Brown's Bosnia mission: Rebuilding ecomomy crucial to peace

U.S. Commerce Secretary Ron Brown's fatal trade mission was part of a renewed effort to get American and European businesses investing in Bosnia's reconstruction.

After the U.S.-brokered Bosnian peace plan was signed near Dayton last year, Western governments and aid groups pledged billions of dollars for the Balkan nation, but so far, precious little aid has materialized. Without that aid - a mini-Marshall Plan totaling tens of billions of dollars - the prospects for lasting peace in the region are dim.

"As much as we needed arms during the war, now we need aid for our economy," said Adnan Secic, 31, a Bosnian refugee living in Clifton.

Mr. Secic, an agricultural expert, said all livestock and crop production in Bosnia has been damaged by almost four years of war.

"Bosnia needs help from America and the whole world because we don't even have the basic materials to start up our agriculture or our industry," he said.

Mr. Brown and 32 others - commerce officials, corporate leaders and five Air Force crew members - were killed Wednesday (April 3) when their plane crashed into a hill on the coast of Croatia.

Most of the executives booked for the trip with Mr. Brown represented companies with an interest in rebuilding, including engineering, construction and finance firms. The executives hoped to find signs of stability that would give them confidence to trade and invest in the region.

In turn, their demonstration of interest was designed to encourage the area's political and military leaders to solidify their fragile peace.

Aid has been slow in coming to Bosnia:

The World Bank has estimated that more than $5 billion in foreign aid was needed to rebuild the country. So far, $350 million has been contributed.

The Bosnian government has set a figure of $80 billion in damaged infrastructure. The government officials have said $16 billion in aid is needed to get private investment to return to Bosnia.

A high-level meeting is scheduled in Brussels next week to establish donors for $1.2 billion to $1.3 billion. But similar meetings have been held in Moscow, Istanbul, London, Geneva and Rome in the last several months, with little effect.

Unemployment is so high that the Bosnian government can't even figure out what percentage of the population is not working.

In Sarajevo, city engineers estimate that at least 73,400 of Sarajevo's 136,000 housing units have war damage - that means almost 54 percent of the city has to be repaired or torn down. Architects have estimated repairs on one building, the City Hall, will cost almost $17 million. So far, no money has been raised for the project.

In the countryside, whole villages were burned to the ground. Others cities saw damage as bad as Sarajevo's.

About half of Bosnia's 4.3 million people are refugees, either uprooted in Bosnia or living in another country. No money has been gathered to repatriate them.

Almost every company in Bosnia was destroyed. For example, Bosnia's largest employer, Energo Co., employed 30,000 people in the Sarajevo area alone. Today the company is closed.

Some factories in the north, around cities such as Zenica, Lukovac and Tuzla, were relatively untouched by the fighting. But they don't have raw materials to make their products. If goods are produced, roads aren't safe to transport them.

Exporting items remains a dream. Even without the devastation, Bosnia would have had an uphill battle trying to export generally inferior goods to Western Europe and competing with every other nation in Eastern Europe for market share.

"Everything is destroyed, and at the moment Bosnia is in such a terrible situation," said Alma Maric, 40, a Bosnian refugee in Westwood. She was a doctor in Sarajevo until her husband was killed by a sniper and she fled with her two daughters.

"I cannot think of one factory that is functioning as it did before the war," she added. "We really need that help, otherwise, it will really become a dead country."

Money problems are at a fundamental level in Bosnia. The Dayton agreement calls for the unification of the economy under one currency, the Bosnian dinar. But nothing has been done to join an economy now using several currencies. In most areas, the German mark is the chief currency. Bosnian paper currency is considered worthless, even in many government-controlled areas. In Bosnian Serb areas, stores use Yugoslav dinars from Serbia. In Bosnian Croatian areas, they use Croatian Kuna. Until Bosnia can establish one currency, the country has little chance of courting long-term capital investment. Without efforts like Mr. Brown's, that aid is unlikely to show up.

Jasna Secic, Adnan Secic's wife, said the plane crash is more bad news for her homeland, a nation that already has endured more than 200,000 killed, hundreds of thousands wounded and millions displaced.

"This is just so sad," she said. "Always it seems that bad things happen to those who try to help."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Published April 4, 1996