosnia, Ibid, p. 208. CHAPTER 4 TITO ERA government were connected with the enterprise, including Pozderac, whose brother Hakija was on the Agrokomerc payroll as a consultant. Abdić himself was a member of the Bosnian Central Committee; he was now dismissed. Pozderac held a far more prestigious post, that of Vice-President of Yugoslavia; he eventually resigned, though still protesting his innocence. Abdić in particular remained a very popular figure among ordinary Muslims, who felt that he had tried hard to bring employment and prosperity to a very poor area of Bosnia. Many were convinced that the whole affair had been manipulated from Belgrade as a way of cutting down some of the most prominent Muslim politicians. Pozderac himself had been in line to become President of Yugoslavia; he had also been chairing the Constitutional Committee, working on a new revision to the constitution which, it was believed in Belgrade, would be 'anti-Serbian' in the changes it made. Certainly it was pressure from Serbian newspapers, notably Borba that had forced Pozderac to resign. The consequence of the affair was devastating for the economy of the whole north-western region of Bosnia, with its mainly Muslim population.61 In two ways this whole episode symbolized the malaise which was affecting Bosnia and the whole of Yugoslavia by the middle of the 1980s. First there was the general breakdown of a ramshackle economic system which had only been able to boom on borrowed money. The country was littered with giant factories which would have run at a loss even without the interest payments on the loans which had financed their creation. At Zvornik in eastern Bosnia, for example, there was the largest alumina plant in Europe, employing 4000 workers. It was built there, financed by foreign loans, to process the local bauxite; once it was in operation the managers discovered that the local bauxite was not of good enough quality, and by 1987 they were having to import bauxite from Africa instead. The whole Titoist economic system -which has been aptly described as self-Mismanagement' -was in a state of terminal decline, with a steep and steady fall in real wages and a rise in absenteeism and strikes. When the Bosnian Croat leader Branko Mikulić was appointed Prime Minister of the federal government in 1986, he promised to implement far-reaching economic reforms to bring the inflation rate down to 20 per cent. Some austerity measures were introduced, which contributed to the general unpopularity of the government and the federal system, but the major structural reforms never materialized, and the government spent months instead on deciding such matters as whether It could raise the limit for private employment to ten employees per enterprise. Meanwhile inflation rose to 120 per cent in 1987 and 250 per cent in 1988. By the end of that year, Yugoslavia's total foreign debt came to $33 billion, of which $20 billion was repayable in hard currencies to the West." In this way, the long-term legacy of Tito's economic policies had been to create an 61 N. Malcolm, Bosnia, Ibid, p. 209. 271 272 MUSLIM BOSNIA AFTER OTTOMAN PERIOD increasingly discontented and impoverished population the perfect place for demagogues to work, stirring up the politics of resentment. The second way in which the Agrokomerc affair symbolized the state of Yugoslavia generally was in what it revealed about the entire class of senior Communist politicians. For decades most of the country had been ruled by local dynasties, political families which had done well out of the war and had been promoted early on to positions where they could develop networks of personal patronages. Those who had fought with the Partisans could expect to share the fruits of power with Tito for the rest of their lifetimes. (As one Yugoslav joke put it: 'What is the difference between Yugoslavia and the USA?' Answer: 'In the USA you work for forty years, and then become President for four; in Yugoslavia you fight for four years and then become President for forty.') The Pozderac family was the most prominent example of this in Bosnia: since the eldest brother, Nurija had joined Tito in 1941, the political future of-the entire family was assured. The leading Bosnian Serb politician during the 1970s and 1980s, Milanko Renovica, was also trading on his war record, having been one of the few pro-Partisan Serbs in a predominantly pro-Četnik area. This system worked as an overlapping set of medieval dukedoms, with networks of influence and patronage extending outwards from these privileged individuals through all areas of life. At its most benign, like any system of patronage, it could give assistance and promotion to deserving individuals; but the whole system was intrinsically corrupt. It was also stagnating, as the generation which had fought in the war passed its retirement age. A new generation of people who had worked their way up through the post-war Communist hierarchy was now maneuvering for power, and the general political stagnation and economic decline made it easy for them to find levers with which to remove those who stood above them. The disillusionment of ordinary Yugoslavs was almost universal. For many, this took the form of a withdrawal from any kind of political life. At the 1987 conference of the Bosnian League of Communists the main complaint -somewhat primly phrased -was that 'there is an increasing tendency for young people to exhibit passivity, indifference and neutrality, reflecting their dissatisfaction with current conditions.5 But elsewhere in Yugoslavia, as the economy collapsed, stronger emotions were aroused.62 In July 1988 thousands of factory workers demonstrated in Belgrade against the Mikulić government's austerity measures. Later that summer, mass demonstrations took place against the local Party bosses in Vojvodina and Montenegro, eventually forcing the resignation of the entire Politburos in both places in October 1988 and January 1989 respectively. This popular pressure had been carefully organized and promoted by the new leader of the Serbian Communists, Slobodan Milosevic, who was now able to replace 62 N. Malcolm, Bosnia, Ibid, p. 211. CHAPTER 4 TITO ERA those Politburos with his own supporters. What Milosevic had done was to hijack the genuine discontentments of ordinary Vojvodinans and Montenegrins -including some frustration with the whole Communist system as such -and put it to his own uses. At the same time he was putting strong pressure on the Communist hierarchy in Kosovo, aiming at a similar transformation there from opposition to client status; and the fact that the local Albanians resisted this pressure from Belgrade made it easy for him to portray the operation in nationalist terms as a defense of Serbian national interests against the perfidious Albanians. In March 1989 the Serbian Assembly passed, at his request, constitutional amendments which abolished the political autonomy of Kosovo and Vojvodina: this provoked mass demonstrations and a general strike in Kosovo, which were crushed by the Serbian security forces. All the pieces of the jigsaw were now in place. There was an ambitious politician in Belgrade who had learnt the methods of Communist power-politics as he worked his way up the system; there was general economic malaise and discontent, which made people yearn for decisive leadership; and the ideology of Serb nationalism, so long frustrated, was now finding an expression in a policy which 'restored' Vojvodina and Kosovo to Serbian control. Two processes seemed fused into one: the gathering of power into Milosevic's hands, and the gathering of. the Serbs into a single political unit which could either dominate Yugoslavia or break it apart.63 4.6 The Islamic Community during the war A particular problem arose at this time in relation to the fate of the Islamic Community. The Ustaša authorities tried in vain to win political support for their regime from the official ilmija and Islamic Community leadership. The ilmija, however, acting through their association, publicly distanced themselves from the activities of Akif Handžić, the "Ustaša mufti" with the rank of colonel, and a number of tabor imams (military chaplains) in the NDH armed forces. In February 1942, the Reis ul-ulema of the Islamic Community, Fehim ef. Spaho, died suddenly, which provoked a crisis within the Community. Islamic Organizations under Tito After the serious war losses and suffering (the material losses of the waqf property as well), the religious life in the country started being revived. 63 N. Malcolm, Bosnia, Ibid, p. 212. 273 274 MUSLIM BOSNIA AFTER OTTOMAN PERIOD After the war, there were some consolidations and the new IVZ Constitution started being drafted and was, finally, adopted during the Supreme Waqf Assembly on August 26th 1947 in Sarajevo.64 The majority of influential Muslim citizens, however, were of the opinion that a new Reis should not be elected until the war was over, and their view prevailed. As a result, Prof. Salih Bašić was elected for the second time as naib ul reis (deputy Reis ul-ulema), in which post he remained until 1947, when Ibrahim ef. Fejić was properly elected as Reis ul-ulema. The first after-the-war Grand Mufti, ef. Ibrahim Fejić was elected according to this Constitution on September 12th 1947. The ceremony and inauguration for the first time in The Office of Grand Mufti history took place in Begova rather than in Careva Mosque in Sarajevo. Ef. Ibrahim Fejić worked on improving IVZ in the new setting of religious freedom, freedom of thought and separation of the state and religion. There was a gap between the actual situation and the norms, and that is why the tasks Fejić and those Grand Mufties that followed him, ef. Sulejman Kemura and ef. Hadžiabdić Naim, were neither easy nor simple. Regardless of the difficulties within the state and IC itself, during the four decades (1947-1987), these Grand Mufties managed to make the religious life of Muslims, the education, culture and publishing flourish. Therefore, the Islamic Religious Community proved itself to be the first and the essential, not only religious, but also cultural and educational institution of all the BH Muslims. The 1947 Constitution was changed and amended on several occasions (January 16th 1949, April 12th 1950, December 4th 1955). The new Constitution was adopted in Priština on November 5th 1969 and IVZ (Islamic Religious Community) was now officially called Islamic Community only, since they concluded that the very term 'Islamic' refers to religion. According to this Constitution, IC consisted of boards, as the basic units, and the mufti was the highest representative. Higher units were assemblies and seniorities. The Assembly is the highest unit of IC in the republic, and the Seniority is its executive branch. There are four assemblies and four seniorities. The Sarajevo Assembly (30 members) covered the region of B&H, Croatia and Slovenia. The Assembly in Priština consisting of 29 members was running IC in the so-called 'narrow Serbia', Kosovo and Vojvodina. As for Montenegro, the Assembly in Titograd had 26 members.65 64 O. Nakičević, Istorijski razvoj institucije Rijaseta (The Historical Development of the Institution of the Riyasat in Bosnia and Herzegovina), Sarajevo, 1996. P.36. CHAPTER 4 TITO ERA Once the caliphate in Istanbul seized to exist (1924.), Bosniaks formally united with other Muslims in Kingdom of Yugoslavia, found new source of legitimacy for institutions of Reis ul-Ulema in 1930. Constitution of Islamic Religious Community (Islamska Vjerska Zajednica) in Kingdom of Yugoslavia adopted on 9th July1930 declared that special body constituted of distinguished members of national Muslim communities is to issue document (a letter) of inauguration for newly chosen Reis ul-Ulema until “valid caliphate is reestablished”. Ef. Sulejman Kemura has been appointed Grand Mufti al-Ulama Ef. Sulejman Kemura has been appointed Grand Mufti al-Ulama by the Supreme Waqf Council, and his authorization letter is given by Board for Manshurat, instead of Sheikh ul-Islam in Istanbul. Here is the translation of this manshura: In the Name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate Gratitude to Allah who created human life and life in general, who gave it a firm basis and made it be according to fixed regulations, who gave us Sharia that corresponds to these regulations and the very nature of human life, who gave us ratio and faith, thus placing us to the highest place, to have superiority over other species, and, who ordered men in His Holy Book to entrust people with tasks in which they are professional so that they could keep their high position and remain within the boundaries of God's laws: Allah commands you to deliver trusts to those worthy of them; (4/58) Peace be upon Allah's Messenger who directed us by his word and action to the most solemn methods of struggle in the path of God and the methods of applying these orders and implementing the perfect ideal of Islam. May peace and blessings be bestowed upon the Prophet's companions who serve us as the best role-models on the way of achieving welfare and improving religion and morality of Muslims. To His Highness, Hajji Ef. Sulejman Kemura, Grand Mufti al-Ulama of the Islamic Community of the People's Republic of Yugoslavia: Having in mind that Muslims are members of one Islamic community represented by its religious leader (Grand Mufti) and that the leader of Muslims in Yugoslavia would, in the past, be granted the Manshurat (Authorization) by the Istanbul Mashihat, and due to the fact that there is no Caliph now (and the Islamic regulations require the Manshurat to be granted), the Senior Waqf Assembly, the highest representative body of the 65 O. Nakičević, Ibid, p.38. 275 276 MUSLIM BOSNIA AFTER OTTOMAN PERIOD Islamic Community in the People's Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, appoints, according to Point 2, Paragraph 31 of the FNR IC Constitution via a special electoral body (authorization- left out), His Highness, Ef. Sulejman Kemura, Grand Mufti al-Ulama. Ef. Sulejman Kemura has been appointed Grand Mufti al-Ulama by the Supreme Waqf Council on November 15th 1957 and is asked to responsibly take over the duties of Grand Mufti al-Ulama according to the Qur'an doctrine and the Law of our country. He is also responsible for taking care (in the text: ittihama- which means 'to sue' instead of ihtamma- 'to take care of') of increasing the morality awareness in the Islamic Community of FPR Yugoslavia. He is also especially responsible for the following duties: - to issue authorisation to the Majelis Ulama members and the members of the Islamic Seniority - issues khatib autorhisation to mosque imams, - gives announcements and necessary commentary on religious matters, determines general directions of the religious life of Muslims in Yugoslavia, and - monitors and controls religious life By granting you with this Manshurat, we believe that You will invest all Your efforts to ensure progress for the Muslims of FPR of Yugoslavia and that You will direct all your attention to their religious and moral life. We are asking Allah Almighty to help You in performing Your high duties and great responsibility and to give You strength in Your activities for the Islamic Community welfare, progress, joy and the common good for our country. Sarajevo (Saray Bosna), Jumad-al-Ula 16th 1377. h./December 8th 1957. The members of the Board for Manshurat: 1. Sulejman Filipović 2. Kurt Muhammed Šefket 3. Hadži Murat Šećeragić 4. Fahri Ilijas and 5. Hafiz Ali Ibrahim66 Communist Yugoslavia, Dissolution of IVZ (Islamic Religious Community) of SFRY and formation of new ICs in Serbia and Montenegro In the former federal Yugoslavia, authority over the Muslim community was dispersed among four different councils, or meshihats, which covered the six 66 O. Nakičević, Ibid, p.182. CHAPTER 4 TITO ERA republics and two autonomous provinces. This structure was centralized with one Reis ul-Ulema resident in Sarajevo. The Mešihat for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Slovenia had its residence in Sarajevo; that for Serbia, including Kosovo and Vojvodina, was based in Priština; Montenegro's was based in Podgorica (or Titograd at that time) and Macedonia's was in Skopje. After the break apart of Yugoslavia and escalation of war in Croatia and B&H came the dissolution of Islamic Religious Community. Renewal Sabor (Assembly) was held in Sarajevo in 1993, which was at that time under siege of Serbian forces, which was to reestablish autonomy in religious affairs among Bosniak people and in their newly recognized motherland Bosnia. Today’s IC of B&H is organized according to the 1997 constitution which clearly states that the IC is the sole and united community of Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina, of Bosniaks outside their homeland, and of other Muslims who accept it as their own (Article I). It is this exact Article which creates the legal framework for those who argue that all Bosniak Muslims should be organized in one IC whether it is Sandžak or Bosniak Diaspora in Europe or even USA. Similar scenario followed in other former Yugoslav republics including Sandžak which had its own Constitutional assembly of Mešihat. Very important meeting which has much to do with today’s struggle for legitimacy between two ICs in Serbia was held in Istanbul in December 1994. The meeting was attended by representatives of newly formed Islamic Communities which have been constituted after the dissolution of IRC in SFRY. Representatives from IC in B&H (who had consent to represent Mešihats from Slovenia and Croatia as well), Montenegro, Kosovo and Macedonia were present. The only representative of Muslims in Serbia in that meeting was from Mešihat of IC in Sandzak as part (Mešihat) of Islamic Community of B&H. All the participants of Istanbul meeting signed a declaration in which all of them recognize each other and reaffirm that the new formed ICs are legal successors of IVZ in SFRY. Argument which Zukorlić is very often making is that by refusing to attend and to sign Istanbul’s Declaration, Mufti of Belgrade Muhamed Jusufspahić lost his legitimacy and cannot be considered as someone who is officially representing Muslims. Subsequently, four Islamic communities serving Serbia's (estimated) 230,000 Muslims outside Sandzak have emerged in Serbia at that time. One serves Vojvodina, under Fadil Murati. Two emerged in the Albanian districts of South Serbia, one formed in 2003 under Xhemail Hasani, the other led by Mumin Tahiri still recognizes the authority of the Kosovo Rijaset. The fourth, covering Serbia proper was headed by the Belgrade Mufti, Hamdija Jusufspahić. 277 278 MUSLIM BOSNIA AFTER OTTOMAN PERIOD Mešihat of Islamic Community in Serbia has been formed in Sandžak on 30th October 1993. In Novi Pazar as a logical chain of events after the Islamic Religious Community of SFRY (IVZ) has been dismantled. On that day constitutional gathering of Sabor was held and Muamer ef. Zukorlić has been chosen as president of Mešihat of Islamic Community in Serbia as well as Sandžak`s Mufti. The Mešihat that was consisted on that day as a part of Rijaset of IC in B&H is consisted of president and eight members. The members are chosen by IC`s Congress (Sabor) after being recommended by president of Mešihat himself. During Milošević’s time and in the years that follow the status quo has remained. Mešihat of IC in Sandžak as part of Rijaset of IC in B&H which according to its official sources has 120 mosques under its jurisdiction, 33 of them in Medžlis Novi Pazar, was operating parallel with other smaller organizations including one ran by Mufti Jusufspahić. But situation will soon change as independence of Montenegro, state laws and situation on the ground forced unification of all Muslims in Serbia under one legal umbrella as reality. On the day of elections held in IC in Serbia on Sunday 22nd June 2008. Mešihats press service in Novi Pazar released statement stating that elections are held in 180 džemat all around Serbia, including Belgrade Muftiluk. So today the wing of Islamic community in Serbia (Islamska zajednica u Srbiji), based in Novi Pazar, administered by Mufti Muamer Zukorlić, includes: Islamic community in Sandžak (Islamska zajednica u Sandžaku), based in Novi Pazar, administered by Mufti Muamer Zukorlić. Islamic community in Vojvodina (Islamska zajednica u Vojvodini), based in Novi Sad, administered by Mufti Fadil Murati. Islamic community in Preševo Valley (Islamska zajednica u Preševskoj Dolini), based in Preševo. Islamic community in Central Serbia (Islamska zajednica u Centralnoj Srbiji), based in Belgrade.67 67 M. Jusić, The split within Islamic Community in Sandzak, ISEEF Conference, Administration of Islamic Affairs in Secular States: Southeast European Experience Sarajevo, 17–19 April 2009. Mehmet Can Izmir/1943-