Balkan Witness Home. Articles on the Bosnia Conflict. To contact Peter in response to these journals or any of his articles , JavaScript must be enabled to display this email address. On the first day of October I traveled to Tuzla. There, I met my friend Julia, who lives in a log cabin somewhere in the vast wilderness of Washington State. She is one of that rare breed of foreigners who are interested in everything about Bosnia and bother to go there. Tuzla's "Most s kipovima" - Bridge of Statues.
Tuzla is in the Bosniak-dominated part of the Federation, and it has been governed by the Social-Democrat Party SDP since the first multi-party elections before the war. It always seems to be ahead of other parts of Bosnia. The town is less obsessed with who is guilty for what past or future crime and what ethnicity is superior to another. You can easily feel these attitudes in the atmosphere. Tuzla is different because it has never had a nationalist government.
This is not to say that there is no discrimination, and that all non-Bosniaks are at ease, but I've heard from Tuzla Serbs and Croats many a time that they do not feel oppressed by a dominant ethno-nationalist majority.
Four or five years ago Tuzlans turned a swamp into a park, creating a salt-water lake there, and then they built an "archeological park" that showed the architecture of Tuzla's Neolithic inhabitants. Thousands of people flock to that park when the weather is warm.
Since I was last there in , new attractions have been created: a second lake, and a waterfall coming down the hill above the park.
