The criminal underground’s aid in the Siege of Sarajevo

Have United Nations workers and other NGO volunteers always maintained peace, or have they been the central piece to a war economy?

Scholar and author Peter Andreas of “Blue Helmets and Black Markets: The Business of Survival in the Siege of Sarajevo” portrays in his new book the double-sided affects of the international involvement during the Siege of Sarajevo. Andreas stressed that the Unites Nations was a main player in the siege’s peacekeeping, but it also allowed an underground criminal economy to facilitate positive and negative forces in Sarajevo.

Andreas said, “criminality involved looting the city, but also saving it. It involved perpetuating the siege, but also ending the war. And it involved state deformation and formation at the same time”. Andreas said the criminal underground emerged in the absence of an organized army in Sarajevo, and became “overnight patriotic heroes.” In a secret tunnel beneath the Sarajevo Airport, these criminals served as profiteers—selling cigarettes, alcohol, and arms—as well as a lifeline, providing money, medical supplies and an escape for civilians.

The UN controlled the airport during the siege. It was through the airport that civilians and criminal leaders ran their market of aid and corruption. Although he recognized that NATO air strikes were significant in the siege’s conclusion, he says most of the war’s conclusion was due to the shifting military balance in the arms embargo under the UN controlled airport. International aid was significant in publicizing and aiding the siege, but Andreas’ “backstage” conclusions may be the reason there is now a new criminalized elite in Sarajevo and elsewhere in Bosnia.