Today, Explained - The ’90s throwback no one wants

Episode Date: September 29, 2022

Elvedin Pasic lived through the Bosnian genocide in the early 1990s. So why is one of Bosnia’s leaders saying it never happened? And what happens if that leader, Milorad Dodik, wins a national election this weekend? This episode was reported and produced by Haleema Shah, edited by Matt Collette, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Paul Robert Mounsey and Efim Shapiro, and hosted by Noel King. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained Support Today, Explained by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This coming Sunday, a friend of Vladimir Putin's will be on the ballot in Bosnia's national elections. Putin doesn't have many chums, but with Milorad Dodik, one of Bosnia's three presidents, he has things in common. They both like soccer, they're both into authoritarianism, and they both have a passion for writing. Sorry, rewriting history. The Bosnian Serb leader has gained popularity by saying a thing that definitely happened, never happened. A genocide that ripped his country apart 30 years ago during a civil war. The fighting in Bosnia was severe on a number of fronts today. The United Nations and NATO are watching for now. A war the U.S. helped end.

The warring factions in Bosnia reached a peace agreement as a result of our efforts in Dayton, Ohio. A war that Dodik may be on the brink of starting again. It's coming up on Today Explained. The all-new FanDuel Sportsbook and Casino is bringing you more action than ever. Want more ways to follow your faves? Check out our new player prop tracking with real-time notifications.

Or how about more ways to customize your casino page with our new favorite and recently played games tabs. And to top it all off, quick and secure withdrawals. Get more everything with FanDuel Sportsbook and Casino. Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600. Visit connectsontario.ca. Today explains senior reporter and producer Halima Shah. You have been reporting on the Bosnian Serb politician Milorad Dodik. He says that the Bosnian genocide never happened.

It did, in fact, happen. I was 10 or 11 when it happened. It was all over the newspapers. What is this man's deal? Milorad Dodik makes absurd claims. There are so many people who remember the Bosnian genocide, and I actually spoke to someone who remembers it and barely survived it. His name is Elvedine Pasek. He settled in St. Louis, which is home to the largest Bosnian-American community in the country. And he's a Bosniak or a Bosnian Muslim. And he's shared his story both at the Hague

during a war criminals trial, and he's also shared it with me. The village that I grew up was just a wonderful, wonderful place to live in. I was going to school. I am a Muslim. I had lots of friends, Serbs and Croats. And that detail about having lots of friends who were Serbs and Croats is really important here. Because for most of the 20th century, Bosnia was part of a

multi-ethnic Yugoslavia. And for years under one dictator, Muslim Bosniaks, Catholic Croats, and Orthodox Serbs lived together. In Elvedin's community, kids from different ethnic groups hung out, played in each other's villages. But even that exchange had its limits. So as kids, we were going, you know, visiting each other and going through, you know, playing soccer together. And I remember my dad clearly telling me, don't go there at late night because we're not welcomed. And I never understood why. This is going way before the war started. And we now know it was going that way because Yugoslavia was ruled by a dictator, Joseph Tito, and he'd essentially told this melange of people,

as long as I am alive, you're all going to get along. Essentially. And when this dictator dies, there is a power vacuum. So by the early 1990s, we start seeing new nation states emerge from these different groups. One is Croatia. One is Bosnia. They start to declare their independence. But there's another group here, the Serbs, who have started to dominate the former Yugoslav army. And they have very different interests. They want to create a region called a Greater Serbia. And these nation states like Croatia and Bosnia that are splintering off are in direct

conflict with their goals. So in the spring of 1992, Elvedin is 14 years old. Bosnia has just declared independence, and this independence is actually recognized by the United States and by Europe. But it wasn't recognized by Serb nationalists, who were rallying behind this guy named Slobodan Milosevic. In the aftermath of the war, Milosevic would be accused of trying to engineer this greater Serbia by forcibly removing non-Serbs from Serb-populated areas. So we're talking about Bosniaks and Croats in particular. And that would basically set up a

genocide that killed over 100,000 people. This is the man whose embrace of nationalism is blamed for all the wars in Yugoslavia today. Okay, so you have Slobodan Milosevic who wants a greater Serbia. You have the Bosnians who want their own country. The U.S. is like, cool, we'll recognize your own country. Elvadine is Bosnian. When does this start to affect him? In 1992, so pretty soon after Bosnia declares its independence. On the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, which is this three-day festival, Elvadine starts to notice shelling. A bunch of things happen at this point. Elvadine's family hides in a basement for a while. His dad takes off to defend the village and eventually

becomes a fighter in the war. It becomes pretty clear that the rest of the family can't stay at home. So Elvadine and his mom, as well as some other relatives, run to another village. At the time when we were leaving, they were entering the northern part of the village. So you can see the smoke coming out of the houses that they were burning. And that's when the people broke down into tears and crying

and they couldn't believe that it is actually here. We've seen it on TV, but actually now it's at our doorstep and we're leaving. Over the next seven months, Elvedine's family is on the move. The war is raging on and Elvedine's dad has been away fighting in it. But one day his dad comes back to Elvedine and his mom. He finds them in a village called Vichichi, which was kind of the last pocket of Muslim Croat resistance in the area. When dad came over and says, we are going to surrender tomorrow. All the males are leaving tonight. And all the civilians tomorrow morning, you will raise your flag and everyone's going to go towards the safe territory of Bosnia.

There was a deal. Civilians could basically take buses and they would be safe from attack. But at the same time, there had been many reports of men and boys being pulled off these convoys and taken to prison camps. So Elvedin and his dad decide to join a group that was taking a different route to Bosnian territory. They were going through the woods. 700 plus men.

And there were some women too. And some children as well. But mainly men. In the woods, the group stumbles into a Serb ambush. That's when we heard the Serb forces calling us, Balias, it's over. There were hand grenades thrown. People were running.

They were captured immediately. They said, you have to surrender. And so they do. The soldiers take Elvedin and his dad and the rest of the men and boys to a nearby village called Grabovica. They're told to surrender all their weapons, all their valuables, and lie down on the ground. Like sardines in the three rows,

we were face down. At this time, it started raining. It was very muddy. I was laying on my left-hand side. It was my uncle on my right-hand side was my dad. That's when the Serbs started integrating and asking questions. They were celebrating firing. You can feel the bullets going over your head. I don't know what the tactic was there, but I remember my uncle screaming and saying, they're going to kill us. Also, they were saying at this moment,

if there's any children and if there was any women to get up. I didn't want to get up because I didn't want to leave my dad. I didn't want to go. And I was very nervous. I waited until the last moment until my uncle told me, Do you want to live? Get up. Women and children like Elvedine were taken into a school and told to wait there.

There was a soldier approaching to us with a light on his head. I assume he was some kind of ranking officer. He assured us to stay there and that no one is going to be hurt. You're going to be stationed in the lower level in the classroom until morning. That he guarantees that nothing is going to happen to us, but the ones left behind, they will pay for this. And then Elvedine saw the ones left behind outside. His dad was one of them.

They had their hands tied behind their backs and were taken to a different part of the school. That night, you know, we heard screaming and you can hear the beating and noises above us. The next morning, women and children who had been separated from the men boarded buses headed for Bosnian territory. There were several stops along the way, and on one of them, Elvedine saw a familiar face. That's when I reunited with mom.

When mom saw me, she immediately started crying. She said, what happened? And that's when I told her that this happened and everybody started crying. It was horrifying. But I said, we surrender. I'm here. And I said, they promised our dad and everyone will stay alive. They didn't promise that, though. No, they did not promise. They did not live. Part of me thinks that they're still alive because they're still missing. It's been 30 years since that massacre, and mass graves are still being discovered from the genocide in Bosnia. But Elvadin's father and uncle still have yet to be found. And yet this massacre at Grabovica was hardly the worst that happened during the war.

The U.S. wouldn't even get involved for another almost three years when the violence reached horrific highs. Can you tell us what the conditions of living in Srebrenica were like before July 1995, say in May? That's when the most infamous massacre took place at a Muslim enclave called Srebrenica, which was being protected by hundreds of UN peacekeepers when Serbs attacked it. The Serb forces basically did what they had been doing throughout the course of the war. They were separating Bosniak men and boys who might be able-bodied enough to fight them and killing them. About 8,000 people died at Srebrenica, and that was a turning point because up until then, the U.S. and NATO were responding with the occasional airstrike.

And there was a lot of anger towards them. The world was saying that the U.S. and NATO was, quote, muddling through. Mr. President, as leader of the free world, as leader of the only superpower, why has it taken you, the United States, so long to articulate a policy on Bosnia? So the U.S. can't ignore Srebrenica. That same year, the Clinton administration does two big things. They back a NATO bombing campaign on Serb targets, and they get the Croat president, the Bosnian president,

and the Serb president Milosevic to an airbase near Dayton, Ohio, to end the war. I believe the talks will succeed, and we are here to join these efforts in bringing peace to the Balkans. These three men, who cannot stand each other, come to a deal called the Dayton Accords. They agree that Bosnia is going to be a country made of two entities, one called the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and another called Republika Srpska or the Serb Republic. And to keep this very fragile peace, Bosnia has three rotating presidents, a Serb, a Croat and a Bosniak. And that's a power sharing structure that stands till today. Halima, what ended up happening to Elvedin? After Grabovica, Elvedin and his mom settled in a Muslim community that was north of Sarajevo,

and they stayed there till the end of the war, when he turned 17. But on his 18th birthday, Elvedin learned that he's qualified to come to the U.S. as a refugee. So he comes to the U.S. and basically starts his life here. He finds work. He meets a Bosnian woman. They get married. She convinces him to live in St. Louis. And he has two sons who are 10 and 13 now.

Has he told his kids about any of this? He's begun telling them parts of it. And he's also taken them back to visit Bosnia too. But he does feel very distressed by the ongoing turmoil in Bosnia, and he says he doesn't know how to talk to his kids about that. Bosnia's shaky power-sharing structure is basically struggling to stay in place. It's been over 30 years, and there's been an explosion in Serb nationalism and separatism in recent years. I don't particularly love Bosnia and Herzegovina. I don't love Bosnia the way I have other political loves. Milorad Dodek, who we talked about earlier, is now saying the Bosnian genocide never happened.

Why would he do this? Because it makes him incredibly popular among Serbs and he's got an election to win this weekend. But Dodik could also be putting the country at risk for another civil war. Milorad Dodik and his agenda, his approach, it's very scary. And are we back to square one where actually all started again? Support for Today Explained comes from Ramp. Ramp is the corporate card and spend management software designed to help you save time and put money back in your

pocket. Ramp says they give finance teams unprecedented control and insight into company spend. With Ramp, you're able to issue cards to every employee with limits and restrictions and automate expense reporting so you can stop wasting time at the end of every month. And now you can get $250 when you join Ramp. You can go to ramp.com slash explained, ramp.com slash explained, R-A-M-P dot com slash explained, cards issued by Sutton Bank.

Member FDIC. Terms and conditions apply. Bet MGM, authorized gaming partner of the NBA, has your back all season long. From tip-off to the final buzzer, you're always taken care of with a sportsbook born in Vegas. That's a feeling you can only get with BetMGM. And no matter your team, your favorite player, or your style,

there's something every NBA fan will love about BetMGM. Download the app today and discover why BetMGM is your basketball home for the season. Raise your game to the next level this year with BetMGM, a sportsbook worth a slam dunk, and authorized gaming partner of the NBA.

BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact connex ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge bet mgm operates pursuant to an operating agreement with i gaming ontario today explained we're back with yasmin mionovic who's

a political scientist and analyst of Southeastern European politics. Yasmin, earlier in the show, my colleague Halima Shah talked to a Bosnian man in St. Louis who lived through the war. This man is terrified of Milorad Dodik. What is your analysis of Dodik? I do think he's scary. I think he's an extremely opportunistic leader. He's a political chameleon who has changed his colours many, many times. But above all, he's concerned about his political survival. And there is, I fear, no limit to what he is willing to do to ensure his political survival, including fomenting violence in Bosnia 30 years after the end of the last war.

Dodik shared these scenes on social media, he and colleagues singing Serb nationalist folk songs in their Sarajevo headquarters. The message is rooted in wholesale political and historical revisionism of the facts of the Bosnian war and the Bosnian genocide and the broader Yugoslav dissolution. The actual upshot of all that revisionism and negationism is that he is seeking to realize what the Genocidaires were unable to do,

which is to ensure the formal and complete cession of this erstwhile self-declared entity of the Republika Srpska, and ideally it's appending to a greater Serbian state. All right, Dodik is a Bosnian Serb running to be president of Republika Srpska, or the Serb Republic. It's sometimes also called the RS entity. And he wants what, exactly? For the RS entity to be only Serbians? What Mr. Dodik wants is that this entity, this entity that was created in the early 90s in the context of the Bosnian War, he wants to formally take that entity out of Bosnia-Herzegovina and append it to a

greater Serbian state. Why does that scare people so much? Because the original way in which the RS entity was created was through the wholesale extermination and expulsion of virtually the entire non-Serb community. Large parts of what is today the RS entity used to be majority Bosniak and in some areas majority Croats. Almost all of those communities were exterminated or expelled. And still to this day, depending on how you want to count, 20 to 25% of the population of the RS entity is non-Serb. It would mean that the international community in allowing something like the formal secession of the RS entity would effectively be greenlighting genocide as a way of legalizing the redrawing of borders in Europe and the world more broadly. And moreover, I think from a practical standpoint, there is no way and no world in which the ethnic Bosnia community in particular would allow the RS entity to secede without a very serious conflict

who would see this very much as an existential threat to their existence and their survival as a people and as a community. What is Dodik's backstory? How did he get to be where he is? He's an interesting figure. He comes from a fairly small-time, obscure family. And in 1998, he is ushered into power with the help of the United States, who kind of facilitate the transfer of power in the entity. And Milare Dadik is, you know, touted as the new moderate face of Serb politics in Bosnia-Herzegovina. What happened is that in the mid-2000s and into the 2010s, Milare Dadik began to reinvent himself

as an arch-alternationalist. I think to my mind, the point at which there is no return any longer really is 2014. In 2014, two very important things happened. One, in the international context, obviously, is the initial invasion of Ukraine by Russia. And Dudik, along with a host of regional leaders, really look at the invasion of Ukraine in 2014 and think, you know, this is the twilight of the West. And they really begin to see Russia as a rising power and a power which they want to hook themselves up with. Putin's own nationalist credentials, his sort of orthodox revivalism, this is all very, very tailor-made for sort of Serb nationalist leaders in the Western Balkans. And then the other thing that happens locally in Bosnia-Herzegovina is you

have the most significant anti-government protests in the country since the end of the war. They're very, very dramatic. The state presidency is torched and sacked. There have also been demonstrations in the capital Sarajevo. It's a sign of deepening social unease over the lack of economic and political progress. There's real rage and anger at this kind of post-war corrupt criminal political elite of which Dudik is very much emblematic. And Dudik really begins to think very, very seriously about how to cement his regime. At the local level, Mr. Dudik has done everything conceivable to undermine the Dayton Peace Accords. He has done everything conceivable to undermine any kind of form of rational governance within the Bosnian state. He is currently in the process of trying to create these breakaway institutions. He's talking about turning these

paramilitary police into a Bosnian Serb army. He very frequently denies the facts of the genocide in Bosnia. He consistently refers to the state of Serbia as his actual homeland and his motherland and the state that he's actually committed to, that he cares nothing for Bosnia, that Bosnia is not a real place. You're also on the record, though, as saying Bosnia is a, quote, rotten country, a, quote, country which doesn't deserve to exist. Are you retracting those statements? No, no, no, Poločem, no, no, no. At the international level, he enjoys very close ties to the broader European far right. He's a very close associate of Viktor Orbán, the broader European far right. He's a very close associate

of Viktor Orban, the prime minister of Hungary. Very recently, he's exchanged a series of letters which have been published in the media with Mr. Orban, talking about the need for the renewal of a Christian Europe, the need to expel alien peoples and cultures from Europe, which is very clearly a reference to Muslims in Europe, but very specifically the ethnic Bosnia community of Bosnia-Herzegovina, which is predominantly Muslim. So he is very much this kind of combative, reactionary, xenophobic, chauvinist figure that unfortunately now also enjoys significant support within the international community. He embraces right-wing nationalism because it works, and he and other leaders around the world have learned that lesson. Once he embraced this ideology, is there any turning back?

I don't think there's a turning back. I think there has to be a point of catharsis, and there has to be a point of resolution. We've seen that everywhere where these kind of hard right, ultra-nationalist ideas begin to take root, especially ones that advance their political discourses and narratives on the basis of revisionism, conspiracism, disinformation writ large, because these people remake the world in their own image, right? I think the people who really go along with them, they live in a parallel reality. And at some point, that parallel reality has to begin to be able to remake the actually existing world in its own image if it is to survive. And that is ultimately what is driving Dudik. He has to go full on and he goes for the realization of his political project because that's the only thing left. I was also born in Bosnia. My family was very fortunate to have fled the conflict very early on. But, you know, I was a refugee, I was a displaced person,

and it has very much colored the entirety of my life. And I do take the view that when you're dealing with extremists like Dadek, willing and desiring to enact violence to preserve himself and to realize these ideological machinations that he has, I think you take them at their word. Because if you don't, you risk a still more catastrophic turn of events. Today's show was reported and produced by Halima Shah. It was edited by Matthew Collette. It was fact-checked by Laura Bullard. And it was engineered by Afim Shapiro and Paul Robert Mouncey.

I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained.