Above: The mosque in Caparde, Bosnia, is one of the many places of worship destroyed during the war.

eligious leaders in the former Yugoslavia need to actively support the return of refugees and urge their followers to support minorities in their midst, a group of Balkan religious leaders said at a recent U.S. Institute of Peace symposium. Further, they said, religious leaders from each community should jointly investigate destroyed places of worship and work together to restore them. These are among the key suggestions made by participants in the Institute's colloquium, sponsored to help overcome the legacy of war in the region. Representatives of the Jewish, Muslim, Roman Catholic, and Serbian Orthodox communities and of several Protestant churches in the Balkans attended the conference on "Religion and the Future of Intercommunal Relations in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Former Yugoslavia," which was held in Budapest October 12-14. The event was organized by David Little, senior scholar in religion, ethics, and human rights, and program officer Scott Hibbard. Little and Paul Mojzes, an expert on the former Yugoslavia and academic dean of Rosemont College, co-chaired the meeting.

The conference built upon the momentum of a meeting of religious leaders from Bosnia-Herzegovina held in Vienna in June and co-sponsored by the Institute, Mercy Corps International, and the then-U.S. ambassador to Austria, Swanee Hunt. Religious leaders at that meeting agreed to form an Interreligious Council to promote religious tolerance and understanding and to provide a forum for dialogue and communication between the religious communities.

Participants at the Budapest conference included about 40 professors of theology, scholars of religion, clerics, journalists, and others from Bosnia, Croatia, and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Observers and diplomats from the United States also attended. The conference sought to encourage open dialogue among the religious communities, to identify opportunities for interreligious cooperation that can contribute to a just peace in the former Yugoslavia, to explore the prospects for establishing a network of continuing and expanding relationships among the participants and other like-minded people, and to consider the place and role of international organizations in these efforts.

The fact that representatives of communities so divided by the violence of war were willing to come together to discuss difficult issues showed an admirable degree of openness and courage, noted Harriet Hentges, Institute executive vice president and head of its Bosnia initiative. "I was particularly impressed with how intently and receptively they listened to each other. They were willing to take risks from the start. It's clear there are a number of people on the ground in the region who understand the role of leadership in the reconciliation process and are able to assume some leadership."

	l to r: Dimitrije Kazezic, Valadan Perisic, and Branislav Koncarevic.
	l to r: Valadan Perisic, Harriet Hentges, David Little, Paul Mojzes, and Father Mato Zovkic.

Little said he felt encouraged by the discussions, which were forthright and constructive. "We believe that similar efforts in the future will be fruitful," he said. Following the conference, Little traveled to Bosnia for two days of meetings with other religious leaders to explore various follow-on activities. The interreligious dialogues support and complement the Institute's efforts to facilitate formation of a single, Bosnia-wide truth commission to deal with war crimes.

Hurtful Language

The conference opened with several formal presentations on a main conference theme: the use of language by the Muslim, Roman Catholic, and Serbian Orthodox communities to stereotype, discredit, and stir resentment against each other. Discouraging the use of hurtful language is an important ingredient in protecting minority rights, conference participants agreed.

In a paper read to conference participants by a colleague, Father Radovan Bigovic, professor of theology at the Serbian Orthodox seminary in Belgrade and an Orthodox priest, said that there is a "crisis of language" among religious communities in the former Yugoslavia. Instead of dialogue, the Muslim, Orthodox, and Roman Catholic communities have been engaging in "monologue" marked by cruel rather than healing words, he said. He cautioned that religious messages reflecting extreme nationalism divide people. The real solution to the pervasive problem of "hate speech" is not laws and codes, but respect and tolerance born of increased interaction and dialogue, he concluded.

Sefko Omerbasic, mufti of the Islamic community of Croatia, agreed that it is necessary for members of the different religious communities to engage in direct, honest, and continuing dialogue. Too much of the interaction among the communities is conducted either in the language of politics, which tends to articulate baser interests, or the language of diplomacy, which, however civil and courteous, is not sufficient for confronting the deep grievances and resentments that exist on all sides, he said. The religious communities must work together to put aside the insulting words and references to outsiders that each community harbors.

The official Roman Catholic position advocating religious tolerance and mutual respect has not spread fast enough to the local churches, observed Father Mato Zovkic, vice vicar of the Roman Catholic church of Bosnia-Herzegovina. There is a special need to cleanse traditional texts of biased and offensive references. Catholics must join the other communities in efforts to learn to speak of others as they themselves would wish to be spoken of, Zovkic said.

The Rev. Leonid Kishkovsky, secretary for ecumenical and external affairs for the Orthodox Church of America, noted that religious prejudice and stereotyping can be found among all social classes in the former Yugoslavia. Healing requires the proliferation of vital interreligious institutions, such as the new Interreligious Council, and the strengthening within the religious communities of support for leaders who advocate interreligious dialogue and cooperation.

Swanee Hunt noted that while market forces are now providing incentives for cooperation in the Balkans, the religious communities can add a critical dimension to peace--the virtues of mutual repentance, confession, and forgiveness.

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