Description
Object description
The central Bosnian town of Travnik viewed as a test case for the Federation. What do the mostly Muslim residents think about the possibility of living side by side with former Croat and Serb neighbours? Will the need for trade and business prevail over the hatred and mistrust remaining from the conflict?
Content description
Shots of the town, built into the hill side, above the Lašva River. A horse-drawn cart crosses a bridge, people walk through the street in the rain. A group of young women sit on a woodland path and one gives her opinion on the Federation. She hopes that the Federation will be a success and that Muslims and Croats will be able to live together but she says it will take years and years to solve the current problems. Further street scenes and aerial views of the town showing that both the minarets of the mosques and the spires of the Catholic and Orthodox churches remain standing.
UNTV interviews people on the street to find out how they feel about prospects for the future. A woman who runs a fruit stall says that as soon as a truce came into effect people started trading again and people started coming back to their homes. 'If nothing else, economic cooperation will win everything' she says.
The young woman on the woodland path says that the hatred was worst during the shelling but since the Serbs left, those that remain have been able to think more peaceably and recognise that there are good people among Serbs.
A man in a green and blue coat, on the roadside, says that it will be difficult to live together because the harm that the Serbs inflicted will not easily be forgotten but 'business is business and it will find its own channels'. Shots of men working on a building site. He says that he does not care whether people are Croat, Serb or Muslim as long as they complete the work well at a reasonable price. He gives the example of an electrician from Vitez who has been employed because he does the best work regardless of previous regional conflicts.
Shots of a Sunday morning second hand car market on the Croat side of the checkpoint, just outside Travnik. Men inspect a car's engine. One man says that Serbs will be able to come here to buy and sell cars just as people from Bosnia Herzegovina can do now 'because we are one people here in the former Yugoslavia'. He is interrupted by another man who disagrees with him but he insists that the people form one nation in that they are people of 'the same quality'. Many of the men disagree. They say that even though they can live with Serbs and Muslims, they are three distinct people. When the first man says that they are all the same because they all killed and burnt everything, the others turn away in disbelief.
Shot of Catholic congregation saying their responses. Interview with Father Pavo Nikolić who says that complete freedom is not just freedom from war but spiritual and moral freedoms. Interview with Muharem Dautović, Deputy to the Mufti, sitting in front of the ablutions fountain of a mosque. He says that peace is possible.
The woman running the fruit stall says that victims must not be forgotten. She lost her sister in the war but despite this, she believes that they should live together as they did before.
Physical description
Beta-SP