JENNY MEES, from the Belgian section of the Fourth International, was with the first International Workers Aid convoy into Tuzla last November. She has been in Bosnia again with the regular IWA convoys running since early April.
Jenny spent a month in Tuzla and a week in Sarajevo as part of an IWA delegation to the May Day celebrations. IWA were guests of the trade unions and spoke at the May day rally. Here Jenny, who is at the moment back in the IWA base in Split in Croatia, gives her KARADZIC and the Pale assembly claim to represent the Serbs of Bosnia. This is legitimised by the UN and EU who accept their right to negotiate on behalf of Bosnia's Serbs.
The voice of Serbs opposed to partition is stifled. At the beginning of the war those who openly opposed ethnic cleansing were executed. Since then the anti-nationalist opposition has hardly been heard in Bosnia.
In the west the Serb opposition is not given a platform to express their views. Governments and media collude in presenting Karadzic as the voice of all Bosnian Serbs. This is a totally false picture.
Some hundreds of thousands of Serbs live in territory controlled by the Bosnian army. Nearly very personal impressions of being back in Bosnia at the end of the winter nightmare. SPRING is the cruellest season. I heard this said many times from people in Tuzla and Sarajevo.
It is the time nature awakens. It is the time of great religious feasts. It is the time of expectations of new life.
Clubs and Town Halls are resounding with discussion and hope. The paralysing cold and the merciless hunger are gone. The cities no longer die at 10 in the evening and wait for another day of bombardment. But people have few reserves of spirit and no money at all, it all went in the bad winter months.
People emerge dazed. 'We have all changed'. 'I don't recognise my own city'. 'This war makes people behave like criminals. "How can you understand this when we cannot understand what is happening to ourselves?'. Worst of all the war continues and fear is everywhere. snie Workers' Aid convoy welcomed back to Bosnia In the now sunny streets of Sarajevo people again walk in the middle of the street, but last week four human beings died by the sniper's bullet. Tuzla market is full of vegetables and frult, but last week three shells blew two people to pieces.
The shops now sell personal belongings exchanged In the winter for food and life. During my four weeks in Tuzla the price of eggs dropped from £4 for 6 to £4 for 36.
I thought everyone could buy them but no. When I bought some for the family of my little friend Arcl It was a big event. Our daily companIons Amir and Emir let It stip that 'we have flour for five days and then something will have to turn up'.
Senad, who writes poems about the war, follows the political and military situation carefully. 'There is to be an offensive in Brcko; we will have of an appeal by those who atmovement.
URHEA CAL to go and fight and we will die' Mrs Mujesire prepares me a lovely dinner out of nothing and talks about her garden -will the birds eat the seeds saved so carefully through the winter months? Her daughter Elvira cries when I leave for the outside world.
Dancing
On May fst there was no curfew in Sarajevo and the student club stayed open all night. Young people danced. There was Branko on his crutches and Edin in his wheel chair.
The day before I had walked through the city with Mehmed, a trade union activist and a great believer in a happier future for BiH. We passed a poster for the rally the next day "Prvi May".
This walk and my discussions with Mehmed was my nia-Hercegovina.
The "General Assembly for Trust will be the expression of our willingness and desire to start off a process for the rebuilding, promotion and development of trust between citizens real May Day - much more than the next day with the big words and broad gestures of three presidents of European trade unions on their flying visit to this city.
These discussions in Sarajevo and the faces of the children in the street when our International Workers Ald trucks arrived back in Tuzla In April after four winter months away are my most vivid impressions of the spirit of resistance in BiH. 'You came back, you came back, welcome back, they told us. They gave us a present - a little dog (which is at this moment sleeping peacefully in the IWA office who is as brave and tough as they are. Of course we called him Tuzla. • In future editions we will carry interviews Jenny conducted with trade unions in Sarajevo or acts of violence are punished and our common desire to create the conditions which will allow all those forced to become refugees will be able to return to their homes.
*The General Assembly for