SURVIVING THE PEACE The Struggle for Postwar Recovery in Bosnia-Herzegovina

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First blog, November 29, 2019
Corruption in Srebrenica

There was news out of Srebrenica this month that illustrates the entire dysfunction reigning in Bosnia-Herzegovina. It goes like this:

♦ In late 2017 Serbia donated a million euros to the municipality of Srebrenica for economic development—specifically, to create a business complex in the Srebrenican suburb of Potočari (of notoriety as the location of the UN Dutchbat base during the wartime period of the enclave, and where local inhabitants took refugee when Srebrenica fell).

♦ In early 2018 Srebrenica municipality purchased a building in Potočari for 850,000 euros (about $935,000). The building belonged to a Slovenian businessman named Miho Živec. Živec had earlier tried to sell the building for half of that price, but there were no takers.

♦ Živec kicked back 125,000 euros, which was laundered through a couple of Austrian shell companies.

♦ The kickback was then divided up by hand as cash to Srebrenica's mayor Mladen Grujičić, Radomir Pavlović, Desnica Radivojević, and a couple of other advisors of the mayor. Radomir Pavlović is the municipal head of Milorad Dodik's SNSD party and has acted as the Godfather of Srebrenica for many years. Desnica Radivojević is a former advisor to Grujičić and it was he who reported this malversation to the authorities and provided details to the press, saying, "The (criminal) charge is against me, too. I realized that nothing had been done to help with the development of Srebrenica. You just can't steal that much, especially not money, a donation from Serbia.

The building that was supposed to be developed into a complex employing some 300 workers now houses some stray dogs. Five or six men also work there—chopping firewood.

This is not news and the amount delivered as graft was small potatoes. It happens every day in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and it's been happening since the war started. The citizens of the country know this. They put up with it, and voted the same profiteer/politicians back into office, not feeling like they had a choice. But now they have a choice: leave the country. That's how people are combatting corruption, en masse.

125,000 euros is a lot of money for ordinary Bosnians. Grujičić's take was 40,000. Pavlović got 30,000. Bosnia's average income is 400 to 500 euros per month.

Five days after receiving his cut, Pavlović treated his family to a trip to Paris.

This blog is based on information from the article "Afera: Grujičić sa saradnicima ukrao milion eura koje je Vučić poslao u Srebrenicu!?" (Scandal: Grujičić and colleagues stole a million euro that Vučić sent to Srebrenica!?) Faktor online news, November 13, 2019, and from other news articles.