Archiving the State and the Theft of Bosnia and Herzegovina's History

By: S. Omeragić

The discovery of one of the original copies of the Dayton Agreement last summer was not presented to the public in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which had until then been fed claims about its mysterious disappearance. This raised numerous questions about the authorities' treatment of the vast and exceptionally rich cultural and historical heritage of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

When Momčilo Krajišnik once requested that the sessions of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina be held in the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina, it was an attempt to mock the state, a message that Bosnia and Herzegovina was a kind of museum exhibit. The Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina was long a site of Krajišnik's outbursts against statehood. When a high-ranking American-German delegation, including Richard Holbrooke, Robert Gelbard, and Gerd Wagner, arrived on August 7, 1996, at the beautiful building of the National Museum, they were delighted by the millennia-old history of the country. Thus, the poor attempt at mockery turned into enthusiasm among the American-German diplomats.

It is the same with this almost tragicomic discovery of the Dayton Agreement.

When the Hague Tribunal, for the purposes of its investigative actions, sent a request in September 2001 to the authorities of Bosnia and Herzegovina to provide it with the transcripts of all sessions of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the pre-war and war period (1990-1993), the media in neighboring countries claimed that there was no electricity and that not all sessions had minutes recorded. Thus, they knew what Sarajevo did not know. In a letter to the then Sarajevo Municipal Prosecutor's Office, which was conducting this investigation, the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina denied these claims, stating that all sessions of the Presidency of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina were regularly recorded. Numerous transcripts were missing, and the Presidency believed these documents had been deliberately destroyed. The criminal complaint notes that minutes and transcripts are missing precisely from those sessions held during periods marked by significant events, and the disappearance of the minutes and transcripts is linked to those events.

It soon turned out: The transcripts were not destroyed, but simply stolen. In the meantime, two individuals, probably using pseudonyms, published transcripts of the sessions of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina on the internet. Banja Luka's Nezavisne novine published about fifty installments of transcripts from the sessions of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was obvious that these transcripts came from the same source, probably obtained for a good monetary reward.

After all this and a long ordeal and search, these transcripts were collected and stored in the Tribunal. There they were carefully reviewed, and the prosecutors concluded that the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina functioned even in those most difficult conditions as a democratic institution and as a just authority, which positively surprised all Hague officials.

Alija Izetbegović then said: „Let the Hague Tribunal do its job. After all, the most truthful history of Bosnia and Herzegovina during the aggression is being written there. That history will not be without errors, but it will be more accurate than any other that people could write.“

It is difficult to stop a thief if he is from one's own ranks, but at least an investigation could have been launched, which would very easily prove who had alienated the wartime archival materials of the most important state institution.

The police and judicial structures, as far as is known, never investigated the theft of these transcripts. This unprecedented theft, no doubt, was carried out within the services of the Presidency, so finding the culprits is not a problem. A little over a year ago, a journalist from Patria requested data from the Archives of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but that request was refused with a somewhat strange explanation.

„Who will search through that? Everything in the Archives of the Presidency is disorganized.“, the journalist was told by this institution.

It was an ugly sign of how superficially this state treats its own history and documents that represent its archival treasure and significant historical heritage.

According to available data, the burning of the Archives of Bosnia and Herzegovina, located in the building of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, was probably carried out in a planned manner. It was never discovered who directly set fire to the Archives of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and blame was mostly placed on persons who were not even near the event. Shortly after the arson, it was discovered that the director of the Archives of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Dušan Vržina, without the necessary approvals and prior consultations with colleagues, attempted to transfer archival materials related to the Vrbas Banovina to Banja Luka. This is precisely the material that was in the depot that burned, but part remained in the devastating fire. Employees, who noticed this illegal act of their director Vržina in time, prevented this incredible attempt to steal historical materials.

The case of the arson of the Archives of Bosnia and Herzegovina and this private theft, combined with this shoddy original of the Dayton Agreement, has shown an unarticulated attitude towards the material whose content preserves this state. The attitude towards historical heritage must be urgently and systematically regulated, and this exceptional value definitively protected.