A New Mosque Stands Alone in Serb Half of Bosnia

Sitting in the middle of the ruined homes of this northern Bosnia village is the shiny new Omerbegovaca mosque. Its white minaret reaches skyward, and a dedication plaque thanks its benefactors: Allah and Saudi Arabia.

Mosques that were destroyed during a war that used religion to fuel hatred are being rebuilt in many Bosnian cities and towns, largely with money from Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and other Islamic countries.

But the Omerbegovaca mosque is the first to be built in Republika Srpska, the Serb-controlled half of Bosnia, since before fighting erupted in the former Yugoslav federation in 1991.

And it is probably the only mosque standing in all of Republika Srpska.

Throughout the war, more than 200 Muslim houses of worship were destroyed by Bosnian Serb nationalists attempting to cleanse territory of their enemies and all signs of them. A number of Serbian Orthodox and Croatian Roman Catholic churches were also destroyed, but not with the systematic efficiency unleashed by Serbs against mosques.

Omerbegovaca is one of several tiny towns clustered south of the hotly disputed city of Brcko, now controlled by the Serbs, where Muslim and Croat refugees are slowly returning home under 24-hour protection of U.S. troops.

About 170 families have come back to Omerbegovaca, U.N. officials say, repairing the houses they fled in April 1992 when Bosnian Serbs bombarded the region and seized the land. The Saudi government has also paid to restore tile roofs and replace broken windows; U.S., Dutch and other Western governments have paid for similar projects in villages targeted for refugee returns.

Then work began here in Omerbegovaca on the mosque, erected on the ruins of a mosque destroyed during the war. Its exterior was completed last month. Work is not finished on the interior, where green carpets, emblazoned with the royal Saudi crossed-sword emblem, cover the floors and prayer beads hang at the ready.

“This mosque is the only evidence we have that this was ours--Muslim,” said a young housewife who, with her daughter and unemployed husband, returned to Omerbegovaca five years after being expelled. Their home, with laundry hanging outside and jagged holes in the walls, sits across a dirt road from the mosque.

In Omerbegovaca’s forlorn main square, which is little more than the intersection of two muddy roads, a well provides water. The village has no running water or electricity, and there are no shops because shopkeepers would have to obtain permits from Bosnian Serb authorities, and most are afraid to do so.

Humanitarian aid arrives on occasion--sheep, five to a family, were being delivered the other day. A soup kitchen offers free lunches.

U.S. troops stationed nearby routinely patrol by the mosque in Bradley fighting vehicles and, on a recent afternoon, they rolled past with a mobile battery of Stinger antiaircraft missiles. Given its symbolism for both sides, the mosque would be a likely target.

When the mosque was inaugurated a couple of weeks ago, the amplified voice of the muezzin calling the faithful to prayer was so loud it could be heard all the way to the outskirts of Brcko, where nervous Serbs are hoping desperately to hold on to their conquered city.

United Nations officials managed to persuade the Muslims to turn down the volume, averting a crisis--for the time being.

“Fortunately, not many of the Serbs in Brcko heard it,” said one international official, “or we would have had major, major trouble.”

Brcko was the one territorial dispute that 1995 peace accords could not resolve; it was temporarily rewarded to the de facto Bosnian Serb rulers, but a final decision by an international arbitrator in March.