Brcko: art as a commitment to peace.

• Author: Sommers, William
• Position: Brcko, Bosnia-Herzegovina

Though my overseas entanglements came to an end via assignment to the independent district of Brcko in Bosnia-Herzegovina, I have great memories and still maintain ties with a number of Brcko's residents with whom I worked. But the best of those is when we created a remarkable art show that I fell into and found myself inundated, then determined, and definitely surprised at the outcome. This tale needs a little background.

What and where is Brcko? Brcko ("Birchko" in its Americanized pronunciation) is currently an independent government district on the Sava River, within the boundaries of the Dayton directed reconstituted Bosnia-Herzegovina. Brcko was once a small town and historically part of Bosnia-Herzegovina. In 1939, however, it was attached to Croatia. During the Nazi occupation, the Croatian Ustashi killed many Serbians and Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) who lived in and around Brcko. During the 1991-1995 wars it was a very dangerous place which was taken early by the Serbs and became a kind of corridor that linked two other pieces of Serb-held territory.

Because of its location and mix of Serb, Croats and Bosniaks, Brcko's disposition became a sticking point in the Dayton war-ending negotiations. As Richard Holbrook wrote in To End a War, Brcko was one the four "big issues" important to a complete peace agreement on the structure of a new government and its jurisdictional mapping, namely, "Sarajevo, Brcko, the Posavina Corridor and the Posavina pocket ... " However, Holbrook via his fierce and dedicated pursuance of agreement was able to convince Milosovic to mitigate the Brcko situation when the Dayton Agreement was in serious jeopardy. As push came to shove Milosovic, on November 21, 1995 agreed "to arbitration for Brcko one year from now." Thus its jurisdiction was excluded from the details of the Dayton Treaty and held in abeyance for one year. In the interim an arbitrator, chosen by the United States and its collaborating partners in the Dayton Agreement, would determine Brcko's final status.

However, the one-year deadline stretched into three and in March 1999, Robert Owens, the arbitrator, made, as Holbrook notes, "the long-awaited ruling on the "town" of Brcko awarding it neither to the Federation nor to the Serbs. Rather he established a special zone: The "Brcko District." Its original area was expanded by adding the adjacent areas of Brcko Ravne (Croatian) and Federation Brka (Bosniak), thus achieving a mixed population of the once warring peoples. The expanded District now covered about 80 square kilometers with an estimated population of some 90,000. The population breakdown in the late 90s was 50% Bosnian Muslims, 30% Croats and 20% Serbs. However, current data shows some interesting changes: 45% Serbs, 40% Bosnian Muslims and 15% Croats.

The district would be administered under the direction of the central government. In actual practice, however, Brcko District was put under the wing of The Office of the High Representative (OHR), the major authoritative representative of the peace-making countries via the Dayton Agreement, residing in Sarajevo. Brcko was, in turn, to be "overseen" by the Deputy High Representative, whose office and staff was housed in Brcko and who was designated as the "Supervisor of Brcko."

The United States, heavily involved in these negotiations, committed considerable funding and technical personnel to the enhancement of the Dayton Agreement, not to mention the supporting US troops - and those of other countries - that were available should serious defections in the implementation of the agreements raise their uncooperative heads. For Brcko, the U. S. via the USAID office in Sarajevo contributed advisory personnel and technical support to hasten the organization and effective implementation of its short and long-term survival. One of the most "hands-on" programs for this...