In the series “Twilight of the Coal Miner”, Naratorium, with the support of the “Heinrich Böll” Foundation, brings reports from eight mining BiH cities that, perhaps more than others, face the challenges of energy transition. We tried to find out in a conversation with citizens and politicians, activists and lobbyists, miners and directors what a certain coal suppression will mean for them in the next decade. We are bringing the second report from Banovići.
Written by: Harun DINAREVIĆ and Alena BEŠIREVIĆ
As we enter Banovići from the direction of Živinice, we talk about how all mining towns look so conspicuously to each other. We try to guess what’s next to the road, because we’re here for the first time. Unlike medieval cities, which developed in an expanding circle, around shops and craft guilds, industrial and mining cities developed “from the outside in” – first industrial plants were built, and then workers’ apartments in their vicinity. It was the same with Banovići, one of the youngest urban cores in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Only when the Brčko-Banovići railway was built in 1946 with the first major youth action in Yugoslavia, and the RMU “Tito” was opened, for which the railway was built, this place began to get the first outlines of the urban environment. Residential buildings are being built for workers who come for work and the promised future, mostly from the villages of the then still rural Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Changes or castlings?
We pass a mine that seems to have fossilized in time. Only a long column of trucks of private companies in front of the building reminds us that we live in a new age. And a digital plate that shows that there are currently “beans” on the tape, a type of coal that ends up in a thermal power plant. At the entrance to the center we cross the famous railway. Behind us is a composition loaded with black, high-calorie coal. The day is gray, it smells of sulphurous autumn in the land of charcoal and gloom. After a light rain, we are looking for a place to drink coffee before the first interview in the management of RMU Banovići. We enter a small buffet not far from the directorate, where we sit at the only free table and slowly lull ourselves into the well-known melancholy eavesdropping on the conversation of a group of men who seem to have always been sitting there.
– Mine Banovići, a sign of equality city. Not really a sign of equality, because it is practically one. The problem with us here is that since the foundation of the mine, everyone has been leaning on the mine and have only thought about the mine. Believe me, this is still the case today, assures us Elvir Salihović, general manager of the mine, who was appointed to this position a few months ago, from the position of advisor to the mayor Bego Gutić.
We will later learn from our source that the director was also an auditor in the mine, and that this conflict of interest was “resolved” only a few days before our arrival, when another auditor was elected.
– There was no dismissal, it is not a matter of dismissal, but they were acting officials from the previous administration, and then this administration was formed through a competition procedure. They were not fired, claims Salihović.
We ask him how he evaluates the work of the previous administration.
– I think they even worked well. Last year was profitable and then this fire slowed us down and they were tired. We are not just dealing with production here, politics is involved in everything and that is unbelievable, admits the new director.
A lot has happened in Banovići in the last year, since Bego Gutić was elected mayor, perhaps more than in the previous twenty-something years, as the city was unofficially ruled by Mirsad Kukić, whom the Party for Democratic Action (SDA), after decades of supporting his arbitrariness, removed in 2018. He has since managed to overthrow the SDA-led Tuzla Canton government, but also lost Banovići, where his candidate was defeated by former prime minister and minister in the Tuzla Canton government, former party colleague Bego Gutić. The new mayor currently has a narrow majority in the Council against the PDA, which, according to his confession and our knowledge, is very unstable due to the actions of several “wanted” councilors, as our source ironically says.
Tensions in Banovići’s SDA escalated in March this year with the outbreak of fire in the Omazići underground pit, the cause of which has not yet been officially discovered. Rumors, on the other hand, say that the fire was set and that it was revenge for the loss of positions in the mine. To our knowledge, this is not the only suspicious fire recorded in Banovići in the last year and a half. However, the one from the Omazići pit caused the most damage. In addition to destroying one piece of equipment, the fire completely stopped coal mining for more than half a year. If we take into account that this coal is the high energy coal and that it makes about 30 percent of the total amount of excavated coal in Banovići, which has grown to 1.6 million tons a year in recent years, it is clear that the losses are measured in millions.
Despite recent turmoil and divisions, Banovići is almost unanimously optimistic about the future of coal mining in the municipality. Most of our interviewees predict, as well as some earlier announcements from the EP BiH, that the Banovići mine will be among the last in Bosnia and Herzegovina to be closed. There are several reasons for this: high energy value of coal, proximity to TPP Tuzla, bigger problems in the mines of the EP, especially Kreka, the largest number of employees (approx. 2,800), greater power of local political factors in relation to the mines.
However, Salihović states that there are certain ideas on how to transform the huge areas of land that the mine owns.
– If someone tells you that in 2050, we will practically no longer produce coal, of course that is a problem. I will just mention one problem, and that is the degraded areas of which we have some 600 hectares, which were created after the completion of the exploitation of the mineral wealth of part of the surface mines. I think that in the coming period through defining the strategy, increasing efficiency and of course increasing productivity we can enter the transition process in the right way and use our, in this case, relative advantage over some other economic entities, and these are precisely the degraded areas and in part, at least that is our idea, to diversify this activity, which is primarily oriented towards coal production, by using these areas, says the new director.
He also claims that work has already begun on some projects.
– There are certain options through the production of biomass, EP has already started working, or installing solar power plants, for which we have space, and there were even talks with the EP to rent them space for surface mines to install those solar power plants. We have already started taking inputs for these projects, we have indebted our investment sector where we are considering the possibility of producing part of the electricity ourselves in the foreseeable future, because if one hectare or more is needed for a megawatt, then you can see potential we have here. This does not mean that we will start producing energy for commercial purposes, but I think we see a moment that we can use in this transition process, he says.
In the director’s office, between Alija Izetbegović’s book and several coal samples, there is still a draft of the Banovići Thermal Power Plant. He explains to us that RMU Banovići is still officially committed to this project. As in the case of Block 7 in Tuzla, the partners supposed to be Chinese companies. Several million were spent on the preparation of the project, and today, when no one wants to invest in thermal power plants anymore, the story of TPP Banovići seems like a distant echo of pre-election promises that can never be realized.
Unlike the “official position of RMU Banovići”, Mayor Bego Gutić does not think that the story about TPP Banovići should be continued.
– I think it is absurd to talk about a coal-fired power plant now. It is a project that may have been promising ten years ago, Gutić told Naratorium.
He sees the reasons for that in “strengthening green lobbies and environmental movements that change energy policy.” Gutić felt that new winds are blowing, so last year he wrote to the World Bank, embassies and the Energy Community that he wanted “Banovići to become the first decarbonised municipality in BiH”, which is as much as possible for Neum to become a port city. Paradoxically, Gutić sees 2050 as the final deadline for closing the mine.
– We must point out what awaits us, it would be incorrect to lie to your citizens. I am trying, I am not saying that directly, but I say quite clearly that in 2050 we will have to respect the Sofia Declaration, which implies the closure of the mine. Of course, I say again, the Banovići mine is the last to be closed. According to the studies done within the EP and the FBiH Government, there were some protocols that were signed earlier, and according to these protocols, we will be the last mine to put the key in the lock, claims Gutić.
We ask the mayor what he has done so far to make the municipality less dependent on coal.
– We have already secured a business zone with an area of 250 thousand meters, which is located next to the Banovići mine. It is an area that is owned by the Banovići mine and we already have two investors who have their businesses there. These are two smaller factories. Plastic carpentry factory and metal industry factory. When it comes to decarbonization, and again I say decarbonization is not just mine closure, we are working with CRP and UNDP on a project that aims to record the situation in individual and collective housing and the goal is to make an analysis that will show us what needs to be done to increase energy efficiency in housing, explains Gutić, who sees international funds for energy transition as the main hope in his plans.
Charcoal-painted areas
After the interview, prompted by Gutić’s advice to see the “moon crater”, we go to the nearby surface mine Čubrić, which has been closed for coal exploitation for ten years. Today, a cover from two other active coal mines in Banovići is spread on this surface, a significant part of which is occupied by water accumulation. As we climb the mine through the black mud, we are surprised by a small wooden cellar on a barren hill. A thin stream of smoke billows from it. A black cat sitting in front of the door, we barely notice it from the charcoal-painted landscape. In the “garden” one tomato stalk. The unfortunate tenant slips far down the road, and we hurry because we realize we are intruders. We do not see any trace of the restoration of the “devastated areas” we heard about that day.
We are trying to wash the mud we brought from the Čubrić mine by stepping on the puddles in front of the Workers’ Home, where we are with the president of one of the two unions of RMU Banovići workers, Nihad Huremović.
On our attempt to apologize for the mud we are bringing, the outgoing president assures us that he will not mind, because they are moving their premisses anyways. Traces of fire are visible in the hallway from which we come to the office. The walls are sooty, and the cupboard in which the documents were, as Huremović said, survived by sheer luck.
They have not yet made an official statement about the cause of the fire, nor have we received it from the Tuzla Canton Ministry of the Interior.
One man is suspected. His represents the other union whose headquarters is upstairs. Although we tried to reach him, Mirsad Kukić did not respond to our reports. Or his party associates did not pass on the message.
Why does this mine has two unions, what is the difference between them and what does each of them offer to the miners who should represent them before the employer, are questions that arise on their own.
– So, this union has existed since the mine existed. It is an old union that has a long tradition. In 2003, a coup was carried out from above, by another union of Minister Kukić. They held a referendum and formed another trade union organization. The SDA ruled then. There was also apartheid here in Banovići. People were forced to be members of the union under threats. So, we fought and in the end we won. Last year we only had 100 members. However, there was a change in the management of the mine and then it started again, people were not afraid anymore and returned to this union again. And now we already have over 1,500 members, and the mine employs around 2,900 people. That is how we got to our feet again, explains Huremović.
What is it that Mirsad Kukić can offer to the miners to join his union or, even more simply, what do you offer to join yours, we asked.
– The union as a union cannot offer anything, but before they could offer because they had power in their hands. Join us and your child will get a job, we will hire your daughter-in-law. And that’s how they actually worked. You only could be a member under threats. There was a time when people were not allowed to say hello to me in Banovići. I cannot describe what I and people working with me went through, what pressures we had, threats, but with God’s help, I endured it all, says Huremović.
The first union, the authentic one, Huremović assures us, has nothing to do with politics.
– I will never let the union, which I represent, to be part of the politics, what will happen after me, God knows, says the president.
We leave the story of politics aside, trying to find answers to questions about the strategy of energy transition in Banovići and the way in which this union looks at the future without coal.
– The mines are in crisis, BiH mines and European mines, you know that maybe better than I do. However, there is no life in BiH without mines, improvement of conditions in those mines, additional employment, building thermo blocks, that is the fact in our country, said Huremović, suggesting that it is difficult to imagine an alternative future in mining areas.
Although this mine performs better than most mines, the miners’ salary is lower than in other mines which are part of the EP BiH, he reveals.
– I did some comparison and our salaries in the Banovići mine are much lower than in other mines which are part of the EP BiH. The period I compared was 2016 – 2018 when negotiations on collective agreement were conducted. At that time, as the manager of the construction operation, I was earning 850 BAM, and my colleague Sinan Husić, who is also the manager, the president of the miners’ union, was earning 600 BAM at the time. My colleague Suad, also a mechanical manager, earned twice as much as I did in Đurđevik.
The new president of the “majority” union is now Mirnes Mujkić, president of the Municipal Committee of the Social Democrats Banovići. Believe it or not, Bego Gutić also became a member of the union.
The capital of the canton
– No one in Banovići can promise as much as Bego Gutić can. It is another matter how many promises he will fulfill. People stood by him and he did certain things, but only the things his party debtors requested and debtors from SBB, explains Mirnes Modrić, a local chronicler, journalist by necessity, lawyer by education, whom we meet in the local cafe.
Modrić often satirically documents local corruption on the Banovićki Tribun portal (tribun.ba), and he has been threatened several times due to public criticism. He was also offered to “put the pen in the service” of the new government. As a Democratic Front candidate, Modrić decided to participate in the last local elections, but due to the isolation he was in during the campaign and the non-existent party infrastructure, he failed to enter the local council.
In sports jargon, he explains to us how the SDA continued to rule the Banovići after the schism.
– It all turned overnight. The first team lost in the race, it is today’s PDA, Mirsad Kukić; the other team is Bego Gutić who played in the other team, but was not the one who led. He is taking over with the help of Bijedić’s Social Democrats, the SDP, which broke in two, and with the help of SBB, he is making the result, and I am starting to document the things he did, he recalls.
And then came threats and insults on social media. Modrić believes that in Banovići, one unanimity, the one from the Kukić era, has only been replaced by a new one.
– This is the Wild West, no laws apply here. Here the party that has the mine has everything. I published the list of employed miners, that is, the mine published it, and I just drew a parallel between who is whose man, in what position and in which party he was when he got the job. Then I ended up in the MUP because after I published the list, the threats started. I documented that today’s president of Gutić’s union, the green union, is the president of Bijedić’s Social Democrats. The other union is led by Mirsad Kukić and his people. These two unions are, in fact, the party machinery that brings victory in the elections. Whoever has a larger membership, has a better chance of winning the elections, and in that way, there is pressure. You are simply forced to vote for someone because he provided you with a job and salary of 500-600 BAM, says Modrić, who also published on his portal the payrolls from RMU Banovići, which indicate a huge gap between employees.
How much political power is concentrated around this mine is best illustrated by Modrić’s joke that “Banovići is the capital of Tuzla Canton”.
– Two or three Tuzla Canton prime ministers from Dayton until today are from Banovići. Whoever rules the mine, rules the municipality, probably the canton. In 2018, the SDP got ten deputies in the Cantonal Assembly, and Tuzla is as it is and it is known who rules there and has 100,000 inhabitants compared to 20,000 in Banovići. They gave ten, and the PDA seven, five of whom are from Banovići. While the SDA was compact, they gave 12-13, most of whom were from Banovići, he shows us the political picture of the canton through numbers.
We are interested in what he thinks about the decarbonization of the municipality, which was announced by the current mayor.
– It is a distraction for a small number of people who stayed in Banovići. From the census, more than 4,000 people left Banovići. Živinice is the West for us. Here the children, before learning the words “mom” and “dad” learn the words “Bego” and “Kuko”. It’s the creepy reality I live in. If you are interested in life in Banovići, you just need to visit it on Saturdays. Saturday is a market day, it is the biggest cultural event in Banovići, he bitterly assures us.
Our impressions are not far from his experience either. Although we came to this municipality with the intention of finding out how they envision a coal-free future here, we could not escape local intrigues, political corruption and stories about rigged tenders as a decades-long practice in RMU Banovići, which, as the director says, allocates 70 million BAM annually on public procurement. All this was previously well researched by other journalists and non-governmental organizations. We have seen the mayor’s declarative commitment to a new future and the deep pit between his stated intentions and his political power closely tied to coal. In Banovići, the need for an imminent cessation of coal exploitation is perceived as “pressure from the West, green agendas and the strengthening of other energy lobbies”, and not as a necessary measure for trivia such as clean air and saving the climate balance. Decision-makers in this municipality are particularly “concerned” about job losses in the energy transition, which they fear will be unfair. At the same time, they have up to ten times higher salaries than the same workers they are talking about. It will be painful to say goodbye to coal here, because could they all acquire their small fortunes in the wind and sun?!
*Melanchoaly is a word we came across while living in the melancholy ambience of a coal-bearing town (eng. coal).
