Sarajevo may rebuild wartime tunnel

SARAJEVO (Reuters) - The narrow tunnel that ran beneathSarajevo airport was people's only escape route during thelongest siege in modern history, a symbol of a brutal war thatsplit families and pitted neighbours against each other.

After marking the 15th anniversary of the now largelydestroyed tunnel's opening, some in the capital of Bosnia hopeto reconstruct the passage which meant escape or at least briefrelief from desperate times. Yet the sensitive project lacksfunds and they say it may be an opportunity for foreigninvestors.

"It should be reconstructed to remember those times andshow Bosnians and the world how we lived, how we survived,"said Ismet Hadzic, a general during the war who ran one half ofthe tunnel. "If the city rebuilds it, it would become thepremier tourist destination in the city."

Like Vietnam's Cu Chi tunnels or the Anne Frank HouseMuseum in Amsterdam, the tunnel that helped ordinary peoplesurvive in Sarajevo through more than 1,000 days under siegeembodies the local spirit of resistance.

But even as Bosnia slowly recovers from the 1992-95 war,its government is still divided by ethnic and religioustensions. For some, memories of Sarajevo's bloody past arestill too raw and its economy too battered to contemplate sucha venture.

During the war, Bosnian Serb forces surrounded Sarajevo, acity that once boasted of tolerance between Muslims, OrthodoxSerbs, Catholic Croats and Jews.

About 14,000 people were killed during the siege, accordingto Norwegian government-backed research by the Sarajevo-basedInvestigation-Documentation Centre.

Sarajevo's population of about 350,000, of which about 90percent are now secular Muslims but still includes Serbs andCroats, has made significant progress in rebuilding since then.Yet nearly 40 percent of Bosnians are still officiallyunemployed.

Tourism is growing as an economic force. A 2007 report bythe World Travel and Tourism Council estimated that almost 12percent of Bosnia's economy is linked to travel and tourism,and war sites are among the attractions.

Last year, more than 119,000 international visitors came tothe Sarajevo region, up from fewer than 90,000 in 2005,according to the Tourism Association of Bosnia and Herzegovina.More than 1 million visited the house in Amsterdam where AnneFrank and her Jewish family hid from Nazis in World War Two.

Bosnia's inefficient politics could complicate rebuildingthe tunnel, but local officials are optimistic. "We havepolitical agreement from all parties," said Damir Hadzic, mayorof the Novi Grad district of Sarajevo. "We are going to startrebuilding next year."

IN THE TUNNEL

The 800-metre wood and iron tunnel, which opened on July30, 1993, was the city's only direct link with the outsideworld: through it passed weapons, food, the wounded andsupplies.

The structure connected a residential part of Sarajevo farfrom the centre with a more rural area beyond the airport,whose runway was controlled by United Nations forces. Many diedcoming and going as Bosnian Serbs shelled from afar.

Those who made the trip recall stumbling hunched below theroof, carrying back-breaking packs in a claustrophobic spacedimly lit and often partially flooded.

Almost all the tunnel was destroyed after the airport wasrebuilt, although about 25 metres are still intact. That finalstretch exits into the Kolar family home on the far side of theairport, where a year after the war they opened their ownTunnel Museum.

Visitors to the museum, reliving the abbreviated tunnelcrossing, still risk bumping their heads on low rafters butunlike Sarajevo citizens then, do not have to wade throughwater or suffer a shortage of air.

Great-grandmother Sida, who once handed cups of water tothose arriving through the tunnel, still wanders around theproperty, wearing a headscarf.

The Kolar's home bears many scars of bullets and shells.Edis Kolar, 33, remembers how one day a shell killed ninepeople in the room near the entrance where he was sleeping:"Even I wouldn't come here if this wasn't my house," he said."It is maybe too early to remember."

JOINT VENTURE?

To mark the 15th anniversary, the tunnel's builders andBosnian fighters who used it gathered for a ceremony. Many hadseveral-day old beards with rugged faces and solemn expressionsthat suggested they had seen many horrors in their lives.

They opened the ceremony with a moment of silence for thedead and lifted palms upwards in Muslim prayer.

Hajrudin Ibrahimovic, the Sarajevo region's minister forwar veterans' affairs, said he wanted to restore part but notall of the original tunnel. "The tunnel needs to bereactivated," he said, but added that a complete reconstructionwas not needed.

"It could be a joint venture with a foreign firm," he said,adding such plans are just an idea. "They would get aconcession or something like that."

Even supporters of the idea are unsure if they will be ableto attract foreign investment. Continued political uncertainty13 years after the end of the war has kept investors wary, evenas tourism has grown.

Some Slovenian and Austrian firms have put money intoBosnian tourism, but an Austrian investment in Sarajevo'sbest-known Holiday Inn hotel is now under legal dispute. Libyaearlier this year pledged to invest 500 million euros inBosnia, including in hotels, and others have expressed aninterest in spa resorts. Still, foreign investment is notflooding in.

Ibrahimovic estimated the rebuilding cost at 2.5 to 5million euros ($7.73 million), although some city officials saythe project could cost twice as much.

Others say visitors who did not live through the war needto experience the full wartime length of the narrow tunnel."Twenty five meters is not enough for people to remember how wesuffered in the war," Kolar said.

"If people think about the past, we couldn't have wars," hecontinued. "We forget what happens to us every 50 years."

For years, few other than NATO soldiers and visitingdelegations visited the museum, and the authorities have neverofficially recognised it. Yet recently on summer days it hasattracted 50 to 100 visitors who pay 2.5 euros admission.

Dignitaries, and actors including the current James BondDaniel Craig, have come. "Please don't let the world forget,"Craig wrote during his visit.

Still, some local people say Bosnia is too retrospective,with items about war anniversaries frequently leadingtelevision news and press. Despite Sarajevo's progress, somebuildings remain in ruin and many badly need costly repairs.

The Sarajevo International Airport's central runway runsalong the remnants of tunnel. Airport General Manager BakirKarahasanovic said he had crossed the tunnel often during thesiege and it could be rebuilt without disrupting the runways.

"No one who was in the war would be against rebuilding it,"he said. "It was our only way of surviving."

(Editing by Sara Ledwith)