ABSTRACT
In early 2000, the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees conducted a survey of minority returnees in Republika Srpska.1 Among the survey’s findings was that, out of 194 persons interviewed, the only one who had managed to find a job within the entity worked for an international organization (Alfaro 2000: 29). While based on a relatively small sample size, this one statistic suggests that, despite enormous international efforts to promote the return of refugees and displaced persons to their pre-war “homes of origin,” getting uprooted persons physically back home is only half the task of recreating a functioning multi-ethnic society in Bosnia. The other half – and in many ways the more difficult half – involves fostering the conditions in which minority returnees can survive and reintegrate themselves into their old/new communities. As the authors of the report noted:
The return process constitutes more than the physical act of moving back into a pre-conflict home. There are numerous obstacles and fears which returnees have to overcome and cope with during and after the return process which will determine if their return is sustainable, such as employment and financial insecurity, lack of health and educational facilities, poor living conditions and limited funds for reconstruction.
