BBC News Demonstrators in Bosnia-Hercegovina have set fire to government buildings as violent protests continue across the country for a third day.
Police have used rubber bullets and tear gas against protesters in the capital Sarajevo and the northern town of Tuzla.
Black smoke could be seen gushing from the presidency building in Sarajevo.
The protesters are unhappy about economic and political progress in the Balkan country.
About 40% of Bosnians are unemployed. The unrest is the worst since the end of the Bosnian war.
Sarajevo-based newspaper Dnevni Avaaz says that police are using water to try and disperse protesters who are throwing stones at the presidency building.
At least 50 people have been injured in the capital, the paper reports.
Protesters in Sarajevo threw stones at government buildings
Demonstrators waved the Bosnian flag in Tuzla
Tuzla protesters also hurled missiles at a government buildingOn Thursday, clashes between police and demonstrators in Tuzla injured more than 130 people, mostly police officers.
The unrest began in Tuzla earlier in the week, with protests over the closure and sale of factories which had employed most of the local population.
Demonstrators in other towns, including Mostar, Zenica and Bihac, supported the Tuzla workers and criticised the government for failing to tackle the rampant unemployment.
Hundreds of people also gathered in support in the Bosnian Serb capital, Banja Luka.
The BBC’s Balkans correspondent Guy De Launey says exasperation at years of inertia and incompetence in Bosnia is at the root of the protests.
Bosnia-Hercegovina is made up of two separate entities: a Bosniak-Croat Federation of Bosnia and Hercegovina, and the Bosnian Serb Republic, or Republika Srpska, each with its own president, government, parliament, police and other bodies.
The complex administrative framework and deep divisions have led to political stagnation and vulnerability to corruption.
…I worked in Tuzla and Northern Bosnia for a while…as well as Croatia and Serbia…in fact…I was airlifted off a road outside of Tuzla by a UN Helicopter as the crappy van we were assigned broke down..and our presence was not appreciated…right after the fighting calmed down the last time (which we induced / we=US)..
I was in the basement of the Olympic Stadium in Sarajevo where they had been using the lower basement as a morgue..as it was much cooler than the upper floors and the bodies would not decay as fast…when the US tried to use the same, emptied space to billet their troops…they found out the floors, carpets..and rubber matting were a horrendous biological wasteland of human fluids, body pieces etc….after which they moved the troops out asap….
…one more thought….most of these folks are just nice, everyday people trying to make their way through life…they do not deserve this treatment or the life they have had to endure…in one of my facilities I taught some of the locals how to make Root Beer Floats…and the next day I had crowds of Bosnian people streaming out of my place…lined up slurping up Root Beer Floats… so they are regular folks with the same type of problems we have… …they just have the balls to stand up and say no…
RJ O’Guillory
Author-
Webster Groves – The Life of an Insane Family
You’ve had a rough life, RJ.
Glad you’re still around to contribute. 🙂
…hey…I had a great time in Bosnia…great people…hard-working-common-sense-souls who want to be let alone…and in Hungary…they put me in charge of a four-hour a night… $20,000.00 a night bar on an abandoned Soviet Airbase …had a gorgeous Hungarian girlfriend named Edit Kiss..and I got to witness the true nature of American Military Operations..kind of like combining MASH with Cheers….ha! So I’ve had a great time…and I never took anyone’s corrupt crap…and they hated me for it….oh, well!
RJ
Well then, I’m jealous……
Except for the part about working for the so-called ‘government’.
Sorry, that I could never do.