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Publisher:
JU Muzej /Museum Alija Izetbegovi
On behalf of the publisher:
Elvis Kondi
Author:
Zehrudin Isakovi
Editor:
Elvis Kondi
Translation:
Saba Risaluddin
Design & DTP:
Sanjin Manov, Zijah Gafi
Printed by:
BEMUST
Print run:
750

Museum Alija Izetbegovi. All rights reserved.

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BIOGRAPHY

By Zehrudin Isakovi
Source: Dostojanstvo ljudskog izbora, Alija Izetbegovi, OKO, 2005
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lija Izetbegovi was born in Bosanski amac on 8 August 1925,

to a distinguished beys family (belonging to the gentry) which,
though originally from Belgrade, was compelled in 1868, under
Serbian terror, as the chronicles have it, to move to a place of greater safety.
They chose Bosanski amac. Izetbegovis grandfather, also called Alija,
was mayor of Bosanski amac. He is said to have been highly regarded by
the townspeople for his fairness and honesty. The town will long recall the
way in which he resolutely protected a group of leading Serb townspeople
from the Austrian authorities when, following the assassination in Sarajevo of
Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir-presumptive to the throne of Austria, they
planned to hold them as hostages. Alija Izetbegovis earliest years were
associated with the two rivers overlooked by the windows of the house where
he was born: the Bosna and the Sava. The name of the former foreshadowed
the time when, already advanced in years, he and his Party of Democratic
Action (SDA) came to power and he entered the Presidency of Bosnia and
Herzegovina. It was not long before war broke out, and a desperate struggle
to preserve the countrys newly-won independence and territorial integrity
ensued. In his youth, he had fought for the idea of Islam; in the final years of
his life, he was focused entirely on the struggle for the rights of the Bosniacs
and their homeland of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Alija was not yet two when
his father Mustafa, a merchant and banker, decided to move to Sarajevo. The
family was a large one; his parents were to have five children, three daughters
and two sons, of whom Alija was the elder. He also had two half-brothers
from his fathers first marriage. Tragically, Mustafa was badly wounded on the
Italian front in World War I, injuries which were later to result in a kind of
palsy or paralysis that left him more or less bed-ridden for the last ten years
of his life. Though the whole family helped to look after him, Alijas mother
Hiba bore most of the burden of her husbands illness. His mother was a
very pious woman, and Alija would later note that it was to her that he owed
his early religious convictions. Though he admitted that he found it hard to
rise before first light to say his morning prayers with his mother, Izetbegovi
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liked to recall that period in his life, and in particular the beautiful Quranic
sura Ar-Rahman which older people recall was never recited more beautifully
than by Imam Rahmanovi in the hajjis mosque opposite the City Hall. The
whole family agree that the young Alija combined the genetic features of
both his parents: physically, he resembled his mother, but in character, they
say, he was like his father. This, no doubt, helps to explain why Izetbegovi
junior broke free from parental influence at a fairly early age to live his own
life. When he was about fourteen, Izetbegovi was influenced atheist and
communist writings and his faith began to waver. Communist propaganda
was at its height in Yugoslavia just before the outbreak of World War II,
partly as a reaction against fascism, which was in its golden or rather, most
sinister age. Yet, according to the later Izetbegovi, communism did
not mean democracy red totalitarianism grew stronger to counter the
black version. Izetbegovi was attending the First Boys Grammar School,
where the communists were particularly active at the time. The school itself
was reputed to be communist according to the grapevine, some of the
professors belonged to the movement. A number of leaflets thus came into
his hands, and he was not immune to their message; he began to be in two
minds between the problems of social justice and injustice, on the one hand,
and belief in God on the other. However, even at first glance, the young
Izetbegovis doubts were aroused by the fact that the communist propaganda
portrayed God as the bad guy and religion as the opium of the people,
a way of keeping the masses so subdued and deadened that they would not
struggle to improve their lot in real life. Contrary to this, it always seemed
to Izetbegovi himself that the central message of faith, in its various forms,
was to live a moral, responsible life. Finally, after a year or two of spiritual
and philosophical vacillation, Izetbegovi returned to his faith with renewed
strength, and in a new way. Later it would seem to him that the steadiness of
his faith was in fact the outcome of his youthful doubts; it was no longer the
faith into which he had been born, a tradition he had inherited, but one he
had adopted anew. He was never to lose it again, even though later, as his
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writings on religious matters reveal, he constantly re-examined and studied

it. (The universe without God seemed utterly pointless to me, Izetbegovi
was later to write in his Memoirs.) Meanwhile, he read the classic works
of European philosophy, and by the age of nineteen he already had a solid
grounding in the writings of Hegel, Spinoza and Kant, whose categorical
imperative had a particular impact on the inquisitive young man. He
matriculated in 1943, at the height of the war, when the Izetbegovi family,
like most of their neighbours, were feeling the effects of war shortages and
were more often hungry than sated. Sarajevo was occupied by the Ustasha,
who had imposed a harsh Nazi regime. Izetbegovi should have reported for
military service, but did not do so; in the eyes of the authorities, he became
the typical draft dodger, and had to remain in hiding throughout 1944. When
it became too risky for him to remain in Sarajevo, he escaped to his native
Sava valley region. As he would himself later admit, none of the armies there
impressed him: neither the Partisans nor the Muslim militia, and least of all
the Chetniks and the Ustasha. However, the fact that he did not take up arms
did not mean that Izetbegovi was uncommitted; on the contrary, he and a
few others of like mind sought to articulate their political views through the
Young Muslims organization. The first attempt to register the society under
the laws of the day was in March 1941. Not surprisingly, it failed, for in April,
Germany attacked Yugoslavia, and the sole priority was to survive. Strangely
enough, the Young Muslims movement focused mainly on foreign policy and
spiritual matters in other words, questions relating to the contemporary
Muslim world. These Young Muslims recognized that the state of politics in
the Muslim world is wretched and unsustainable, while Islam is a living idea
that can (and should) be modernized, without losing any of its essence (as
statements made at that time put it). They were also well aware that most
Muslim countries were under foreign rule, whether by a military presence or
that of (foreign) capital. Though not formally constituted, the organization
was becoming ever more popular among grammar school pupils and students,
and continued in operation throughout World War II. Izetbegovis first clash
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with the movement was in 1944, when it formed an alliance with El-Hidaja,
the imams association. As he often remarked, Alija never fully agreed with
the hojjas, critical as he was of their rigid interpretation of Islam, the result
of which, as he put it in his memoirs, was to block its inward and outward
development.

First term in prison

10

o the dismay of the communist authorities, once the war was over the
organization continued its operations with renewed enthusiasm. At
first, Young Muslim activists received discreet warnings, but when
they ignored them, the order was given to arrest them, and Alija Izetbegovi
spent his first spell in prison. Since he was serving out his military service in
the Federal Peoples Republic of Yugoslavia at the time, the military court
sentenced him to three years strict confinement, which he began in March
1946 and completed in 1949. While under investigation, Izetbegovi was
held in the military gaol of the Marshal Tito barracks in Sarajevo, in a cell
where half the inmates were under sentence of death. The mood among them
was sombre as they awaited a final ruling on their appeal against the death
sentence. Izetbegovis three-year sentence was regarded as fairly lenient
in the circumstances of the time, when some political prisoners received
sentences of death or long prison terms. Even so, innocent as he was of any
crime, he had to spend a thousand long days and nights behind bars. He was
sent first to Zenica to serve his time, but after only two months was transferred
to Stolac, where he spent seven months before being moved again, this
time to correctional labour on a building site near Borako Lake. As fate
would have it, here Izetbegovi found himself working on the building that
was to be a recreation centre for the UDB (State Security Authority the
Yugoslav secret police), where his udbai, the people who had interrogated
him, would later enjoy a break from duty. After Borako Lake, Alija was
moved to Sarajevo, where the ironies of fate showed that they had not done
with him. Here he and other prisoners were to build the headquarters of the
Communist Party Central Committee. Perhaps the whole idea was that the
political opponents of communism were to build its temples. The isolation
of prison was made easier for the young Izetbegovi by the loving letters he
exchanged with Halida, a girl he had known since he was eighteen and had
gone out with throughout the war. When he was sent to prison, they kept
in touch by letter, describing their feelings and expressing their respect and
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love for each other, which separation only served to strengthen and deepen.
Alija was sent to the Hungarian border for the third and final year of his
sentence, to work on the Belje agricultural estate near Beli Manastir. There
he was put to felling trees, at which he became adept. Many years later,
Izetbegovi himself used to say that if ever he had to resort to manual labour
to earn a crust, he would choose to be a wood-cutter: of all the manual work
I have done and Ive done plenty that is the one that appeals most, he
would say. He spent that winter of 1948-1949 cutting up firewood with
a hand-saw. This physical activity, combined with enough food, enabled
him to make a full recovery by the end of the third year of his sentence.
He was 24 when he came out of prison, and looked extremely well. His
family wept with joy when they saw how strong, healthy and mentally fit he
was. No sooner had he left prison than, as expected, Alija married Halida.
He was proud of her beauty, considering her physically far more attractive
than he himself, though many women found him handsome, with his vivid
blue eyes and, despite his youth, the aura of prison martyrdom about him,
which earned him the respect and affection of those around him. Just as it
was the natural thing for him to marry Halida, so those who knew him best
fully expected him to continue his political activities. Izetbegovi renewed his
connection with the Young Muslims covertly, through Hasan Biber. Exactly
forty days after they made contact, on 11 April 1949, Biber was arrested.
During his interrogation, he was under constant pressure to reveal Alijas
renewed involvement with the Young Muslims, but he would not buckle.
The other members of the organization were still unaware of Izetbegovis
activities, so thanks to Biber, he remained at liberty, though with little time
to enjoy his freedom, as he had still not fully recovered from his three years
in prison. At his trial in July, Biber received the death sentence, which the
zealous communists carried out in October. This trial led to widespread
arrests throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina, and raids on the Young Muslims
organization in Mostar began, when files and the minutes of meetings were
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confiscated. This was followed by a simultaneous action in Zagreb, where

the authorities arrested a large group of students, all of which culminated
in a trial in Sarajevo in August 1949. Some of those arrested were already
on trial for the second time, and were convicted and sent to prison. Adding
up all the prison sentences in all the political trials of the Young Muslims
gives a total of a thousand years confinement. The organization was wiped
out, with all its leading figures in gaol or executed. There were, it is true,
still some who continued inwardly to nurture the Young Muslims idea,
and there were frequent secret meetings at which it was discussed, but the
organized operations that could have turned into specific political action
were over. Meanwhile, Alija Izetbegovi was studying Yugoslav society,
based, it was claimed, on social equality and a refined sense of justice. In
his view, however, it had more to do with hypocrisy, with ordinary people
going hungry as leading communists drew their supplies from secret caches.
The masses were eating potatoes and rice, while the privileged and the
ideologically correct were living in the lap of luxury: they had everything,
from milk to chocolate. Yet any open discussion about privileges was treated
as anti-constitutional and anti-state. Izetbegovi spent the next ten years
working on building sites, mainly in Montenegro, where he spent seven years,
overseeing the construction of the Peruica hydro power plant near Niki.
He tried to spend his free time broadening his formal education, first studying
agronomy before transferred to law in his third year. Within two years, he
graduated. It was 1956.

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The Islamic Declaration

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t was a wonder that with all this his job, his studies, and looking after
his family Izetbegovi was also able to write extensively on matters
Islamic. In 1969 he produced a first draft of his Islamic Declaration,
producing and publishing a final version in 1970. This short work, some 40
pages, was to arouse keen interest only after the Sarajevo Trial of 1983, when
Izetbegovi was convicted for a second time, for Islamic fundamentalism.
Though written in Bosnia and Herzegovina, then part of Yugoslavia, the
Declaration focused not on that countrys political circumstances but on the
Islamic world, which the book treated as a coherent spiritual and even political
entity. To the apologists of the socialist system, the Declaration appeared
fundamentalist, a threat to the social system, as indeed it was, in essence:
it called for a return to authentic Islam. To the communists, fundamentalist
atheists, extolling the virtues of Islam and celebrating belief in God was heresy
of the worst kind. The Declaration was both acclaimed and challenged with
equal passion. The problem, however, was that those who took issue with it
were mainly those who were in power, and the force of argument gave way
to the argument of force. The Islamic Declaration was later translated into
seven languages, becoming one of the most widely-read political texts on its
subject at that time. Though he never said so explicitly, it would seem that as
Izetbegovi became more critical of Muslim countries, he came to see that the
Declaration was too idealistic, and to realize that there was no such thing as a
coherent Islamic world as he had viewed it; rather, that it consisted of many
different entities, each of which had its own specific problems and context,
which was particularly true of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Some passages in
the Declaration were seen as a call for a polity structured on Islamic principles,
which was maliciously interpreted as an appeal by Izetbegovi to reorganize
Yugoslavia, or at least Bosnia and Herzegovina, along Islamic lines. Whatever
those who advanced such views may have claimed, it is worth noting that in
his later political activities, Alija Izetbegovi opted for a secular state, based
on the principles of modern western democracy, where religion has its place
15

in society on an equal footing with other factors. Another surprise is the

fact that Izetbegovi wrote another of his works, Islam Between East and
West, even before going to prison in 1946. When he was arrested, his sister
Azra, who died in 1997, managed to hide the almost completed manuscript
under the rafters of the family house. By force of circumstance it remained
there, in quite unsuitable conditions, and when Alija found it, it was, as he
himself said, a bundle of half-decayed paper. Even so, the bundle was in
good enough condition for Izetbegovi to transcribe the text, to which he
then added some new passages, sending the whole thing to a friend in Canada.
The book was published there in 1984, by which time Izetbegovi was already
serving his second prison sentence, this time a fourteen-year term. This
book, translated into no fewer than nine languages, also dealt with Islam,
and its place in the world of today. In his view, Islam fell somewhere between
eastern and western thought, just as the Muslim world lay geographically
between east and west, hence the title of the book. To put it in the briefest
of terms, just as everything is created in pairs, so too each of us is a dual
being, composed of body and soul, in which the body is the abode of the
soul. This abode is the product of evolution, with its own past, but the soul
is not: it is breathed into us by the touch of God. The abode or body is the
object of science, but the soul is the object of religion, art and ethics. In
Izetbegovis view, therefore, there are two narratives and two truths about
humankind, symbolized in the West by Darwin and Michelangelo, whose
truths are different, but not mutually exclusive. Izetbegovi sought to argue
his views by developing the notion that these truths are presented as the
clash between civilization and culture, in which science and technology are
the domain of civilization and religion and art the province of culture. The
former is the expression of our existential needs (how we live), the latter
of our human aspirations (why we live). Civilization aspires to an earthly
kingdom, religion to the kingdom of heaven. In Islam Between East and
West, Izetbegovi sought to demonstrate that Islam is a synthesis between
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these two opposites, a third way between the two poles that define all
that is human. In his recension of the book, Predrag Matvejevi wrote
that the book reveals (the authors) passionate and thrilling reflections on
Islam and its place between East and West, geographical terms taken both
literally and metaphorically, with all the contradictions they entail in the
Cold War period. More recently, Matvejevi revised this, adding that from
our current perspective, it is a moderate book, free of any integralism or
fundamentalism. He also observed that These days, after the trials endured
by Bosnia and Herzegovina, one could say that Izetbegovis approach also
included a kind of warning. If only it could have been heeded at the right
time, adding that on re-reading Izetbegovis manuscript, he seemed to see
the figure of a mild, wise man, which is how he always remembered him.

17

Intellectual maturity

18

n addition to his existential concerns and his interest in matters

Islamic, Izetbegovi was still preoccupied with certain inevitable
subjects: communism, capitalism, and the nature of these different
social systems. He could never reconcile himself to the ideas proposed by
communism as the pattern and measure of existence, and was profoundly
offended by the hypocrisy that held there was one standard for ordinary,
impoverished people and another for communist apparatchiks and officials,
enjoying the good things of life and the hedonism specific to socialism and
communism. Izetbegovi realized that the essential problem of the Socialist
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and indeed of the Balkans as a whole, was
the absence of democracy. Countries that called themselves socialist were at
different levels of development. What even a superficial analysis revealed,
however, was the extremely strong, and indeed decisive, impact of certain
key figures on the state of affairs in those countries. Though each was based
on the same matrix, the actual, real-life circumstances of ordinary citizens
differed from country to country, depending on their leaders. ivkov,
Hoxha, Ceauescu, Tito four different men, four different lifestyles, and
as a result, four different regimes. Yet despite their differences, all four
regimes were of the same authoritarian essence. A new shadow fell over
Alija Izetbegovis life in 1979, when the President of Yugoslavia, Josip Broz
Tito, received Raif Dizdarevi and Branko Mikuli, leading officials of the
Communist League, at his favourite hunting lodge, Koprivnica near Bugojno.
Izetbegovi recorded in his memoirs that Sarajevo Televisions prime time
news programme reported Titos order to the two officials to use the harshest
measures to deal with attempts to revive clero-nationalism and pan-Islamism
in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Izetbegovi saw this as applying to him, and
could already hear the knocking at the door. Following the brief relatively
liberal era of the 1970s, this was none other than the intimation of a new
showdown with those who were not in sympathy with or were opponents
of communism, a warning that the final reckoning was to come for those
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who were pondering the merits of Islam, and who were therefore unable to
agree with the atheist postulates of a socialist or communist society that was
falling ever deeper into crisis. Despite his previous unhappy experience and
constant threats against him, Izetbegovis interest in study did not wane.
He continued writing, publishing his articles in the Takvim, the Islamic
calendar, using the initials L.S.B. as a pseudonym, taken from the initial of
his three children, Lejla, Sabina and Bakir. The articles were a series with the
general heading Problems of the Islamic Revival. The articles were later
published as a book, which received excellent reviews. For example, Prof.
Dr. Esad Durakovi, noting that the book consisted of a collection of articles
dealing with some of the issues of Islamic revival, wrote that the author, in
a kind of revolutionary zeal emphasized the importance of reinterpreting
the sources of Islam as a priority, a thread that runs through all his writings.
According to Izetbegovi, there can be a revival only in a bold return to the
fundamentals of Islam. In fact, the whole of Izetbegovis contribution to
Islamic thought, and this book in particular, reveals him as a reformer, not
so much of Islam itself as of Islamic societies and states. Many years later,
speaking at the Islamic Summit conference in Tehran in 1997, Izetbegovi
made direct reference to all the failings, as he saw them, of the countries that
called themselves Islamic, putting it in the plainest of terms: Islam is the best,
but we are not. In addition, these articles, which appeared over a thirtyyear time span and were reissued under the general title Problems of Islamic
Revival, reveal an ecumenical approach to the problems: far from expressing
religious exclusivity, the manuscript actually affirms the diversity of religions
and cultures as a blessing from God. It is true that Izetbegovi also insisted
that Islam should be on an equal footing with others in this world, saying that
his ultimate aim was, first, to conduct an objective analysis of contemporary
Islamic thought and, second, to revitalize the Islamic world and incorporate
it into the modern world on the principles of mutual respect and equality.
It is worth noting that Izetbegovis approach to the problems he studies
20

in these articles is largely essayistic rather than scholarly, which does not
prevent them from achieving objective value, as a significant and original
contribution to thought in general, not confined solely to Islam.

21

The Sarajevo Trial

22

radually, Alija Izetbegovis writings, which of course had not

escaped the attention of the UDB, led him into new difficulties,
when he and several other Islamic intellectuals were suspected
of anti-state activities. Early in the morning of 23 March 1983, Alija was
woken by a banging on the door of his flat on the third floor of no 14 Hasan
Kiki Street. When he opened the door, a number of obscure figures burst in,
without removing their shoes, brandishing a search warrant, and proceeded
to search the flat, dragging cupboards away from the wall, taking down roller
blinds, pulling out drawers in their attempt to find evidence of Izetbegovis
intellectual political activities and the books in his private library. Late in the
day they ordered him to accompany them to the State Security Service
premises, where he was told that he was to be held in detention for three
days. This was later extended to thirty days, and then to an indefinite term of
pre-trial detention. The investigation and interrogations lasted for about a
hundred days and nights (night-time interrogations were not uncommon).
Hundreds of Muslims from all over Bosnia and Herzegovina were arrested
along with Izetbegovi and interrogated the famous Sarajevo Trial had
begun.The indictment was based on Articles 114 and 133 of the Criminal
Code of Socialist Yugoslavia: association with a view to undermining the
constitutional order, and verbal delict. In addition, the indictment against
Izetbegovi also charged him with being leader of a group of conspirators,
though as it would later turn out at the trial, he had never seen some of the
accused before. It was true that five of the twelve accused had all belonged
to the Young Muslims in the late 1940s, but when the organization was
abolished in the early 1950s they had ceased to act in concert, mainly out of
fear for their very lives. Even so, the court found sufficient evidence to
bring a number of Muslims to court, accusing them, to put it simply, of
wanting to break up Yugoslavia (posing a counter-revolutionary threat to
the social order in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia) and,
allegedly, to build an Islamic state on the ruins, which they would then
23

perhaps incorporate into the rest of the Islamic world. Though such
accusations now provoke only wry smiles, at the time the situation was
anything but amusing. On day one, Alija Izetbegovi, Omer Behmen,
Hasan engi, Ismet Kasumagi, Edhem Biaki, Husein ivalj, Ruid
Prguda, Salih Behmen, Mustafa Spahi, Demaludin Lati, Melika
Salihbegovi, Dervi \urevi and \ula Biaki were brought into the
courtroom. Almost all were known to have played a more or less significant
part in safeguarding Bosnia and Herzegovina against aggression, which to
some extent corroborates the hypothesis that the Yugoslav authorities knew
whom they were dealing with. The prosecutor was Edina Reidovi, who,
the accused were to say, conducted her case with particular zeal in what was
obviously a show trial. She based the accusation of counter-revolution
activity on Izetbegovis Islamic Declaration which, she claimed, had been
translated into Arabic, Turkish, English and German between 1974 and 1983
with the intention of posing a counter-revolutionary threat to the social order
of Socialist Yugoslavia, and published in these languages with a foreword; in
addition, with a view to creating a body of like-minded associates at home to
pose a counter-revolutionary threat to the social order in the manner and
with the aims set out in the Declaration, the accused had given copies to
numerous intellectuals Husein \ozo, Muhamed Kupusovi, Husein ivalj,
Hasan engi, Rusmir Mahmutehaji, Mehmedalija Hadi, Melika
Salihbegovi and Edhem Biaki, following which Hasan engi, Ismet
Kasumagi, Huso ivalj and Edhem Biaki had become members of the
group. Since there was no evidence to support these claims, it being
perfectly clear that the Islamic Declaration did not pertain to Yugoslavia at
all, the prosecution resorted to extorting statements from witnesses. One by
one, Muslim intellectuals and religious leaders were brought in by the secret
police and interrogated day and night. Under pressure, many signed a certain
statement, but when brought before the court to repeat what had ostensibly
been their own statement, their consciences pricked them and they refused
24

to do so, contrary to what the prosecution had expected. Nonetheless, the

judiciary, under political orders, high-handedly upheld their signed statements
one by one. Fifty-nine witnesses were questioned, 56 requested by the
prosecution and only three by the defence. The statements of 23 of them
were irrelevant to both the prosecution and the defence, and were not called.
Of the remaining 36, fifteen held largely to their accusatory pre-trial
statements, but 21 altered their pre-trial statements to a greater or lesser
Many of the
degree, and in some cases, repudiated them altogether.
witnesses complained of their treatment while making their statements.
Some claimed that their testimony had been altered to suit the charges. The
principal methods used by the interrogators were blackmail and various kinds
of pressure and threats. For example, one witness, Reid Hafizovi, stated
that the interrogator had pulled a gun on him, and Enes Kari that his
statement had been so altered as to be unrecognizable, after which he was
forced to sign it. Even as he did so, he was planning to deny everything in the
statement. At a Supreme Court hearing on 14 March 1984, one of the
accused, Mustafa Spahi, said that he had been faced with a choice by his
interrogators: either to sign a statement against one of the three principal
accused or to be charged himself. On refusing to give false evidence, he was
sentenced to a five-year prison term. Izetbegovi demanded a public trial,
and also complained that for the most part, only politically correct media
representatives were allowed into the courtroom, whose reports were not
impartial, but followed the prosecution line. Gradually, various human
rights organizations began to put in an appearance, calling for a stay of
proceedings, since it was increasingly obvious that this was a trial of nonsympathizers, not for what they had done, but simply because they held
different views. With hindsight, it may seem somewhat strange that it was
from Belgrade, albeit only well after the verdicts had been handed down, that
a trenchant voice against the Sarajevo Trial of the twelve was heard. A
petition signed by twenty leading Belgrade intellectuals was sent to the
25

Presidency of Yugoslavia on 6 June 1986: Twelve Muslim intellectuals were

on trial in Sarajevo between 18 July and 19 August 1983. This trial will go
down in the history of the present-day Yugoslav judiciary as the archetype of
exemplary punishment for word and thought. The court of first instance
handed down draconian sentences for delict of opinion, unusual even in our
circumstances: three of the accused received a five-year prison sentence, two
a six-year sentence, one a sentence of six years and six months, one of seven,
two of ten, one of fourteen and one of fifteen years. The sentences handed
down by the Supreme Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina were only slightly less
harsh, ranging from three years and six months to twelve years noted the
petition. The petition was reissued in October 1986, noting that the charges
were concocted and that the trial was unjust and not conducted lawfully, and
calling on the Presidency to free the accused. Contrary to what might have
been expected, this did not induce the court to reduce the sentences. As the
principal accused, Izetbegovi was sentenced to a seemingly endless fourteen
years in prison. Commenting on the verdict, he observed that he loved
Yugoslavia, but not its authorities. The final few sentences of his closing
remarks reveal a man who was willing to sacrifice literally everything for his
ideals: I was and shall remain a Muslim. I saw myself as a fighter for the
Islamic cause in this world, and shall see myself in the same way to the end of
my days. For me, Islam is another name for all that is fine and noble, a name
for the promise or hope of a better future for Muslim nations, for their life in
dignity and freedom, in a word, for everything that, in my belief, is worth
living for. The day after the verdict was pronounced, the daily newspaper
Osloboenje came out with the headline: 90 years for the enemies. The
long years of incarceration were to follow.

26

27

Prison days

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n November 1983, Izetbegovi was transferred to Foa to serve his

fourteen-year sentence. As he entered the prison compound, he took a
deep breath, preparing himself for a long struggle to maintain his physical
and mental health. It was vital to stay normal on that rocky, uncertain
path to which he could see no end. He was put in Block S-20, known as the
homicide block, since most of its inmates had been convicted of at least one
murder. Alija would later often make a point that sounds somewhat strange,
but once he had explained it, you would see that it made sense, saying, I was
lucky to be in a block with murderers. Some of my comrades from the trial
were worse off, because they were put with petty thieves and criminals, which
is a real misfortune in prison. People like these have no moral fibre, but
murderers are another class of people. He often referred to the case of a
man who killed a man in a coffee-house after the man had almost killed his
father when you think about it, you find yourself thinking you would have
done the same. The days in prison dragged by, and Izetbegovi turned
increasingly to reading and contemplation, as well as finding various ways to
make the time seem shorter and to keep physically and mentally fit. The
knowledge that ahead of him lay an endless succession of identical or barely
different days in a cell of two by two metres was incredibly disheartening.
Given his age (he was already about 60), Izetbegovi often caught himself
wondering if he would survive to the end of his prison term and live to enjoy
freedom again. Yet he was a man with the spiritual strength to endure all the
trials of his days in prison and all the painful tribulations that assailed him
from every quarter. Despite all his anxieties, the end of his incarceration
found Izetbegovi in a good state of mind. He would himself say that he owed
his preservation as much to his faith as to the loyalty and constant moral
support of his son Bakir and his two daughters, Lejla and Sabina. The letters
they exchanged throughout his time in gaol were full of parental affection
from him and infinite concern for their father on his childrens part. Those
of the family who were at liberty lived for their father in prison, and the
29

reverse was equally true: in his prison cell, their father thought constantly
about his family. This helped him through the moments when he had the
bitter taste of abandonment and sorrow in his throat. (My courage would
gradually fail me as the day passed, reaching its lowest point in the early
evening, when I would find it hard to fight off the onset of melancholy. It
would seem that I incautiously wrote about this to my daughter Sabina, for
one day I received a letter from her: I dont know if you used to feel this, but
in my case that feeling always comes over me as dusk falls. I have to keep
really busy to keep it, to some extent at least, at bay. Sometimes this sadness
is mingled with fear and physical weakness. I know that it has always been
somewhat difficult for me to get ready when I had to go out at that time of
day. But as soon as I was out and darkness had fallen, it would all pass. Its as
though all my fears, uncertainties and sorrows come together in that feeling,
and I would think that this is how people feel when they decide to turn to
alcohol or drugs to escape. Im telling you this because I want you to know
that I too know that feeling, in part at least, and that I can imagine how it is
for you. Prison must make it harder, just as for me the feeling of freedom in
this house helps me to get through that part of the day. Perhaps it would be
best for you to try to be doing something when it comes over you, to read
something light if you can, to do a crossword or watch TV. What I know for
sure is that its not good to think about it at those times, or to give in to those
feelings; it only makes things worse. There I go again, preaching to you, but I
wanted to make it a bit easier for you. In fact, what I would like best is for us
to be at my place at that time of day, sitting over a cup of coffee. But at least
I want you to know that I am thinking of you always, and particularly as dusk
falls. Quoted in Memoirs.) The effect of all this was to create an unusually
strong emotional bond between father and son and between father and
daughters, particularly between Izetbegovi and his son Bakir, who was
following in his fathers footsteps by becoming interested in politics and the
state of the society in which he lived. Bakir developed a keen sense for politics
30

and a strong desire to become involved. This bond between father and son
would become even more marked later, under the even greater tribulations of
the unimaginably turbulent years of war, in which Izetbegovi the elder would
play one of the key roles. Once the interrogations and the trial were over
and he had to some extent adjusted to his new living quarters, Izetbegovi
began to keep notes reflections on life and destiny, on religion and politics,
on the works he had read and their authors, and on the many other things
that came to his mind as he spent some two thousand days and nights in
prison. These notes finally amounted to thirteen A5 exercise books of minute,
deliberately illegible script, which would be published in late 1999 with the
title My Escape to Freedom. Following publication, the critics would express
the view that Izetbegovis notes shed considerable light on his personality, in
all its complexity. Prof. Dr. Enes Kari, whom UDBAs interrogators had
unsuccessfully tried to pressure into giving false testimony against Izetbegovi
and his co-accused, wrote in his review of the book that it was impossible to
read the book without becoming aware of the importance of Alija Izetbegovis
intellectual, spiritual and political biography, for these notes, written while
serving his prison sentence, fill many gaps in the mosaic that constitutes the
intellectual biography of an outstanding figure, one who had a major impact
on the final decade of the twentieth century. Kari also observed that
Escape to Freedom is in fact a refusal to allow the spirit to be quenched, and
thus a way in which its author transcended the harsh reality of prison,
becoming a quest for human freedom. It is in this blend of the personal and
the universal that the importance of Izetbegovis writings is to be found.
Alija Izetbegovi used his time in prison to read and fill the gaps in his
education. He had plenty of time, and the will to spare as well (true, there
was no great choice of things to do), so that gradually, from an already solid
base, he moulded himself into a man ready for any historic challenge. Those
who read his notes from prison will be fascinated by the lucidity of his
thinking. They may recognize their own thoughts in some of his conclusions
31

or hypotheses, while others will give them an insight into the spiritual
complexities of this unusual man. Specific circumstances meant that the
First,
personality of Alija Izetbegovi developed along specific lines.
Izetbegovis faith grew still stronger during his incarceration. His infinite
devotion to God was an oasis of calm in which he always found refuge during
particularly turbulent days in prison. Second, his long spell behind bars
meant that he developed a particular feeling for freedom: what other people
take for granted, was for Izetbegovi the Holy Grail. (Much later, during
the 1992-1995 war, he would utter the words that would be so often quoted:
I swear by Almighty God that we shall not be slaves.) To this prison inmate,
to be free meant both the supreme desire and the highest responsibility a
person can have. In some of his interviews, therefore, Izetbegovi spoke of the
terrifying side of freedom which everyone who is not strong-willed enough
has felt; in fact, they do not know what to do with their freedom, and
subconsciously want to be un-free, to be captives. Third, no doubt under
the constant pressure of injustice, Izetbegovi would spend the rest of his life
fighting for justice as he saw it, both for himself and for the people and country
to which he belonged.

32

33

Freedom at last

34

lawyer himself, Izetbegovi continued his campaign for a reduced

sentence from his prison cell. He wrote to the Federal Court in
Belgrade, drawing attention to the unlawful nature of the trial
itself. The international media also described the Sarajevo trial as a show
trial and, slowly but thoroughly, a climate of opinion conducive to amending
the sentence was created. The softening-up process took about three years,
but finally, under the terms of a Federal Court ruling, Izetbegovis sentence
was symbolically reduced from fourteen to twelve years; more important, the
charges were altered, leaving only the office of verbal delict of Article 133 of
the Criminal Code. After various turns of events, the final verdict was nine
years. Izetbegovi ultimately served five years and eight months which
was what it cost him to try to convey his beliefs to others. Between three and
four in the afternoon of 25 November 1988, Izetbegovi was summoned to
the prison offices, where the chief warden, Malko Koroman, in ceremonial
uniform, read out to him in an equally ceremonial voice the decision by the
Presidency of Yugoslavia exempting him from the remainder of his sentence.
It was his 2705th day in prison. Izetbegovi could scarcely believe it: he was
a free man at last. Whatever doubts he may have had after his first term in
prison, now, after his second, there were none. His plan was clear in his mind:
to form a political party, and to win the elections.

35

Founding the party

36

he end of the 1980s gave a foretaste of the turbulent beginning of

the 90s. The crisis in Yugoslav was reaching its peak. In the western
regions of the country there were demands for democratization and
for the introduction of a multi-party system, and the finger was being pointed
more and more openly at Serbian hegemony. In Serbia, meanwhile, Miloevi
was coming to the fore, and was convincing the Serbs that it was they who
were under threat, so gradually creating the psychological climate for war.
Slovenia and Croatia, for their part, were increasingly keen to break away
from Yugoslavia to become independent states. New political elites were
coming to the fore, soon to bring changes to the country. One after another,
new political parties were being formed. Franjo Tuman set up the Croatian
Democratic Union (HDZ, with an independent Croatia as its central aim.
Izetbegovi watched all these changes, keen that the Muslim population,
from Novi Pazar to Cazin (as he wrote in his Memoirs), be ready to meet
them. From the outset it was the Yugoslav Muslim Organization of Mehmed
Spaho that was his political inspiration, though he believed it had had certain
weaknesses, as was clear from the fact that it fell apart with the very first
trials of war in 1941. Izetbegovi, who had a premonition of war, did not
want the same thing to happen to his party. Work on the formation of the
party began in November 1989, just a year after he left prison. Somewhat
against his will, he was leader of the party from the outset. He admitted in his
memoirs that he even asked himself, If Im the best, what are the rest like?
He answered himself thus: I suppose leaders have to have some major faults,
and I certainly had enough. The first person he contacted was Prof. Dr.
Muhamed Filipovi, who courteously turned him down on the grounds that,
in his view, the time was not ripe to form a Muslim party. He probably had in
mind the law, still in force at the time, prohibiting all political activity not
under the auspices of the Communist League. Anyone acting in breach of
this law could in theory receive a ten-year prison sentence. Izetbegovi
decided to take the risk. Throughout his life he had always challenged the
37

odds, and besides, it seemed to him that it was in fact the time to form his
party. In his quest for like-minded associates, he went to Zagreb, where
political events had progressed further, and where he therefore hoped to find
a better reception for his ideas as indeed he did. There he met emso
Tankovi and Salim abi (who has since died). About fifteen invitees
attended a meeting in the Zagreb mosque, organized by abi, and agreement
in principle was rapidly reached to form a political party from the Muslim
cultural community, with pan-Yugoslav aspirations: Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo and Macedonia. Branches were soon
set up abroad as well; the idea spread like wildfire. These developments were
favoured by the crisis that was sweeping through the entire socialistcommunist camp. The Berlin Wall fell, and with it the power of the ideology
that had ruled the Eastern Bloc. On 27 March 1990, as spring was breaking,
Izetbegovi called a press conference at the Holiday Inn in Sarajevo to
announce the formation of his political party. His voice shaking somewhat
from emotion, he read out a press statement, later to be known as the
Statement by the Forty, after the number of signatories, which read as follows:
We the undersigned, faced with the crisis of Yugoslav society, which is not
only economic but also political and moral, concerned to preserve Yugoslavia
as a union of peoples and nations and interested in the unhindered
advancement of the democratic processes that have already begun towards a
free, modern state with the rule of law, desirous of encouraging this
advancement and in achieving, in such a state, not only the interests common
to all its citizens, but also those particular to us as citizens belonging to the
Muslim cultural community, have resolved to launch an initiative to found
the Party for Democratic Action (SDA), and to this end hereby announce
the sixteen programmatic principles of our political action. This was
followed by the list of principles. Though it made nominal appeal to all
citizens, it was clear from the very first paragraph that the party was to be
nationally-based: The SDA is a political alliance of the citizens of Yugoslavia
38

who belong to the Muslim cultural community, as well as to other citizens of

Yugoslavia who accept the partys programme and objectives. (Nominally,
therefore, those who were not Bosniacs were also invited to join the political
alliance, but the Serbs already had their own Serbian Democratic Party (SDS)
and the Croats their Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ).)The principles
dealt with the procedures of the party and its aims and objectives. In brief,
the founders of the SDA called for elections, democratic rule, equality for all
the peoples of Yugoslavia and in particular in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and
for a polity based on human rights and freedom of belief. They made no
demands for the break-up of Yugoslavia, and though events were to move in
a different direction, it even seemed that they saw it as a desirable though not
necessary political framework. Of particular significance for gaining a fuller
picture of the political interests of the partys founders is Principle 7:
Faced with the disregard for the national specificity of the Muslims of Bosnia
and Herzegovina and the consequent encroachment upon them, and rejecting
these aspirations as contrary not only to the historical facts but also to the
clearly expressed will of the (Muslim) nation, we hereby affirm that the
Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina, both those living in BiH and those
beyond its borders, are an indigenous Bosnian nation and, as such, constitute
one of the six historic peoples of Yugoslavia, with its own historical name, its
own land, its own history, its own culture, its own religion, its own poets and
writers in a word, its own past and future. The SDA will therefore seek to
revive the national consciousness of the Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina
and insist that the fact of their national identity be respected, with all its legal
and political consequences. Emphasizing the right of the BH Muslims to live
in this country under their own national name and as an indigenous people,
we acknowledge the same right equally, without no qualifications or
reservations, to the Serbs and the Croats, and to all the other nations and
peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In this regard, we affirm our particular
interest in the preservation of Bosnia and Herzegovina as the common state
39

of Muslims, Serbs and Croats. The SDA will therefore resolutely oppose
attempts to destabilize, partition or encroach upon Bosnia and Herzegovina,
regardless of the source of these and similar ideas. The Principles drew
particular attention to the right to absolute freedom of action of all religions
on Yugoslavia. The document ended with the signatures of each of the forty:
Alija Izetbegovi, LLB, Sarajevo; Muhamed engi, BSc. Eng, Sarajevo; Dr.
Maid Hadiomeragi, dentist, Sarajevo; Dr. Muhamed Hukovi, teacher,
Sarajevo; Edah Beirbegovi, attorney, Sarajevo; Dr. acir erimovi, chief
physician, Sarajevo; Salim abi, businessman, Zagreb; Prof. Dr. Sulejman
Maovi, Faculty of Special Education, Zagreb; Prof. Dr. Fehim Nametak,
scientist, Sarajevo; Salih Karavdi, attorney, Sarajevo; Fahira Fejzi,
journalist, Sarajevo; Dr. air engi, physician, Sarajevo; Edhem Tralji,
LLB, Sarajevo; Demaludin Lati, writer, Sarajevo; Omer Pobri, musician,
Sarajevo; Dr. Sead esti, scientist, Sarajevo; Dr. Tarik Mufti, chief
physician, Mostar; Safet Isovi, performing artist, Sarajevo; Dr. emso
Tankovi, senior lecturer, Faculty of Economics, Zagreb Mirsad Veladi,
MSc.Chem.Eng., Velika Kladua; Dr. Kemal Biaki, chief physician,
Sarajevo; Abdulah Skaka, artisan, Sarajevo; Omer Behmen, BSc.Civ.Eng.,
Sarajevo; efko Omerbai, chief imam, Zagreb; Dr. Mustafa Ceri, senior
lecturer, Faculty of Islamic Studies, Sarajevo; Dr. Sulejman amdi,
scientist, Zagreb; Prof. Dr. Lamija Hadiosmanovi, Faculty of the Humanities,
Sarajevo; Dr. Halid auevi, LLB., Sarajevo; Kemal Nani, BSc.Civ.Eng.,
Zagreb; Bakir Sadovi, student, Sarajevo; Faris Nani, student, Zagreb;
Nordin Smajlovi, student, Zagreb; Husein Huski, MSc. Mech.Eng., Zagreb;
Mirsad Srebrenkovi, LLB, Zagreb; Nedad Dumhur, BSc.Chem.Eng., Banja
Luka; Fehim Nuhbegovi, businessman, Zagreb; \ulko Zuni, businessman,
Zagreb; Prof. Dr. Almasa airbegovi, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine,
Sarajevo; Prof. Dr. Ahmed Brakovi, Faculty of Economics, Sarajevo.
There was talk that the forty signatories might find themselves on the wrong
side of the law; yet things were changing, and the authorities no longer had
40

the strength for another major political trial. All that happened in reaction to
the formation of the SDA was that a series on the 1983 trial of Alija
Izetbegovi was launched in Osloboenje. The journalist who had reported
on the trial had retained the style that prevailed at that time: the same
accusations, the same way of faking them, as if nothing had happened in the
meantime. The hidden agenda of the series was to use the Izetbegovi case as
yet another way of showing what kind of political freaks were founding the
party. The authorities, who really did see the newly-emerging political actors
in this way, were convinced they would win the forthcoming elections, and
that these reminders of the reactionary plans of ex-cons and incorrigible
fanatics would merely increase their lead. They got it wrong, however. Time
would show that the people were sympathetic to the ex-cons, and were
increasingly ready to adopt their political aims as their own. Two months
after the press conference at the Holiday Inn, the Constituent Assembly of
the SDA was held at the same venue, in a packed hall, where euphoria swept
through all those present. As eye-witnesses report, the initial fear had been
replaced by defiance and resolve. The invitees included many distinguished
figures. The cameras focused in particular on Adil Zulfikarpai, a Bosnian
migr and cult figure who at the time was still living in Zrich, where he had
founded the Bosniac Institute and assembled some extremely valuable
documents on the history of Bosnia and Herzegovina. With others of like
mind, he had already been a signatory to a number of democratic initiatives
relating to the former Yugoslavia. He had considerable political experience,
and his presence served as a major incentive to other SDA members to
continue their political action. Izetbegovi had personally invited Zulfikarpai
to the constituent assembly. In Zrich the two had already discussed forming
the party, and had clashed over the term Muslim versus Bosniac: Zulfikarpai
held the view that the term Bosniac should be incorporated into the
programme document from the outset, while Izetbegovi agreed that the
term Muslim was not appropriate, but did not agree with the immediate use
41

of an alternative. He believed that the sudden introduction of the term

Bosniac could confuse people when the population census was carried out,
and wanted to leave the renaming of the nation for a later date, which was
done. In his Holiday Inn speech, Izetbegovi addressed the issue of possible
encroachments on Bosnian territory, saying, I am certain I rightly understand
the deepest sentiments of the Muslim people when I say that they will not
allow Bosnia to be dismembered. The shameful Cvetkovi-Maek agreement
to partition this country is dead and gone, and the force being born in this
hall today is the guarantee of that. These words were met with a burst of
applause.

42

43

The election campaign

44

he constitution of the SDA created the formal prerequisites for

joining the race to win power. Branches sprang up all over the
place. Particularly memorable was a rally in Banja Luka attended by
about 20,000 people, at which a speech by Academician Prof. Dr. Muhamed
Filipovi, a native of that part of the world, was especially well received.
Izetbegovis visit to the US was memorable for his meeting with Nijaz Batlak,
nicknamed Daida, who introduced himself as a Croat of the Islamic faith.
He asked Alija if the Bosniacs were making preparations for war, and chillingly
foretold the slaughter of Bosniacs in the Drina valley. Daida was later to
play a controversial part in the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The SDAs
largest election rallies were in Foa, Novi Pazar and Velika Kladua, with
Foa the most emotional and Velika Kladua the most impressive. There,
on 15 September 1990, about 200,000 people came to hear Izetbegovi give
a speech in which he was quite explicit: Bosnia and Herzegovina as a civil
republic is what the Muslim people want: not Islamic, not socialist, but civil.
Vigorous demands for independence were already being made in Slovenia
and Croatia, prompting the leader of the SDA to emphasize that the Bosniacs
would not agree to remain part of Greater Serbia. He was quite direct:
If necessary, the Muslims will take up arms to defend Bosnia. The speech
he made at this rally will be remembered as the first time Izetbegovi spoke
of arms as a possible alternative. Perhaps even he himself did not believe
that the armed conflict he spoke of was soon to become a reality. Three
days after the Kladua rally, Zulfikarpai and Filipovi tried to overthrow
the SDA leadership. They were unhappy with the iconography of the
rallies, and believed that the party was moving towards religious radicalism.
Izetbegovi emerged as victor, his position as leader consolidated, leaving his
two opponents to form their own party, the Muslim Bosniac Organization
(MBO). Meanwhile, the leader of the SDA was getting to know, one by
one, the main political actors in the Yugoslav crisis. When he arrived in
Zagreb, Stipe Mesi, whom he also met at that time, invited him to a meeting
45

with Tuman. Unlike Tuman, whom he did not take to, Izetbegovi liked
Mesi, and despite all the turbulent events that followed, their sincere
friendship lasted until Izetbegovis death. At their very first meeting, to
Izetbegovis horror, Tuman showed a complete lack of tact when he said,
Mr. Izetbegovi, dont create a Muslim party, thats quite the wrong thing,
because the Croats and Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina are one people.
The Muslims and the Croats both feel that way. He resorted to what were
ostensibly historical arguments in support of this claim. After Izetbegovi had
heard him out with no great enthusiasm, Tuman predicted electoral defeat
for the SDA: The HDZ will get seventy percent of the vote, because it will
get all the Croat and the Muslim votes, he claimed. Izetbegovi responded
by saying that he respected his interlocutors knowledge of history, but that
he himself was somewhat better acquainted with the Bosnia of today, and
that the HDZ would get exactly 17 percent of the vote, corresponding to
the number of Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This was exactly what
happened at the 1990 November elections: the HDZ gained the 17 percent
of the vote represented by the Croats. But Izetbegovi returned from Zagreb
with a bitter taste in his mouth. It was the start of the unconcealed antipathy
between the two men.

46

47

Election victory

48

he elections were held on 18 November 1990. The SDA won 86

of the 240 seats in the Parliament of the Republic of Bosnia and
Herzegovina, while three of the seven-member Presidency members
were SDA candidates. The clear winner among these three was Fikret Abdi,
with 1.2 million votes; Izetbegovi won 870,000 votes. Abdi was helped by
the popularity he had gained as the founder of Agrokomerc and a victim
of the 1986-1987 promissory notes affair. His image was of a successful
businessman, unencumbered by national affiliation or nationalism, which was
good reason to believe that he received some Serb and Croat votes as well.
Despite this, political agreement was reached and Abdi conceded the post
of chair of the Presidency to Alija Izetbegovi. Regrettably, the clash that
was smouldering between these two politicians, with their different ideas,
and also their different vanities and temperaments, was to culminate during
the war that broke out in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992. Abdi returned
to Velika Kladua and raised his own army, which was to join forces with the
Croatian Serb army, continuing to fight the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina
to the last. As it turned out, Slobodan Miloevi and Radovan Karadi were
able, thanks to Abdi, to achieve one of their strategic goals: a rift between
different groups of Bosniacs. The inter-Bosniac conflict in the Krajina (the old
Military Frontier region) was to exacerbate the misfortunes of the Bosniacs
to unimaginable proportions. Following the elections and the investiture of
the members of the Presidency of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, a
government was formed from a coalition between the SDA, the SDS and the
HDZ. The parties opposing interests, however, resulted in a dysfunctional
government. Karadis SDS wanted the country at all costs to remain part
of rump Yugoslavia, without Croatia and Slovenia, which in any case were
an obstacle to his visions of Greater Serbia. The HDZ, under the influence of
Dr. Franjo Tuman, was increasingly inclined towards the partition of Bosnia
and Herzegovina. Despite this, Izetbegovi worked with these parties in an
attempt to achieve some kind of (multi-) national consensus, but without
success; the clashes grew more and more bitter, the clamour of arms became
ever louder, and the skies over Yugoslavia steadily darkened.
49

Failure of talks on
the preservation of Yugoslavia

50

n early January 1991 the newly-elected member of the Presidency of

Bosnia and Herzegovina began attending meetings of the enlarged
Presidency of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, consisting
not only of its own members but also the presidents of the republics, and also
attended by the federal Prime Minister, Ante Markovi, and the Defence
Minister, Veljko Kadijevi. Fruitless attempts were made to reach consensus
on the future of Yugoslavia. In despair, the Macedonian and Bosnian
presidents, Kiro Gligorov and Alija Izetbegovi, tabled a proposal for a graded
federation, as a compromise between the options proposed by Slovenia and
Croatia on the one hand, and Serbia on the other. Though clearly made with
the best of intentions, the initiative came to nothing, and barricades began
going up in the regions of Croatia inhabited by Serbs. Assisted by armed
locals, the Yugoslav Peoples Army (JNA) followed Slobodan Miloevis
orders and surrounded the area they claimed as a Serb Autonomous Region,
a model later to be transferred to Bosnia and Herzegovina. By the spring of
1991 the SDS was creating Serb Autonomous Regions by force, as facts on
the ground. Military sources reveal that the JNA distributed 51,900 items
of infantry arms to the Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1991, to which
should be added another 17,300 rifles distributed by the SDS through its own
channels which again means the JNA according to intelligence sources.
It was clear that Karadi was attempting, in the absence of arguments, to
strengthen his negotiating position by force of arms. Meanwhile, Izetbegovi
was acquiring his first experiences as an international statesman. In March
1991 he travelled to Austria, where he met Kurt Waldheim, then president
of Austria. It was Izetbegovis first official foreign visit. Waldheim had his
own major problems at the time, his Nazi past having been revealed. Even
so, Izetbegovi decided to go to Austria, a country of great importance for
the fledging Bosnian diplomacy. Later, Austrias Foreign Minister, Dr. Alois
Mock, was to receive the order of Zmaj od Bosne (Dragon of Bosnia) from
Izetbegovi, in recognition of all that his country had done for Bosnia and
51

Herzegovina. Visits to Iran and Turkey followed. The reception he received

in Tehran was far beyond what Izetbegovi had expected: he was met at the
airport with a guard of honour of three branches of the Iranian army, every
one of the countrys highest-ranking officials, and a line of fifty diplomats.
For a man who had until recently been a traitor to the regime, this was a
considerable shock, and he was not sure he had been at his best during
that first reception. It is well known, however, that Iran would later play a
crucial part in arming the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in deliberate
defiance of the unjust arms embargo imposed on the country. His visit to
the United States left Izetbegovi disappointed by the lack of understanding
of the Yugoslav crisis, and under the impression that the USA would not
do anything. As part of the diplomatic offensive, he also went to Rome to
attend a meeting of European Community countries, at which a Declaration
on Yugoslavia was adopted. While all this was going on, Miloevi, Tuman
and Izetbegovi also met a number of times in the summer of 1991 to try to
find a way out of the crisis. The heads of state of Serbia and Croatia tried
to persuade the Bosnian to agree to some kind of three-way partition, but
Izetbegovi responded with the proposals he and Gligorov had put forward.
On his return from Split, where he had attended one of these meetings, he
was asked by a journalist to comment on the speculations about the partition
of Bosnia and Herzegovina, to which he replied, For me, that is nonnegotiable.

52

53

Karadis threats

54

he brief war in Slovenia broke out on 17 June 1991, the beginning

of the break-up of Yugoslavia under fire. It began with the secession
of this small state, with a population of two million, from which
the conflict soon spread to Croatia. There the police clashed with the JNA,
culminating in the siege of Vukovar and the shelling of Dubrovnik. The top
Serb echelons stormed their way through Croatia, on the crest of a wave of
enthusiasm illustrated by two remarks made by their leader, Jovan Rakovi:
The Serbs are a crazy people and, Stepping on Serb meadows, you can
get from Knin to Belgrade. Izetbegovi held to the view that Bosnia and
Herzegovina would not remain in a rump Yugoslavia, without Slovenia and
Croatia, for it would no longer be Yugoslavia: it would be Greater Serbia.
He had the support not only of his own party, but also of most middle-class
intellectuals in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Karadis response was his famous
parliamentary speech in which he threatened: Dont think you wont lead
Bosnia and Herzegovina to hell, and the Muslim nation perhaps to extinction,
speaking not only to parliament but also to the camera, and to a horrified
public. Izetbegovi reacted immediately. Karadis speech and its message
are the best possible explanation why we may not remain in Yugoslavia. No
one will want the kind of Yugoslavia that Mr. Karadi wants no one except
the Serbs. The clamour of arms could be heard everywhere, and under
Izetbegovis leadership, the SDA decided to set up a National Defence
Council for Bosnia and Herzegovina, from which the Patriotic League would
later emerge, the first military formation created to defend the country. This
was on 10 June 1991. Though poorly armed, the Patriotic League would itself
later become the pattern for the organization of the Army of Bosnia and
Herzegovina, the official army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Another sign of resistance was the decision, put forward by Izetbegovi and
adopted by the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, not to send military
recruits to Croatia. It was on this occasion that he appeared on Sarajevo
Television to appeal to his people not to respond to the call-up, uttering the
55

famous (and controversial) words: Remember, this is not our war. Later
these words would be reinterpreted to suit Tumans regime as meaning that
the Croatian struggle for independence was not Izetbegovis war, when he
really meant the very opposite. One of the manoeuvres with which attempts
were made to prevent the war spreading to Bosnia and Herzegovina was the
Serb-Muslim Accord engineered by Zulfikarpai and Filipovi. Armed
with Izetbegovis agreement, the two of them went to Belgrade for talks with
Miloevi, but the results were slim; the agreement was used to set up rump
Yugoslavia through the back door and for the Bosniacs, that simply meant
Greater Serbia. Nonetheless, this unsuccessful accord was yet another sign
of good will on the part of the Bosnians to prevent the war into which the
country was hurtling at breakneck speed. A conference on Yugoslavia was
held in The Hague in early November, but ended in total fiasco; it was now
obvious that war was inevitable. Still hoping for a miracle that might avert it,
Izetbegovi suggested that the European Community send a good will mission
to Bosnia and asked the UN to send blue helmets to prevent the conflict
already breaking out around the Bosnian borders from escalating. This was
the atmosphere in which the SDAs first Congress was held on 1 December
1991. The three-day congress was attended by 600 delegates and as many
guests, to whom Izetbegovi described the situation in his speech. Though
he, of all key participants, least wanted war, it seemed to him that it was
now inevitable, and he predicted an all-out war in which everything would
disappear in smoke and infamy. The international media would later often
quote these prophetic words.

56

57

The referendum

58

n 14 January 1992 the Parliament of Bosnia and Herzegovina

adopted a Resolution on Sovereignty, opposed by the countrys
Serbs, and preparations were made to hold a referendum on the
question Are you in favour of a sovereign and independent Bosnia and
Herzegovina, a state of equal citizens and nations of Muslims, Serbs, Croats
and others who live in it? Commenting on the SDS boycott following the
announcement of the referendum, Izetbegovi said, They (the SDS) have
blocked the adoption of a new constitution as proposed by the Constitution
Drafting Committee, and constantly accuse us of wanting a Muslim republic.
The fact is, though, that with their proposal to partition the country into
a Serb, a Croat and a Muslim Bosnia and Herzegovina, they are the ones
seeking to impose it on us. Our position is clear: we will not accept it. The
referendum was to be held on 29 February and 1 March 1992, with the
Croat electorates response still an unknown quantity. After calculating the
odds, Tuman gave the all-clear, and 63 percent of the population voted, 99
percent of whom voted in favour of an independent Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The countrys future was decided, in the legal sense at least; but its actual
fate would soon be decided on the battlefield. Yet what the referendum had
achieved was something no military victory could bring: the legality and
legitimacy of official power. The EC recognized Bosnia and Herzegovina as
an independent state on 6 April 1992, followed the next day by the United
States. Meanwhile, under European patronage, there were on-going talks on
the partition of the country. At the February talks in Lisbon, Izetbegovi
was joined by Dr. Haris Silajdi, whose powerful presence helped greatly to
ensure that the breakneck speed with which things were going downhill was
slowed at least a little. The positive features of the Lisbon proposals, in their
view, was that they envisaged the continuation of Bosnia and Herzegovina
within its administrative boundaries, but the negative side was the reference
to several possible entities. Izetbegovi was to write in his diary that he
had sought with all means in his power to save Bosnia and peace, while
59

wondering if it was even possible. As things turned out, it was not; the day
was fast approaching when the choice had to be made between them. Allout war broke out in April 1992. Izetbegovi, now 67 years old, was faced
with huge new challenges and, though he was not yet aware of it, with the
most turbulent period of his life.

60

61

The outbreak of war

62

n 2 May Izetbegovi was on his way back from the Lisbon talks,
together with his daughter Sabina, Dr. Zlatko Lagumdija (at
the time deputy Prime Minister of Bosnia and Herzegovina) and
Nurudin Imamovi, his personal bodyguard, when he was captured by the
JNA at Sarajevo airport. After a sleepless night and dramatic negotiations,
it was agreed that UNPROFOR would escort them into the besieged city.
This was just the beginning of the four-year war with Alija Izetbegovi at its
very heart. He himself said that there was widespread fear of the Chetniks
and that the psychological framework had been dismantled. And so it was:
once battle commenced, the fear evaporated, to be replaced by defiance. As
the fighting wore on, its cost in blood kept mounting. Izetbegovi often asked
himself if the conflict could somehow have been prevented. He answered his
own question in one of his diary entries: Until Slovenia and Croatia seceded,
yes, it could; after that, no. Or rather it could have, but only at the cost of
capitulation. And slavery is the worst possible solution, worse than war. He
was to repeat, again and again, that freedom was the supreme goal in life.
Despite the open fighting all over Bosnia and Herzegovina, it was not until
20 June 1992 that the Presidency declared a state of war. This was followed
by its Manifesto appealing for active involvement in the patriotic front of
the struggle against aggression. A war government was appointed, headed
by Jure Pelivan, and charged with the existential issues of a country under
attack. Dr. Haris Silajdi was appointed as Foreign Minister, and the other
members of the government were Jusuf Puina, Jerko Doko, Ranko Nikoli,
arko Primorac, Rusmir Mahmutehaji, Alija Delimustafi, Radovan
Mirkovi, Hasan Muratovi, Tomislav Krstievi, Ugljea Uzelac, Munir
Jahi, Mustafa Beganovi, Nikola Kova, Martin Ragu and Miljenko Brki.

63

The problem of arming the BiH Army

64

it by bit, in almost impossibly difficult circumstances, the Army of

Bosnia and Herzegovina came into being. The main problem was
the lack of arms, and the arms embargo for the former Yugoslavia
proclaimed by the UN Security Council rubbed salt into the wound. The
Bosnian government repeatedly pointed out the absurdity of this resolution:
the aggressors already had more arms than they could use, so that the
embargo affected only the victims. Despite this, the Army was being armed,
to some extent at least. The full details will probably never be known, but
the embargo was breached on several occasions with the tacit agreement of
certain western governments, including the US. A key arms delivery was a
shipload from Iran which docked in the port of Ploe, whereupon Tuman
ordered that half the arms be immediately unloaded for the Croatian Army;
still more were lost when, on the way to central Bosnia, the Croatian Defence
Council relieved the load of another 25 percent. Despite being drastically
reduced, this quantity of arms was crucial to the defence of certain stretches of
the front. The arming of the Bosnian military is in fact a thrilling story of its
peoples courage, persistence and ingenuity. As Alija Izetbegovi described it
for Stern, the German newspaper, towards the end of the war, Two processes
evolved side by side from the start of the war. We were becoming stronger
day by day, and they were becoming weaker. They did not form a straight
line on the graph, nor did they proceed at the same speed, but the general
trend was as I have just described it. Our infantry has been better than theirs
for a long time. Or, to put it another way, our handicap was heavy weapons,
artillery; theirs was the infantry. There will be more unpleasant surprises
for us and for them, but overall we have reached a state of equilibrium and
taken the initiative. The equilibrium is strategic in nature, while for now
the initiative is merely tactical. How can one explain our successes in Biha,
Kupres, Sarajevo? There are numerous factors, but the most important one
of all, the question of morale, does not lend itself to analysis. Our people
have the single-minded inner resolve to survive, a nation that had been
65

condemned to death. Alija Izetbegovi, that seemingly fragile man with

such deep religious sentiments, had so many things to deal with during the
war in Bosnia, as this passage from his biography vividly illustrates, in his own
words: The need for arms led us into all kinds of adventures. Once when
I was in Brussels, I dont remember the date, I was told that certain people
had offered to procure arms for us with which we could effectively target
Karadis troops holding Sarajevo under siege. They would supply us with
two special armoured helicopters and some missiles. It was a very attractive
offer, for we had already been trapped for more than 500 days, exposed to
random mortar and sniper fire day and night. There seemed no end to our
misfortunes. When I received them, these unknown people offered to land
helicopters with precision missiles on Mt Igman and the Zenica Stadium
on a given night. There were two of them, of rather innocuous appearance.
They did not introduce themselves, saying only that they were from South
Africa and that they operated world-wide. They laid down two conditions:
first, they wanted cash, to be paid the moment our people confirmed that
the helicopters had landed at the agreed sites; and second, that before
delivery we agree to their taking one of our men as hostage to an unidentified
location, as a guarantee that we wouldnt trick them. They suggested that
the entire business be conducted at one of our embassies in Europe, and that
the hostage be our charg daffaires there. After much haggling, we agreed
to their first condition but not to the second. They then said the money
should be brought in and handed over the moment our people confirmed that
the consignment had reached its destination. Arms dealers, along with drugs
mafiosi, are some of the most unscrupulous and dangerous people, ready for
anything to acquire their illicit gains. But if you wanted arms, they were the
only people you could buy them from. We told our connection in Istanbul to
procure the money and courier it to our embassy in this European city. The
dealers arrived at the agreed time, saying that the operation was ready to go
and that the helicopters, which were to take off from a base in Italy, could be
66

over the destination in Bosnia at around midnight. Our charg daffaires and
our courier, complete with the cash, were sitting in one corner of the room,
the dealers in another. I dont know who was more scared: our people of them,
or they of us. Our people were afraid, naturally enough, that the dealers, in
typical gangster style, would go for them and grab the cash; guns cocked, they
were on high alert. Just in case, the dealers were told that guards had been
posted in the corridors and at the entrance to the embassy. The dealers kept
calling someone on their mobiles. Our man later told me, Eleven oclock
struck, then midnight, then one, two, three. We stared unblinkingly at each
other, watching every move. About dawn, they asked permission to leave
the room to check, saying something was wrong. They left, and never came
back. It remains a mystery whether they were really arms dealers whose
operation failed as a result of some unforeseen developments, or just con
men trying to get hold of some easy money. Be that as it may, General Deli
in Zenica and a group of officers waited in vain beside burning fires, waiting
from a miracle from heaven; but the miracle never came. I too had a sleepless
night, sitting up by the telephone.

67

The Grabovica investigation

68

s the Bosnian war dragged on year after year, the hastily mustered
patriotic troops grew into an organized army with its own rules.
The nearest and dearest of many combatants suffered a terrible
fate: deportation, injury, rape, murder... In some of the places where Bosniacs
were massacred, entire families were wiped out. These traumatic events filled
people with anger at the enemy, and in some cases their rage gave rise to
the desire for revenge. One can understand their mental state, but a proper
army cannot be ruled by emotion; it was vital to prevent retaliation from
becoming the norm. The only person who seemed able to do this was Alija
Izetbegovi, whose authority was unquestioned among the troops, and that
is what he tried to do. He seized every opportunity not only to encourage the
men to keep on fighting, but also to make them aware of the moral aspect
of the Bosnian struggle. He insisted that they refrain from killing civilians
and from damaging or destroying Orthodox and Catholic places of worship.
When he was told by David Owen and Thorwald Stoltenberg, in August
1993, that BiH Army troops had committed atrocities against Croat civilians
in the village of Doljani near Jablanica, Izetbegovi wrote to General Rasim
Deli asking him to take immediate action: A few days ago I asked over
the telephone for an investigation into accusations by the HVO (Croat
Defence Council) that a unit of our troops had committed an atrocity by
massacring a number of civilians of Croat nationality in the village of
Doljani near Jablanica. I have not yet received a report on the matter, and
it is important you inform me of the results of the investigation and let it
be known publicly. Use every opportunity to warn our men that they must
uphold the laws of war. Do not hesitate to punish the offenders severely, and
do not hesitate to let it be known publicly. Despite these warnings, some
BiH Army troops undoubtedly committed atrocities against Serb and Croat
civilians. One known case is that of the village of Grabovica in Herzegovina,
where members of the Bosnian army killed 27 Croat civilians. Izetbegovi
ordered an immediate inquiry into the case, and promptly forwarded the
69

documents on the atrocity to The Hague, via a factotum. This horrific

case notwithstanding, the balance sheet of casualties of war reveal that
such things were not widespread, but tragic exceptions. Unlike the Serb
army, with its built-in genocidal plan, and the HVO, which in its own way
acted to create homogeneous ethnic territories by expelling non-Croats, the
Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina successfully preserved the image of an army
that refrained, despite the indescribably difficult circumstances, from mass
executions, arson and looting. The model was simple: the respective armies
reflected the official policies on behalf of which they are waging war, and the
official policy of the authorities in Sarajevo was a multiethnic state based
on civil and human rights. In year one of the war, the Army of Bosnia
and Herzegovina was without doubt a multiethnic army with a number of
extremely competent and experienced non-Bosniac generals, most notably
former JNA officers Stjepan iber, a Bosnian Croat, and Jovan Divjak, a
Serb. They greatly enhanced the Bosnian armys multiethnic credentials,
which was one of the ideals of Bosnias patriots. But as the war progressed,
and in particular once the conflict with the HVO broke out, the number
of non-Bosniacs in the BiH Army dwindled, and the number of units with
a Muslim prefix grew. It is hard to judge objectively, without the necessary
historical distance, how far the loss of non-Bosniacs from the Army could
have been prevented and the tendency to turn a multinational army into
a mononational one could have been halted; and still harder to reach an
unambiguous conclusion concerning Izetbegovis role in the process. Still,
the fact remains that by the end of the war in 1995, the Army of Bosnia and
Herzegovina was almost entirely Bosniac. It should also be recalled, however,
that mononational or not, it resolutely defended multinational, universal
principles. Throughout the four years of war Izetbegovi, though supreme
commander, was himself in almost constant mortal danger. The Presidency
building, where he came to work every day, was shelled more or less fiercely
every day the city remained under siege, taking hits from all kinds of missiles,
70

which sadly killed 57 people. In addition, Izetbegovi often toured the free
territories of Bosnia and Herzegovina, unhesitatingly flying in dilapidated,
insecure helicopters, giving rise to stories of his legendary courage. Wherever
he landed in free territory, he was greeted as an unchallenged leader. This
war-time enthusiasm was comparable with the struggles of Latin Americas
revolutionary idealists; and indeed, in his beret adorned with the fleur-de-lis
symbol of the Bosnian army, to some people he looked like a modern-day
Che Guevara or Tito.

71

Relations with the East

72

s the fighting on the ground continued, so too did talks and

international conferences. Izetbegovi was often obliged to
travel to the worlds metropolises to explain what was happening
in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He kept repeating that the war was a war of
aggression against an independent country that had been prepared, not for
war, but for peace. From Geneva to New York, from Helsinki to Tehran,
travelling the world from latitude to latitude and longitude to longitude,
he set out the details the strength of the JNA, the political context of
the aggression against Bosnia and its genocidal nature, the state of affairs in
the country, the cruel absurdity of the arms embargo, and the humanitarian
disaster threatening to destroy an entire people. Rather too slowly perhaps,
all these diplomatic initiatives began to produce results. The West sent food
convoys and, one by one, introduced sanctions against Karadis side, while
the Muslim East helped with arms. Combined with the Bosnian resolve to
keep fighting the unequal war despite the many casualties, the combination of
food and arms had a significant impact on the final outcome. Though there
were Serbs, Croats, Jews, Roma, Slovenes and Albanians among the victims
of Karadis troops, the worse casualties were among the Bosniac (Muslim)
population. As the war progressed, it became increasingly clear that the basic,
if not the only, obstacle to the partition of Bosnia and Herzegovina was the
Bosniacs, and that the war was aimed primarily at them. As a result, the
worlds Muslim countries became increasingly concerned about the war, and
little by little, Alija Izetbegovi became for them a mythical figure, the symbol
of the just struggle for freedom of the Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Wherever he appeared in the Muslim world, he attracted attention and
respect. His authority there added to Muslim solidarity and was a great help
in raising the funds needed to defend the country. Both during and after
the war in Bosnia he received a number of major awards from the Islamic
world: the King Faisal Award for services to Islam in 1993; the Thinker of the
Year Award from the Ali Osman Hafiz Foundation of Medina in 1996; the
73

Order of the Turkish Republic, an honorary doctorate from the University of

Riyadh, and an honorary doctorate in law from Marmara University, Istanbul
in 1997; the Order of Independence of the State of Qatar in 1998; and the
Islamic Man of the Year Award from the United Arab Emirates in 2001.

74

75

Visiting Jeddah

76

zetbegovis visit to Jeddah, where an extraordinary meeting of the

Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) was held in December
1992, turned out to be one of his more significant visits to an Islamic
country. Izetbegovi wrote in great detail about this meeting in his Memoirs,
giving an excellent impression of the atmosphere, mood and circumstances
at that time: I took off from Sarajevo in an UNHCR aircraft. The personal
aircraft of Sheikh Qasim, Sultan of Sharjah, a good, highly educated man
and great friend of Bosnia, was waiting for me at Zagreb. Sharjah is one
of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). On our way to Jeddah, we landed at
Tirana, where we were joined by Sali Berisha, president of Albania. As we
flew over Albania, we marvelled at both the beauty and the poverty of the
country: the green fields and foothills of the coast crisscrossed by narrow
cobbled roads. The aircraft landed at the half-derelict airport surrounded
by hundreds of the grey concrete bunkers built by Enver Hoxhas regime.
President Berisha, a US-educated physician, was fully aware that as a result
of Envers communism, his beautiful country was in a terrible state. When I
asked him about the economic situation in Albania, he replied that it was like
a rock-hard beaten path where it was almost impossible to grow anything. We
were met at Jeddah International Airport by Prince Salman. Tall, wearing
traditional Arabic costume, with a hooked, typically Semitic nose, and a
loud, harsh voice, the prince has long been an example of the most natural
modesty of demeanour. Mr President, we have called this extraordinary
conference so that all of us together might do more for your people. We shall
not stand quietly by as Muslims suffer like this, he said during our brief wait
in the airports ceremonial lounge. At Qasr al-Mutamar, the palace where
important meetings are held, the conference was opened the following day
by King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, as his
official title has it, who spoke fluently and boldly, referring to international law
and charters and to the religious obligations of every Muslim and every OIC
member state, highlighting the sufferings of the Muslims in Bosnia. In line
77

with the old ways of diplomacy, the conference ran along twin tracks: official,
and behind-the-scenes. Amir Musa, Egypts foreign minister, Pakistans
minister Mohammad Sattar, Irans foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati and,
of course, Prince Salman, set the tone for the two-day conference. I learned
that President Turgut Ogal of Turkey was in Ankara, following the events in
Jeddah. On the first evening, a draft resolution was produced, to be adopted
the following day, but it was too mild and general, with no commitments or
timelines. Silajdi and airbegovi paced nervously about the hotel room,
disappointed by the billion Muslims. All of a sudden the telephone rang:
Velayati was calling. By next day the draft had been fundamentally reworked.
We were happy with the result and were waiting for the resolution to be
adopted when we learned that Lord Owen, international mediator at the
talks on Bosnia and Herzegovina, had walked angrily out of the conference,
clearly unhappy with the new draft resolution. The Muslim countries were
calling upon the United Nations to lift the arms embargo by 1 February 1993,
failing which they would cease to observe it... Before our departure our hosts
arranged for us to perform umra. We donned the ihram and set off for Mecca.
Every idea one has of the Kaba from seeking images and reading descriptions
of it pale into insignificance when one sees the real thing. I caught my first
glimpse of it from the street, through the forest of columns. We came out at
the portico near the garden of Zamzam. Some pilgrims recognized me and
began chanting, Bosnia, Bosnia. I found a corner and prayed two rakaats,
the impressive height of the Kaba before me. O Lord, help my unfortunate,
isolated people, so far from their centre, I prayed silently, before beginning the
rituals as instructed by the Arab guide, who chased off the surprised pilgrims
in front of us. Bosnia, Bosnia, may Allah help our brothers from Bosnia cried
the weeping Muslims from every corner of the world. The next day we took
off on our journey home. In the lounge at Jeddah Airport, Prince Salman,
who had come to see us off, came over to me and said in an undertone, Mr
President, permit me to tell you that before we left for the airport, Al Gore
78

called me from America and told me that the US was going to reconsider
its position in regard to the embargo on the transfer of arms to Bosnia and
Herzegovina. Bill Clinton, Governor of the state of Arkansas, had just
won the presidential election, and was soon to take over the leadership of
the worlds only superpower, with Al Gore as his vice-president. The US did
indeed gradually change its policy towards the crisis in ex-Yugoslavia, and
later took over the initiative from Europe.

79

Relations with the West

80

uring the course of the many talks on the future of Bosnia and
Herzegovina, which continued almost throughout the war,
Izetbegovi met not only Muslim leaders but practically every other
major statesman of the day. Some even came to besieged Sarajevo, including
Frances President Mitterrand, as did many officials from international
organizations and US officials, three of whom came to a tragic end on the
slopes of Sarajevos Mt Igman. Izetbegovi did not hesitate to express his
sharp criticism of the Wests policies towards the crisis. He had the impression
that the international community had not worked out a clear plan for Bosnia
and Herzegovina, and therefore wrote to the UN General Assembly on several
occasions, calling for urgent military action against Karadis and Miloevis
troops, or alternatively to allow their victims to defend themselves, by lifting
the arms embargo. Europes governments remained irresolute, however.
Izetbegovis mood during the final third of the Bosnian war is perhaps best
illustrated by his speech at the Organization for Security and Cooperation
in Europe (OSCE) summit in Budapest on 5 December 1994. These are
some passage from that speech: Recent events in our country have filled me
with bitterness, so I shall be brief and to the point. There is really something
ironic in the fact that as I stand before this forum of an organization founded
twenty years ago for security and cooperation, and has those two great words
in its very title, I have to speak about things that are the very opposite: about
insecurity and non-cooperation... One gentleman, a senior official, told the
world and the people threatened with slaughter and annihilation, with cynical
indifference, that the Serbs had won as if this was a football match, and he
was blowing the final whistle... From the outset, Paris and London have
acted as the patrons of Serbia, blocked the Security Council and NATO, and
thereby prevented every move to end the Serb war of aggression... What
is happening in Bosnia is a clash between democracy and the most heinous
forms of nationalism and racism. Our opponents recognize only one nation
theirs, they recognize only one religion theirs; only one political party.
Everything that is not theirs is condemned to extinction. Even cemeteries are
81

being ploughed up. Read the latest report by the UN Special Rapporteur, Mr.
Mazowiecki, about what is happening in the territories held by the aggressor.
I would ask the gentlemen working so hard to make a state out of the monster
that calls itself Republika Srpska and some of those gentlemen are sitting
in this very hall whether they will next turn their hand to having that
republic recognized and its creators sitting here with us next time. I would
ask those gentlemen whether they are preparing to have that entity, founded
on violence and genocide, invited to join the family of civilized nations...
In a war of liberation, there is some intangible quantity that resists analysis.
This is why military and political analysts from the West keep getting their
forecasts wrong. Our people are fighting for their liberty, and more for their
very survival. Such a struggle is usually a hard one, but also one that is hard
to lose. Not one war of liberation has been lost in the past fifty years, and I
see no reason why ours should be. No one and nothing can force 150,000
soldiers to lay down their arms. I recommend you all take that into account,
both for our sake and for yours. I hope that the friends of Bosnia will not hold
these words against me; and as for the rest, after all thats not my concern.
Thank you. Izetbegovi often had the impression that people were actually
waiting for the government in Sarajevo to suffer a military defeat. This
gave rise to a profound sense of bitterness which, as in this speech at the
OSCE summit, he was unable to conceal. In their autobiographies, western
mediators such as David Owen or Richard Holbrooke described Izetbegovi
as a man with whom it was very difficult to negotiate. He found it hard to
reach a decision, and even when he did, it was uncertain whether he would
soon change his mind. He was not (eerily) easy-going as was, say, Miloevi,
who would somewhat craftily draw the line between life and death for the
people in the field over a whisky. Nor was he a fanatical historical idealist like
Franjo Tuman, who dreamed of making Croatia into a state with the most
territory (as a banate) it had ever had, whatever the cost. Nor did Izetbegovi
have the backing of a powerful army to help him in the negotiations. All
he had was legality, justice and the truth but these are the very issues that
82

become relative in times of war, when the force of argument has to face the
arguments of force. As a result, during the negotiations he had to resort
to tactics to such an extent that he got on the nerves of those impatient
careerists, the international mediators. Nonetheless, when all is weighed in
the balance, most of them held Izetbegovi in high regard. It was obvious to
them that as regards his policies and his military opponents, the other parties
to Bosnia and Herzegovinas crisis, he was a moral giant. They saw him as a
serious man who all his life had been ready to go to gaol for his ideals. True,
the war was the greatest test of the moral side of Izetbegovis personality,
as recognized in particular by Western intellectuals, with whom Izetbegovi
seems to have more success than with politicians. The French philosopher
Bernard Henry Levy was entranced by Izetbegovi the man, as he wrote in
Le Monde, and in 1995 El Mondo proclaimed him man of the year after the
signing of the Dayton Agreement. Several universities bestowed honorary
doctorates on him, and his understanding of politics gave him the standing of
a man who had advanced democracy. He received a medal from the Center
for Democracy in Washington, an award from the Crans Montana Forum
for the advancement of democracy, and many more accolades at home and
abroad. For his part, when asked what he thought about the worlds statesmen
after all those meetings, Alija Izetbegovi replied, These people are usually
surrounded by pomp, by police guards, by everything that gives the masses
the impression that they are outstanding figures. However, they are perfectly
ordinary, and some are even extremely average. All we politicians are more
or less the same. Except for a few individuals, there is no one I could say I
admire. Of course, there are those I like; I like Clinton, for example, because
of his easy-going ways, a kind of general attitude. Perhaps Im not putting
it well, I simply have the impression that he is a good man and, if I were an
American voter, I would vote for him. Kohl is an exceptional man, I have also
met Mitterrand three times, and then Chirac... They are not great men, but I
couldnt say of any of these leaders that they were below average.

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A New Year message

84

n his 1995 New Year message to the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Izetbegovi said, The war must not last a single day longer than it has
to, but nor shall we, can we accept peace at any cost. We shall therefore
negotiate wherever we can, but wage war if we must. As it turned out, they
had to continue waging war for another ten months. For 1 March, Bosnia
and Herzegovinas Independence Day, Izetbegovi gave a speech in the
Army Centre in Sarajevo, ending with these words: Our goal is a Bosnia of
free people, a Bosnia in which people and their rights will be respected. We
counter the concept of mononational, monoreligious, single-party parastates
in the plural with our concept of a free and democratic Bosnia. We
counter hatred and intolerance with democracy and tolerance... Every nation
has its promised land. Our promised land is Bosnia. I appeal you to fight for
it, and win! And so it was. Many historians were to say that it was at the
end of March 1995 that the BiH Army won the crucial battle to liberate Mt.
Vlai, above Travnik. No fewer than 21,000 combatants took part in this
huge operation, led by General Mehmed Alagi, commanding officer of the
Seventh Corps. As well as liberating 51 sq. km. of territory and bringing about
a major strategic shift in that part of the theatre of war, the battle was also
psychologically significant as the first great victory in a series of victories by
the BiH Army in the closing stages of the war. Let it not be forgotten that it
was achieved by Seventh Corps troops, with considerable assistance from the
Supreme Commands Seventh Muslim, Fourth Muslim and Guards Brigades.
Inevitably, there were casualties. Some law Murphys, probably says
that it is always the best that are taken. No one knows why, but so it turned
out on 28 May 1995, when a helicopter carrying Dr. Irfan Ljubljanki, acting
Foreign Minister, and his escort was shot down. Irfan was also a personal
friend of Izetbegovis, who valued him as a brave and honest man, and
he took the untimely death of his minister particularly hard. I dont like
telephone calls. Ever since the war broke out, they have never brought good
news. That morning it was 28 May 1995 I was called at about six oclock
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by General Deli, who said in a voice that boded no good, I have some very
sad news for you. He paused for a moment before going on: Last night a
helicopter of ours, carrying Minister Ljubljanki, was shot down over the
Knin krajina... By about noon it became known that our entire delegation,
returning from a visit to the Cazin krajina, had been killed. The four-member
delegation included not only Minister Ljubljanki but also the deputy justice
minister, Dr. Dr. Izet Muhamedagi, Dr. Mensur aboli, an official from our
Embassy in Zagreb, and Major Fadil Peki, Dr. Ljubljankis bodyguard. The
three-man Russian crew, who had been flying the helicopter on that risky
course for substantial danger money, were also killed.

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87

The Srebrenica tragedy

88

nd then, in July, came the final and most appalling twist in the spiral
of Bosnian misfortunes Srebrenica, the unprecedented massacre
of between eight and ten thousand Bosniacs and four times as
many bereaved. The Serb troops carrying out these operations were under
the direct command of General Ratko Mladi, charged by the prosecution in
The Hague with the genocide of the Bosniacs in this region. While the battle
was still going on, Mladi and Karadi were unconcernedly playing chess
as they waited for the bloodletting to be completed. There is absolutely
no doubt that as well as the Serb troops, the UN forces that were supposed
to be safeguarding Srebrenica, also bear some of the responsibility for the
massacre. At the time Srebrenica came under attack, it was a demilitarized
zone supposedly under the protection of UN forces, and most of the Bosniacs
had handed over their arms as required, somewhat naively believing that
they would be protected by UNPROFOR in the event of a large-scale Serb
attack. However, there was no reaction, and in vain Izetbegovi sent letters
to all and sundry, including Clinton himself. It would later become more
or less certain that the UNs seniormost officials, headed by Yasushi Akashi
and Boutros Boutros Ghali, had blocked any UNPROFOR reaction. The
Bosnian political and military authorities also bore their share of responsibility
for the tragedy of Srebrenica, as Izetbegovi himself was aware, writing in his
memoirs: When a tragedy of this scale occurs, no one is innocent. Every
one of us is to blame for allowing a world in which Srebrenica was possible.
Everyone has to believe that he or she could have done more. I am not
entirely happy with the actions of the Army at certain critical points, it seems
to me that they worked their way around some of the Chetnik positions. The
soldiers believe they did everything in their power in the circumstances. In
Srebrenica itself, conflict was constantly smouldering between the civilian
and military authorities. In any case, the unanimity that was needed was
lacking. This was in part the result of the psychological situation in a town
that was surrounded and where living conditions were incredibly difficult.
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Given the usually moderate tone of his notes, this passage makes it clear that
Izetbegovi believed the local military and civilian authorities were partly
responsible for the poor organization of the resistance to Mladis troops.
Even during the war, and especially after it, rumours began to spread that
Srebrenica had been exchanged for some other territory, and had fallen
victim to the overall strategy of the authorities in Sarajevo. In this regard,
there is a telling passage in Izetbegovis memoirs in which he writes that in
the prevailing circumstances, as early as 1993 he regarded the evacuation of
Srebrenica as the rational solution. In the town itself, the situation was
extremely bad in every regard. Food ran out from time to time, and the lack of
salt was a daily problem... Given the difficult situation, the idea of exchanging
Srebrenica and evacuating the town was often put forward, but rejected. This
was on the advice of the political and military leadership in Srebrenica, who
believed that the town could be defended. It seemed to me that the situation
would be untenable in the event of a large-scale enemy attack, and I was in
favour of evacuation, but did not insist on it. As far as I recall, the soldiers
were not in favour of evacuation either. It is still unclear what the mosaic
of responsibility for the tragedy of Srebrenica will look like. The relevant
documents have not yet all been studied, not all the witnesses have been
heard, and there are conflicting opinions. Even now, however, it is true to
say that Izetbegovi himself did not feel responsible, believing he had done
everything in his power. If a full investigation is every carried out, it will no
doubt reveal the truth, one way or the other.

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91

Air strikes and the end of the war

92

he disaster of Srebrenica was followed by lively diplomatic activity

on the Bosnian side, and the mood gradually turned in favour of
softening up Karadis troops by force of arms. The Serb side had
rejected a succession of peace plans for Bosnia and Herzegovina, committed
genocide in Srebrenica and then in epa, and carried out the Markale
market-place massacre in Sarajevo, and the West finally decided to back the
pro-Bosnian forces more resolutely. On 30 August 1995, more than three
years late, mass air strikes were carried out against the positions of Karadis
troops throughout Bosnia, wrote Izetbegovi in his diary. At the time he was
on an official visit to France, at the invitation of President Chirac. News of
the market-place massacre on 28 August reached him in Mostar, on his way
to Jablanica, where he was picked up by helicopter and flown to Split and
on to Paris. He was in despair. As he made his way to the French capital, it
seemed to him that reinforcements were lurking around every corner to add to
Bosnias miseries. Izetbegovi was received by the President of France at 10
oclock the following day. Chirac was brief. Referring to air strikes against the
Bosnian Serbs, he said, We are ready, the Americans are vacillating. That
evening, against the background of the dramatic circumstances in his native
country, Izetbegovi met Richard Holbrooke at the US Embassy, through the
good offices of the US Ambassador to France, Pamela Harriman. Bosnias
president described the meeting thus: Mrs Harriman greeted us warmly and
led us into a large antechamber. I immediately noticed Richard Holbrooke in
the corner, on the telephone. I nodded to him in greeting, whereupon, to my
surprise, he beckoned me over, pointing to the telephone receiver. It had all
obviously been carefully orchestrated and I am sure none of the Americans
were caught unawares. Strobe Talbott, deputy to Warren Christopher, who
was US Secretary of State at the time, was on the other end of the line.
What he said to me went roughly like this: Please continue working with
Ambassador Holbrooke to find the way to peace in Bosnia. I am aware of
and understand your dilemmas. I assure that yesterdays atrocity against the
93

citizens of Sarajevo will not go unpunished. We shall carry out air strikes on
Karadis positions. He sounded very determined. Izetbegovi was too
excited to sleep that night. He talked with the rest of the delegation, which
included Miro Lazovi and Kreimir Zubak, until late into the night, and was
woken early next morning, 30 August, by someone hammering on the door:
it was Izetbegovis bodyguard. Great news, Mr. President! Theyve begun
attacking the Chetnik positions. The sky over Sarajevo is red from the strikes
on the hills around. This was some of the best news to be heard during
the war. The Bosnian delegation later learned that the western allies had
also carried out strikes on other Serb positions around Bosnia. In addition,
the Bosnian army, now in alliance with the Croatian army and the HVO,
achieved some significant victories in 1995, which seriously undermined
the negotiating position of the Serb side. The last major operation by the
Bosnian army was in western Bosnia between 13 September and 12 October,
involving about 16,000 combatants, when Kulen Vakuf, Bosanska Krupa,
Otoka, Bosanski Brod, Klju, Sanica and Sanski Most were all liberated.
This marked the beginning of the end of the war, which was finally to end
with the initialling of the Peace Agreement in Dayton on 21 November 1995.

94

95

The Dayton negotiations

96

I have done all kinds of jobs in my long life: as a prisoner, I dug soil, carried
plaster, felled trees, and later, as a free man, ran a building site, represented
clients in court, and wrote articles. But my most difficult job has been
negotiations. To negotiate means to make decisions; and to make decisions is
the hardest thing that can be forced on an unfortunate human being. My
problem was that I could neither achieve peace nor run a good war. The
negotiations were held in an atmosphere of blackmail, with a sword hanging
over Bosnias head. The people, under attack and outnumbered by a better
equipped enemy, were suffering terribly, but the peace that was on offer was
always contrary not only to my principles, but to elementary justice. I would
have been hard for me to accept such a peace, but still harder to go back
home with the message that the war was to continue. My dilemmas were
painful ones. I felt as though I were being crucified. With these words,
Izetbegovi began his Dayton diary, admitting to himself what many others
had observed: he disliked taking decisions, and would dither endlessly before
making up his mind. But this time, there was no escape; the entire
international community, led by the Americans, agreed on one thing a
peace agreement of some kind simply had to be reached. The compromises
that would have to be made would surely be painful. And while for the Serbs,
and to some extent the Croats (at least those represented by Tuman), the
word meant a few percent more or less territory, the odd institution here or
there, the Bosnians were playing for justice, morality and peoples lives. The
other parties, Miloevi above all, followed by Tuman, had chosen war, but
it had been forced on the Bosnians and their president. The moral aspect was
thus important only to one side, not to the other two. They had factored in
their haggling over territory in advance, where peoples lives were for the
most part nothing but small change collateral damage as the two great
men sought to achieve their greater-state ambitions. Ten days before the
talks began, at an SDA executive committee meeting, Izetbegovi set out the
objectives of the Bosnian party in sixteen points. Roughly speaking, they
97

called for the country to remain one, for the presence of international peace
implementation troops, the prosecution of war crimes, and no giving up
Brko. This was the bottom line. But as they would later see, he who sups
with the devil... The exhausting talks soon began at the Wright Patterson
military base. The starting-point was the Contact Group plan, the partition of
the country, 51:49 in favour of the Federation, and a weak central government,
the responsibilities of which had yet to be determined. Izetbegovi described
the atmosphere on the first day: Official luncheons are the scene of forced
smiles, vanity, artificiality and pretence, all seasoned with food you dont like.
Such lunches were an integral part of the protocol at the Dayton talks, and
whenever I could, I avoided them. It was at an official lunch at the Hope
Hotel that the talks officially began it was 1 November 1995. Our delegation
consisted of myself, Haris Silajdi, Kreimir Zubak, Jadranko Prli, Miro
Lazovi, Ivo Komi, and Muhamed airbegovi, with Kasim Trnka, Kasim
Begi and Demil Sabrihafizovi as legal advisers. Lunch was followed by a
plenary session at which Warren Christopher, Carl Bildt, Tuman, Miloevi
and Izetbegovi spoke. On day two of the talks, 2 November, the Bosnian
delegation met Tuman, with Holbrooke as mediator, to discuss issues around
the formation of the Federation and its accompanying problems. On 3
November, Izetbegovi had a meeting with the foreign ministers of France,
Germany, Great Britain and Russia. All four delegations stressed the
importance of the talks and offered the assistance of their governments in the
peace process. Izetbegovi also had his first Dayton meeting with Slobodan
Miloevi, which he recorded as follows: I am not sure I know Miloevi that
well, but it often seemed to me that he and his politics were two different
things. I found it hard to reconcile what he was doing with the impression I
had of him as a man. He is not a rebarbative figure. True, he is always a little
drunk or seems to be and in the mood to chat. It looks as though he
believes what he says. I have no doubt he is brave, but I would not say he is
two-faced. A split personality, perhaps, but that is something else. However,
98

it seems that the other, evil side of his personality is the stronger, so that
Miloevi inevitably generates evil. A detail from the Dayton talks may
illustrate this contradictory view. After lengthy, long-drawn-out talks, he
suddenly changed his position on Sarajevo one day, largely accepting our
demands. As we left the room, he said to Silajdi and me: Its easy for you,
youve got Sarajevo, and now I need a helmet against those idiots. He was
referred to Krajinik and Koljevi, who were in another building impatiently
awaiting the outcome. I dont think he was putting on an act. On the
contrary, I think that was what he really thought about the people around
Karadi. The next few days were mainly taken up with talks on finetuning the structure of the Federation, with a succession of international
mediators and officials from Croatia, Mato Gani and Gojko uak. On day
seven Izetbegovi had a private meeting with Holbrooke, at which they
agreed that some progress had been made over the Federation, but not even
a millimetre of progress over Sarajevo. The Serbs were demanding that the
city be divided, while the Americans wanted a District of Columbia or
federal model, in which Sarajevo... would become an independent enclave
governed by representatives of all three ethnic groups, with a unified police
force. Izetbegovi met mainly with the Americans. The Serbs again tabled a
range of overpasses, underpasses, bypasses and the like, all designed with the
sole purpose of retaining as much of the territory they had seized as they
could and ensuring that it was nationally exclusive. The ceremonial signing
of the Agreement on the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina was held on
10 November, at which Izetbegovi said, I shall call this a historic day; I shall
leave it to the historians in some remote future to judge its significance. They
will judge it, not on what is said today, but on what is done. I would rather
call today the day of our resolve or the day of our hope, as Secretary of State
Christopher has just said. As Izetbegovi relates, when Tuman spoke, he
treated the Federation as a state and referred to its relations with Croatia. I
didnt like Tuman. He behaved rather like an upstart, and his protocol was
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on the verge of kitsch. He always wanted to take a piece of Bosnia, large or

small. I have not read his doctoral dissertation, but I know it deals with the
Croatian Banate established in 1939 under the terms of the Maek-Cvjetkovi
agreement. The Banate was exactly to his taste, since it included much of
Bosnia. I imagine he would have read Huntington with pleasure. In fact,
Huntingtons clash of civilizations provided a good theoretical justification
for his aspirations towards Bosnia. And yet, despite this undoubted antipathy,
Izetbegovi tried to weigh objectively the interior aspect of Tumans
politics. Tuman was one thing for Croatia and another for Bosnia and the
rest of the world. What he did for Croatia is incalculable. He laid the
foundations of a Croatian state that will one day when he is gone become
a democratic, progressive country. His services to Croatia are lasting, his
mistakes temporary and rectifiable. But as for his impact on events in Bosnia,
the reverse is largely true. While the Federation issue was somehow making
progress, the peace deal as a whole was still very much in doubt. More than
ten days of talks had left things essentially as they were. Izetbegovi was in a
poor state of health, eating little, feeling his heart pounding, often waking at
night. Holbrooke must have noticed these changed, for he made Izetbegovi
an unexpected offer: if he wished, one of his daughters or his son could come
to Dayton to be with him. Izetbegovi thanked him for the offer, turning it
down, but could see that Holbrooke was not going to give up easily. Yet he
had the impression that every day he was getting closer to a heart attack.
Sadly, his doubts became reality three months later. Izetbegovi was certain
he had earned his cardiac problems in Dayton. The next ten days were
full of talks about maps. Holbrooke presented the Serb option, which was
unacceptable to the Bosnian side. The British put pressure on the Bosnians to
accept this disadvantageous map, with its large Brko corridor, but this time
Izetbegovi and Silajdi stood firm, refusing to yield to the pressure. On
day thirteen, news spread of a rift between the Bosnian Croats and Tuman.
Zubak was refusing to agree to give up the Sava valley region to the Serbs,
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which Tuman had already agreed to, and perhaps even spoke of a pure
Baranja. It will happen, with or without you, Tuman had apparently told
Zubak, to which Zubak replied, Without me, then. The eighteenth day of
talks was crucial to the entire negotiations: Miloevi had decided to
surrender Sarajevo. Here is how Holbrooke described this momentous
event: Early Saturday afternoon, I asked Miloevi to take a short walk
around the inner compound. I complained bitterly that his behavior was
going to cause a breakdown of the talks, and concentrated on Sarajevo.
Some issues can be set aside or fudged, I said, but Sarajevo must be settled
in Dayton. Okay, he said with a laugh, I wont eat today until we solve
Sarajevo. A short while later, while I was chatting with Hill and Clark, the
door to my suite opened without warning, and Miloevi walked in. I was in
your neighborhood and did not want to pass your door without knocking, he
said, smiling broadly. Clearly, he had something important to tell us. Okay,
okay, he said as he sat down. The hell with your D.C. model; its too
complicated, it wont work. Ill solve Sarajevo. But you must not discuss my
proposal with anyone in the Serb delegation yet. I must work the technology
later, after everything else is settled. I tell you, he continued, Izetbegovi
has earned Sarajevo by not abandoning it. Hes one tough guy. Its his.... As
he talked, Miloevi traced on a map with a pen the part of Sarajevo he was
ready to give to the Muslims. Immediately Chris Hill objected; it was a huge
concession, but it was not all of the city. Miloevi had retained for the Serbs
Grbavica, a key area across the river from the center of town. Although a
dramatic step forward, Miloevis proposal did not quite unify Sarajevo.
When Hill pointed this out, Miloevi exploded. Im giving you Sarajevo, he
almost shouted at Christ, and you talk such bullshit! We told Miloevi that
while his proposal was a big step in the right direction, it was likely Izetbegovi
would reject it. Hill and I went immediately to see the Bosnian President.
Izetbegovi did not acknowledge the importance of the offer, but focused
solely on its defects. Sarajevo without Grbavica cannot exist, he said with
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passion. The area that Miloevi wanted to retain for the Serbs jutted directly
into the center of the city and was known to Western journalists as Sniper
Alley. Still, we all recognized that the negotiations over Sarajevo had entered
a new phase. Taking a detailed street map of Sarajevo, Hill, Clark, and I went
back to Miloevis suite. We began examining every road and every terrain
feature. Miloevi seemed flexible; Hill predicted after the meeting that if we
stuck to our position we would get all of Sarajevo the next day. Feeling
suddenly encouraged, we adjourned with our hopes soaring. And that is how
Sarajevo was won. Izetbegovis one great goal had been achieved. After this,
Miloevi also agreed to arbitration over Brko, and with a few more details,
the agreement was almost ready. On 20 November, agreement was reached,
and the document was formally initially in the presence of the US President.
It was then signed in Paris on 14 December. Peace had been established in
Bosnia.

102

103

The establishment of peace

104

he war had ended, but not the problems. The implementation of the
Dayton Peace Agreement encountered major difficulties. The lack of
clarity of some of its provisions was exploited by each side interpreting
them in their own way. Izetbegovi and his associates concentrated mainly
on the struggle to strengthen the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina and its
central institutions, the return of refugees, and bringing those accused of war
crimes to justice. Major outstanding problems concerned the arbitration
for Brko and the reunification of Mostar. Izetbegovis man for Brko was
Dr. Ejub Gani, and for Mostar, Safet Oruevi, a man whose heroic struggle
had saved part of the city during the war. Both projects were concluded
with relative success after a few years: Brko became a district, and Mostar,
though somewhat dysfunctional, is a reunified city, with which its people are
increasingly at ease. The resolute struggle to reconstitute the multiethnic
Izetbegovis health deteriorated
state also began to produce results.
immediately after Dayton; he had a heart attack, leaving hospital at the end
of March 1996. Yet this was the beginning of ill health that was to dog
him, with ups and downs, until the end of his life. The Bosnian Presidents
capacity to continue working was seriously restricted. Even so, he found
the strength to exercise power for a few more years. He was often invited to
conferences in various parts of the world. In America, he received an award
for the advancement of democracy; in the East, he was as well respected as
during the war. But Izetbegovi did not see his presence at meetings and
conferences as a mere formality; something in him, probably that Bosnian
defiance resulting from the bloody war, compelled him to a critical sense
of detachment. In the West, he defended Islam; in Muslim countries, he
defended the West. In the West, he was an easterner; in the East, a westerner
but in both, he was a Muslim. It is perhaps no exaggeration to conclude
that Izetbegovi was in fact one of the worlds best qualified figures on this
subject, an old one to him. Let us not forget that Izetbegovi had met probably
every relevant political and many intellectual figures of East and West, of
Islam and Christianity, at specific, historic moments for his country, when
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facing the greatest of challenges. A modern system of global cooperation

was being established in Bosnia. One of his speeches that provoked an
almost revolutionary commotion was delivered to the heads of state and
other representatives of Islamic countries in Tehran in December 1997.
The speech, which was broadcast live on all major television channels in
the Islamic East and a number in the West, was a synthesis of his reflections
on the current state of affairs in the Muslim world, attitudes to terrorism,
and the false impressions and prejudices held by some Muslims towards the
West. I regard it as a great privilege to have this opportunity to speak at
this important gathering of Muslim countries. I have just returned from a
conference on Bosnia in Bonn, at which the situation in my country was
discussed and some extremely important decisions were made... With due
respect for your time and todays agenda, I shall deal with just one subject in
my talk; East and West, and my Bosnia between the two. The idea for this
came to me during my latest travels, which are still continuing. In the week
now coming to an end, I left Bosnia for Saudi Arabia to attend a conference
on education, and then went to Europe to a conference on Bosnia, and here I
am now in Teheran, at an Islamic conference East, West, East. I believe I am
fairly well acquainted with both halves of the world, and on my travels I have
learned some new things, good and bad. I have learned the encouraging
fact that there are five million schoolchildren and students in Saudi Arabia,
but also the sad fact that in another Muslim country, there is 68.5 percent
illiteracy. Another piece of good news I have just heard is that twenty million
people attend one school or another in Iran, but the bad news is that female
illiteracy is unacceptably high in almost every Muslim country. Women
constitute half the human race. An uneducated woman cannot bring up the
generation that will lead our people into the 21st century. Forgive me for
being so frank. Pleasant falsehoods do not help, but the bitter truth may be
curative. The West is neither corrupt nor degenerate. The communist system
has paid dearly for deluding itself that the West was rotten it is not. It is
strong, educated and well organized. Its schools are better than ours, and its
106

cities are cleaner than ours. Human rights in the West are at a higher level,
and social welfare for the poor and the less able is better organized. Most
westerners are responsible and punctual that is my experience with them. I
am also aware of the dark side of their progress, and I do not lose sight of it.
Islam is best that is true; but we are not the best. Those are two things that
we often confuse. Instead of hating the West, let us compete with it. Does not
the Quran exhort us to do just that: Compete in doing good. With the help
of our faith and learning we can create the strength we need. True, it is a hard
and tiring path, it is difficult to climb a mountain, the mountain the Quran
speaks of, but there is no other way. So let us set up education foundations
everywhere. Let not one of our children be left without an education. Rich
Muslim countries should help the poorer in this important task. Let us do it
today, or immediately convene a special conference on the subject. Some
people think we can gain the advantage by terrorism. This is a fallacy that is
becoming dangerously widespread. Terrorism is the reflection of our current
disempowerment, and the possible cause of our future impotence. It is not
only immoral, it is counterproductive. It is immoral, because it kills innocent
people; and it is counterproductive, because it has never resolved anything.
Terrorism has been rejected by every serious political movement in the past.
In my view, the Quran explicitly forbids it with that well-known phrase: to kill
an innocent person is akin to killing the whole of humankind. Sadly, there
are people who forget this. And now, a few words of Bosnia, my country.
I have referred to East and West. Bosnia lies on the boundary between these
two worlds, on the Great Frontier, as we like to say. Every tenth Bosniac
was killed in the recent war. So do not allow another injustice to be done to
Bosnia. Tell everyone that for you, Bosnia is a holy land, for it is soaked in the
blood of innocent people, your brothers in faith. His speech was followed
by silence in the hall; his words had made a deep impression. Self-criticism is
not so common at such conferences, which are usually about hypocrisy and
eulogies, with others blamed for every problem.

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Retirement and death

108

he melancholy post-Dayton years were passing, and with them,

Izetbegovis life. He was finding it harder and harder to perform his
duties at the Presidency, feeling jaded and unable to concentrate.
Ahead of the September 1998 elections, he thought seriously about not
standing. In May that year he wrote a letter addressed to my friends and sent
it to some thirty people, expressing his wish to retire, but his party colleagues
were of the view that the pre-election period was not the best time to do so.
So the decision was postponed until the new millennium, until 2 June 2000.
It was on a Friday, on his way back from juma prayers, that Izetbegovi
made the irrevocable decision to retire. He called an acquaintance, Senad
Hadifejzovi, the editor of RTVBiH, and agreed a time for the announcement
of this important new: Tuesday 6 June 2000. At 19.30 Izetbegovi appeared
on TVBiH News and read the following statement: Dear citizens of Bosnia
and Herzegovina, I should like to tell you of my decision to retire from the
Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina when my current term of office as
chair expires, on 12 October this year... There are many reasons for this, but
the main ones are my age (I shall be 75 in August) and my health. The job of
member of the Presidency in these conditions requires physical and mental
fitness, which I no longer enjoy. I thank all those who have supported me
over the past ten difficult years. I hope that the dream of all Bosnian patriots
of a unified, democratic and prosperous Bosnia and Herzegovina comes true.
After his statement, the news anchor, Hadifejzovi, put two questions
to him. First, what did he regard as his greatest achievement, to which he
replied, independence for Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1991-1992 there
was a real danger that Bosnia and Herzegovina would become a province
of Greater Serbia. I prevented that from happening, and regarded it as my
greatest achievement. The second question was the logical outcome of the
first: what did Izetbegovi regard as his greatest failure. The slow process of
establishing a unified, democratic and prosperous Bosnia and Herzegovina in
peacetime, he replied. When his term of office came to an end, Izetbegovi
cleared his desk in the Presidency building where he had worked for almost
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ten years. It was 15 October 2000. I dont like partings, but I felt no sadness,
he wrote in his memoirs. Summing up his life, he wrote: If I were offered
the chance of another life, I would refuse. But if I had to be born again, I
would choose the life I have had. He continued his political activities at the
SDA offices, principally writing his memoirs and receiving guests. Almost
every world statesman who came to Bosnia and Herzegovina included a visit
to Izetbegovi in his agenda. Soon, however, disease overpowered his body,
and Alija had to go to hospital. As though preparing himself for death, one by
one all his current and former friends came to visit, along with a number of
world figures such as US President Bill Clinton and Turkeys Prime Minister
Erdogan, who made a special landing in Sarajevo to visit his friend in hospital.
Alija Izetbegovi died on 29 October 2003. That day and the next, it was
as though the skies had fallen on Bosnias capital city. Long queues of people
from Bosnia and Herzegovina, along with numerous delegations from every
corner of the world, wanted to pay their last respects. Alija Izetbegovi was
buried in the Shahids cemetery at Kovai in Sarajevo.

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