Abstract
This chapter covers the period between 1990 and 1992, when the hotel became more frequently utilised as a political space, for the launch of political parties and political gatherings. This chapter focuses on the formation of these parties, such as Alija Izetbegović’s SDA and Radovan Karadžić’s SDS, framed within the context of the first multiparty elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina in November 1990, the wars in Slovenia and Croatia in 1991, and the subsequent disintegration of the Yugoslav state.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Notes
- 1.
Neven Andjelić, Bosnia-Herzegovina: The End of a Legacy, p. 135.
- 2.
The leaders of the nascent SDA were not the only ‘prestigious’ guests in the hotel on that day. The British heavy metal band ‘Motorhead’ were also guests (they played at Zetra on 27 March 1990), though they were almost certainly unaware of the gravity of political events that were taking place in the hotel on that day.
- 3.
All of the conference halls in the Holiday Inn were named after rivers in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Vrbas, Una, Neretva, and Drina.
- 4.
Tanjug Domestic Service, Belgrade, FBIS-LD270323490, 27 March 1990. For an analysis of the formation of the SDA in the Sandžak region, see Kenneth Morrison & Elizabeth Roberts, The Sandžak: A History, London: Hurst & Co, 2013, pp. 134–139.
- 5.
For a detailed analysis of the trial see Rajko Danilović, Sarajevski proces 1983, Tuzla: Bosanka riječ, 2006.
- 6.
Noel Malcolm, Bosnia: A Short History, Pan-MacMillan, 1994, p. 208. Malcolm goes on to note that ‘The treatise, written in the late 1960s, is a general treatise that on politics and Islam, addressed to the whole Muslim world; it is not about Bosnia and does not even mention Bosnia.’ See Ibid, p. 219.
- 7.
For the full text of the SDA’s ‘Statement of the Forty’, see Alija Izetbegović, Inescapable Questions: Autobiographical Notes, Leicester: The Islamic Foundation, 2003, pp. 66–74.
- 8.
Alija Izetbegović, Inescapable Questions: Autobiographical Notes, p. 75.
- 9.
Adil Zulfikarpašić (in dialogue with Milovan Djilas and Nadežda Gaće), The Bosniak, London: Hurst & Co., 1998, p. 130.
- 10.
Demokratija, Belgrade, 13 October 1990, p. 4.
- 11.
Born in Foča in the then Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Adil Zulfikarpašić was the descendant of a longline of prominent Muslim beys (lords). He was a member of the Yugoslav Communist Party during the Second World War, and was, in 1942, arrested and jailed in Sarajevo by the Ustaše. Upon his release, he became a prominent member of the party, and was awarded the post of Deputy Minister for Trade. However, he gradually became disillusioned with Tito and fled Yugoslavia for exile in Switzerland in 1946. He returned to Bosnia in 1990 and was a key early member of the SDA. See Adil Zulfikarpašić, The Bosniak, London: Hurst & Co., 1998.
- 12.
Tanjug Domestic Service, Belgrade, FBIS-LD2705131490, 26 May 1990. For Brožović’s speech at the SDA meeting see also Neven Andjelić, Bosnia-Herzegovina: The End of a Legacy, p. 163.
- 13.
During a meeting of the Assembly of the SDS on 24 October 1991, Dr Dragan Djukanović reminded the audience that ‘The sufferings of Serbs in Bosnia were actually prepared when the HDZ-BiH was formed. What many assumed would happen was confirmed by Mr. Brožović at the founding of the Party of Democratic Action, across the street from here in the Holiday Inn hotel in late May last year. You remember very well that he said that Croatia would be defended on the River Drina, and his speech received frenetic applause.’ See ‘Serbian Democratic Party of Bosnia & Herzegovina: Stenograph of the constituting session of the Assemble of the Serbian People in Bosnia and Herzegovina’, 24 October 1991, UN-ICTY Doc No. SA02-2055-SA02-2164/SA01-2055-SA01-2164/MP, p. 28.
- 14.
Mario Pejić, HVO Sarajevo, Sarajevo: Libertas, 2008, p. 17.
- 15.
According to Stjepan Kljuić, he was replaced by Boban because he would not execute ‘this dirty mission of the partition of Bosnia and Herzegovina’. Speaking of Boban, he said, ‘Boban, who was anonymous in the HDZ, never gave us a single speech at [HDZ] meetings. He was a deputy in our parliament [but] he was known for the fact that he was the only one who kept silent’ (Kljuić suggests this was the case because Boban possessed an ‘inferiority complex’). See Transcript of interview with Stjepan Kljuić, in ‘Death of Yugoslavia Archive’, 3/39, UBIT, 035-038, p. 3.
- 16.
For an excellent and detailed assessment of Radovan Karadžić’s political life, see Robert Donia, Radovan Karadžić: Architect of the Bosnian Genocide, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. See also Nick Hawton, The Quest for Radovan Karadžić, London: Hutchinson, 2009. For a more sympathetic assessment see Lijlijana Bulatović (ed.), Radovan, Belgrade: EVRO, 2002.
- 17.
Neven Andjelić, Bosnia-Herzegovina: The End of a Legacy, p. 163.
- 18.
Naši Dani, Sarajevo, 20 July 1990, p. 12. See also Neven Andjelić, Bosnia-Herzegovina: The End of a Legacy, p. 166.
- 19.
Radovan Karadžić always played up to his family name, on occasion implying that he was directly related to the Serbian linguist who codified the Serbian language. Commenting on footage of Karadžić from a BBC documentary entitled ‘Serbian Epics’, the Serbian sociologist, Ivan Čolović noted that ‘Karadžić can be seen in Vuk’s house in his birthplace of Tršić [Serbia] demonstrating his skill in the playing the gusle [a traditional Serbian instrument—though it is played by other nations in the Balkans]. But the strongest part of this film is a scene in which the Karadžić of our day points to a portrait of the old Karadžić, asking us to note a detail which discloses the remarkable working of the genes: a dimple on the chin of the old Karadžić which is identical to the one embellishing the chin of his professed descendant.’ See Ivan Čolović, The Politics of Symbol in Serbia, London: Hurst & Co., 2002, p. 17.
- 20.
Robert Donia, Radovan Karadžić: Architect of the Bosnian Genocide, p. 27.
- 21.
Ibid, p. 27.
- 22.
For the emergence and consolidation of the Montenegrin state in the nineteenth century, see Kenneth Morrison, Montenegro: A Modern History, London: IB Tauris, 2009, pp. 18–38, and Elizabeth Roberts, Realm of the Black Mountain: A History of Montenegro, London: Hurst & Co., 2007, pp. 186–250.
- 23.
For the poetry of Njegoš see Andrew Wachtel, Making a Nation, Breaking a Nation: Literature and Cultural Politics in Yugoslavia, California: Stanford University Press, 1998 and Edward D. Goy, The Sabre and the Song: Njegoš, the Mountain Wreath, Belgrade: PEN Serbia, 1995. For a biography of Njegoš see Milovan Djilas, Njegoš, London: Harcourt, 1966.
- 24.
Monitor, Podgorica, 23 August 2008, p. 14.
- 25.
Robert Donia, Radovan Karadžić: Architect of the Bosnian Genocide, p. 32.
- 26.
Ibid, p. 40
- 27.
Srebrov would later say that when the SDS was formed he believed that the party would evolve into a civic party. ‘I was’, he said, ‘too much of an optimist because I believed that the nationalist phase would last only for a short time and that SDS would transform itself in a civic party which would support the development of Bosnia & Herzegovina into a secular, civic state’. See Vreme, Belgrade, 30 October 1995, p. 16.
- 28.
In a 1994 interview, the SDP leader, Zlatko Lagumdžija, claimed that Karadžić, while the symbolic head of the SDS, was not the real power within it. According to Lagumdžija, that honour belonged to the historian and head of the SDS Political Council, Milorad Ekmečić. ‘We knew’, said Lagumdžija, ‘that Ekmečić was the man behind the strategy of the [SDS] project. At one moment he said [to] forget about what Karadžić is saying, because he has no right to say it…it was quite an unusual situation’. See Transcript of interview with Zlatko Lagumdžija, in ‘Death of Yugoslavia Archive’, 3/47, UBIT 046-048-297, p. 2.
- 29.
See, for example, an early interview given to the Belgrade weekly NIN in July 1990. The nationalist tone is certainly present, but the language is rather moderate in comparison to many of his later interviews. See NIN, Belgrade, 17 September 1990, pp. 10–16.
- 30.
Edina Bećirević, Genocide on the Drina River, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2014, p. 52.
- 31.
NIN, Belgrade, 17 September 1990, p. 14.
- 32.
For an overview of the pre-election campaigns and the predictions in advance of the elections, see Neven Andjelić, Bosnia-Herzegovina: The End of a Legacy, pp. 156–184.
- 33.
Suad Arnautović, Izbori u Bosni i Hercegovini ‘90: Analaiza izborni procesa, Sarajevo: Promocult, 1996, p. 112. The victory of the nationalist parties came as a shock to many observers, though Zoran Pajić noted that ‘After so many years of a comfortable collective identity within the [Yugoslav] system, the common man was simply unprepared to take on the responsibility to exercise his individual freedom. The easiest option was therefore to seek another form of collective identity, another protective shield against the confusion. This was nationalism. Many politicians quickly realised that the nationalist ticket was a lifeboat for them also. It was an instrument for the homogenisation of people and the creation of the constituency that, in the one-party system, they had never had.’ See Zoran Pajić, ‘Bosnia-Herzegovina: From Multi-ethnic Co-existence to “Apartheid”…and Back’, in Payam Akhavan (ed.), Yugoslavia: The Former and the Future—Reflections by Scholars from the Region, The Brookings Institute, Washington, and the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, Geneva, 1995, p. 153.
- 34.
According to Zlatko Lagumdžija, the then leader of the SDP, the three ruling parties were very antagonistic in their differing perception of the future of Bosnia and Herzegovina and that this required the opposition to act as moderators. ‘I must admit’, he said, ‘it sounds ridiculous that the opposition party is a moderator between the ruling parties, but we tried exactly that’. See Transcript of interview with Zlatko Lagumdžija, in ‘Death of Yugoslavia Archive’, 3/47, UBIT 046-048-297, p. 1.
- 35.
Neven Andjelić, Bosnia-Herzegovina: The End of a Legacy, p. 197.
- 36.
The entire ‘Yutel za mir’ concert can be found on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sx2Hl0xeliI [last accessed 19 June 2015].
- 37.
During an SDS meeting at the Holiday Inn on 21 December 1991, Karadžić insisted that ‘We have the right to prevent anyone on the territories where we conducted our referendum to secede from Yugoslavia. In all the territories where Serbs took part in the referendum, regardless of whether they make 5 % or 55 % of the population, they are a constituent element of that town or that Republic. All the territories where we voted in our referendum to remain within Yugoslavia must stay within Yugoslavia if we decide so.’ 4th SDS Session, 21 December 1991, in Robert Donia, Iz Skupštine Republike Srpske 1991–1996: Izvodi iz izlaganja poslanika skupštine Republike Srpske kao dokazni material ns medjunarodnom krivičnom tribunal u Hagu, Sarajevo: University Press, 2012, p. 32.
- 38.
For a detailed analysis of the creation of SAO’s and the SDS encirclement of Sarajevo, see Robert Donia, Sarajevo: A Biography, pp. 264–274.
- 39.
The Times, London, 24 December 1991, p. 6.
- 40.
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), CIA Directorate of Intelligence Memorandum: Bosnia and Herzegovina on the Edge of the Abyss, 19 December 1991, Document No. (FOIA)/ESDN (CREST): 5235e50c9329405d174d7.
- 41.
Geert-Hinrich Ahrnes, Diplomacy on the Edge: Containment of Ethnic Conflict and the Minorities Working Group of the Conferences on Yugoslavia, Washington: Wilson Centre Press, 2008, p. 203.
- 42.
Edina Bećirević, Genocide on the Drina River, p. 53.
References
Ahrens, G. H. (2008). Diplomacy on the Edge: Containment of Ethnic Conflict and the Minorities Working Group of the Conferences on Yugoslavia. Washington: Wilson Centre Press.
Arnautović, S. (1996). Izbori u Bosni i Hercegovini ’90: Analaiza izborni procesa. Sarajevo: Promocult.
Bulatović, L. (Ed.) (2002). Radovan. Belgrade: EVRO.
Čolović, I. (2002). The Politics of Symbol in Serbia. London: Hurst & Co..
Donia, R. J. (2015). Radovan Karadžić: Architect of the Bosnian Genocide. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hawton, N. (2009). The Quest for Radovan Karadžić. London: Hutchinson.
Izetbegović, A. (2003). Inescapable Questions: Autobiographical Notes (pp. 66–74). Leicester: The Islamic Foundation.
Malcolm, N. (1994). Bosnia: A Short History. London: MacMillan Press.
Morrison, K., & Roberts, E. R. (2013). The Sandžak: A History. London: Hurst & Co..
Pejić, M. (2008). HVO Sarajevo. Sarajevo: Libertas.
Zulfikarpašić, Adil (in dialogue with Milovan Djilas and Nadežda Gaće) (1998). The Bosniak: Adil Zulfikarpašić. London: Hurst & Co..
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2016 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Morrison, K. (2016). Politics Comes to the Holiday Inn. In: Sarajevo’s Holiday Inn on the Frontline of Politics and War. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57718-4_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57718-4_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-57717-7
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-57718-4
eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)