By Vesna Peric Zimonjic
BELGRADE, Mar 5 1996 (IPS)

For centuries the ultimate gesture of statehood, political ambition and nationalist grandeur has been the construction of a new capital city from scratch: St Petersburg, Brasilia, Canberra, Abuja.

Normally the prerequisites for such a grandiose act are enormous wealth and total power.

The latest ‘state’ with such aspirations is short of both. Rebel Serbs of Bosnia-Hergecovina want to build a “new” Sarajevo – a prototype of the tormented city they plastered with artillery fire for three years.

It took only 40 days for Studio, an architectural firm in Belgrade, to devise a massive plan to transform Pale, a run-down ski resort 19 kilometres outside Sarajevo, into ‘Serb Sarajevo’, a capital for Serb-held Bosnia-Hercegovina.

Pale now serves as headquarters for Serb rebels.

Plans were drawn up for ‘Serb Sarajevo’ after the Dayton peace agreement for Bosnia-Hercegovina made provisions for Serb-held suburbs of Sarajevo to be handed over to the control of the Muslim- led Bosnian government.

That transfer will be completed by Mar. 18. It is fear of the aftermath that led the Serbs to place their dreams in detailed plans and a large model of a new dream city.

Hardline Serb leaders in Pale, including the self-styled President, Radovan Karadzic and his close associate Bosnian Serb parliament President Momcilo Krajisnik, contacted Studio and asked for the drafting of the plan for the “Serb Sarajevo”.

These leaders to not want Serbs to remain in the Sarajevo suburbs being re-integrated into the Bosnian capital. Under their prompting, thousands have fled these suburbs. The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees estimates about 20,000 have left since November, out of the original 50,000.

It is for them, Bosnian Serb authorities boast, that “Serb Sarajevo” is going to be built. But they have few answers when and how.

“Serb Sarajevo is the town for the Serbs who are forced to leave their homes, a town for Sarajevans who are experiencing the international injustice, the town of new hope for them,” states the opening sentence of project proposal.

Vojislav Milovanovic, head coordinator of the project, says the new town will be the administrative and business centre of the Bosnian Serb state “Republika Srpska”.

“This is going to be a garden city spread all over the hills and slopes of Romanija and Jahorina mountains… Serb Sarajevo is a challenge even if it is not built,” says Milovanovic.

The project calls for “Serb Sarajevo” to have four urban zones able to house a population of 145,000. The main street would be developed around the centre of Pale. Administrative, industrial, cultural and housing zones would be spread over territories from Pale to Lukavica — the only suburb of Sarajevo to remain in Serb hands under the Dayton agreement.

Milovanovic says that the building of the housing area could start as soon as May this year. “This is a plan and guideline not only for several years, but for decades to come,” he explains.

The project was presented at a Jahorina hotel, “Bistrica” last month. Karadzic, Momcilo Krajisnik and several key leaders admired the plan. They did not even flinch at the projected cost — around six billion US dollars for the first 10 years.

Though the Bosnian Serbs claim their idea of a city has been endorsed by Serbia, President Slobodan Milosevic last weekend cautioned Serbs in the Sarajevo suburbs of Grbavica, Ilidza, Vogosca and Ilijas to remain inside their homes, as all guarantees for their safety were provided at a post-Dayton meeting in Rome.

Pale is 19 kilometres west of Sarajevo. It has only one main street. Ski chalets are spread all over a small valley. It flourished more than a decade ago when Sarajevo hosted the winter Olympic games.

Passionate ski lovers built small houses at the nearest mountain. According to the last federal census in ex-Yugoslavia, in 1991, the whole municipality of Pale had about 16,000 inhabitants.

When war broked out in Bosnia in April 1992, Bosnian Serb leaders sought refuge in Pale, through one of the remaining opened roads out of the town. Mount Romanija and nearby Jahorina were mostly Serb-populated. Pale became the stronghold of Bosnian Serb leaders.

“The plan (of Serb Sarajevo) is ridiculous,” says a Pale journalist who wants to remain anonymous. “Who would like to live in a village someone is trying to transform into a town? That will never happen. It’s only a story for the deceived people who were promised ‘a great victory’ in the war, but are forced to swallow the defeat and evacuation from their homes around Sarajevo.”

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