Date of Visit: May 2025
Some Background, Preconceptions and Misconceptions.
I can only speak for myself, but as someone who has grown up in Western Europe during the time of the Bosnian war my perceptions of the Bosnian Serb part of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH for short) has been shrouded in a somewhat dark, almost sinister, veil formed by memories of news reports of the siege of Sarajevo, the Srebrenica genocide and ideas that Serbs were the friends of some mythological Russian bogeyman.
That said, most people I know had one reaction when I said I was going to visit Banja Luka.
“Pardon? Is that a place?”
“Yes, it’s the largest city in Republika Srpska”
“Republic of what?”
Then I would have to explain that it was the majority ethnic Serbian entity within BiH. That would lead to an often confused attempt by myself to explain the concept of the two ‘entities’ that make up BiH today. So for those who are not familiar with this, here goes:
At the end of the Bosnian war in 1995, there was a peace treaty negotiated in Dayton, Ohio between the three ethnic groups that make up the majority of the Bosnian population, Serbs (Orthodox), Croats (Catholic) and Bosniaks (Muslim). This involved the key figures of three states, Slobodan Milošević for Serbia (or what was left of Yugoslavia), Franjo Tuđman for Croatia and Alija Izetbegović for BiH. The resulting agreement, known as the Dayton Accords, recognised a single sovereign state of BiH with its capital in a unified Sarajevo, but within the state would be two entities, the Republika Srpska (RS) and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH). The first would be Serbian and the second both Croat and Bosniak. Then there was the district of Brčko, which was to be held ‘in condominium’ by both entities. The presidency of BiH was to be made up of three members, one from each of the ethnic groups with the chairperson of the presidency rotating between the members twice every eight months. Then each entity has its own parliament and president and so on. Add to that the role of the Office of the High Representative and as you can see it is very complicated and most people’s eyes have started to glaze over by this point.
Fair to say, most of us Western Europeans don’t really know much about BiH, less about RS and absolutely nothing about the city of Banja Luka.
That in itself is enough to make me want to visit a place, see it for myself and form my own opinion.
Before going I started reading up on the situation in BiH and it’s certainly true that there are a lot of tensions in the country. At the time of my visit the Court of BiH had issued an arrest warrant for the president of the RS Milorad Dodik, the speaker of the RS parliament, Nenad Stevandić, and the prime minister of RS, Radovan Višković, for defying decisions of the High Representative. The future of the Dayton Accords was hanging in the balance.
I heard that there is a cafe in Banja Luka where Vladimir Putin is idolised as a hero. Quite the opposite from the general European opinion of Putin as a vicious dictator and war criminal. It turned out that the cafe was real. I didn’t go in, but I did go past as see the Putin model outside.
I even read several reports online that Westerners were unwelcome in Republika Srpska and to expect verbal or even physical abuse from locals. This turned out to be completely unwarranted in my experience. The people I met in Banja Luka were normal, sane people like anywhere else. If anything they seemed moderately surprised and pleased at having visitors from Western Europe.
People were far more helpful than I have experienced both at home and in places in France, Portugal, Germany etc where tourists are common place. Despite the language barrier, everyone seemed to want to make sure that my visit was an enjoyable one and left a good impression of their country.
And it did.
The truth about the Republika Srpska and its people is, of course, the same as anywhere else in the world. There are good people and there are bad people. And most people are just trying to go about their business and do the best they can, it’s just that we all experience a different set of circumstances depending upon the place and time we find ourselves in.
There is nothing dark or sinister in the people of Republika Srpska. It is a fact that some people will have been part of the violence and atrocities of the brutal Bosnian war. Some as the perpetrators but others as victims and many more probably as witnesses.
We would do great disservice to the victims of conflict if we were to forget what happened or fail to learn from it. But if peace is to prevail then we must show compassion and understanding for the suffering of all people on all sides of these conflicts and be ready to embrace those we once saw as potential enemies as possible friends.
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