So, as you may be wondering, a lot has happened since my last post on July 25. I don't really have a good excuse for the long period between posts besides trying to enjoy the last week or so of the dialogue. I wish I could blame the Olympics somehow or another... Or Batman: The Dark Knight Rises.

After we heard a presentation about Praxis, we did the following:

• Visited the foreign policy advisor to the President
• Enjoyed a lecture from our TA covering an introduction to Serbian politics
• Visited the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
• Visited the Belgrade Center for Security Policy (www.bezbednost.org)
• Visited the Institute for International Politics and Economy
• Visited the E8 Center
• Stayed in Novi Sad for the weekend and enjoyed every minute of it
• Prepared for and participated in two class disputations 
• Visited the Joseph Broz "Tito" museum
• Visited the Nikola Tesla Museum
• Visited the Serbian Military Museum
• Toured the Belgrade Zoo
• Took an "Underground" Tour of Belgrade

Here are some of my take-aways from our pre-Novi Sad meetings:

1. Nobody knows what the future holds for Belgrade-Pristina negotiations. The Foreign Policy Advisor explained to us that President Nikolic is trying to form some consensus in Belgrade about how to approach negotiations with Kosovo. Serbians seem to understand that resolving the conflict over Kosovo's status is a key step towards EU integration. It is also a chance for the President to evaluate the previous administration's approach and how to best move forward.
2. Corruption is rampant. One of the first places we visited in Belgrade was the Special Prosecutor's Office for War crimes, which is housed in the same building as the Organized Crime Court. We were able to step into the largest courtroom, which is used to try upwards of 20-30 defendants at a time. We also heard from anyone with an interest in policy that corruption and organized crime are pervasive in the Serbian politics. One of the more recent tragedies was the assassination of Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, which is thought to have been executed by police forces with the kill order coming from high up in the government.
3. Serbia has committed to becoming an EU member.  As of this last March, the EU and Serbia agreed to work together towards EU membership for Serbia. Besides dealing with #1 and #2 above, the EU is requiring Serbia to deal with the displaced and minority populations, like the Roma and Egyptians (think Praxis), develop a stronger EU-worthy economy and continue to prosecute war crimes, among other goals. While no one pointed it out (besides Maja, our host at Hotel Sokak, as she referred to BiH), Serbia, which has historically struggled to find its own independent existence underneath the influence of the great powers, is committing to sacrifice more sovereignty to join the EU. 

The disputation that I was a judge for asked the question, “Should the EU demand that Serbia recognize Kosovo as a condition of membership?” Our team of judges was ready for just about anything short of a zebra v. rhino piano duel, but we were faced with run of the mill arguments. In the end, we were most compelled by the side arguing that the EU should not, if it can, make the demand that Serbia recognize Kosovo as a condition of membership.

After our disputations, the rest of the week was spent on seeing some museums around Belgrade.

Upon arriving back in the states and watching Batman: The Dark Knight Rises, I started thinking of some parallels between Batman, Gotham and the Balkans. In each of Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies, the villain attempts to put Gotham’s fate into the hands of the people, who the villain expects will shake Gotham to its core. In Batman Begins, Scarecrow used “fear gas”. In The Dark Knight, the Joker tests the will of two ferries, one of civilians and one of prisoners, to see which ferry would pull the trigger on the other. In the final installation, Bane cuts Gotham off from the outside world and holds the city ransom with a 4-5 megaton nuclear bomb so that the masses can “take back their city”. In each, Batman, the hero Gotham needed but did not ask for, appears to save Gotham from mayhem and destruction.

In many ways, the Balkans has faced the same reckoning as the fictional Gotham has as a result of various actors tempting fate. The international community does not deserve to be held equivalent to Batman in this scenario, but I think the Balkans needs some real-life Batmans. Despite the enormous hurdles and underlying tensions waiting to boil over, I remain optimistic that there are enough brave and courageous people in the Balkans to prevent the house of cards from falling down.  

The End. For Now. 

Djindjic, Canvas and Praxis

Tear drop spiral staircase. One might say that it is tearifying to look down from the top.

I apologize for slacking off on the blog posts over the past week. Last Thursday, we had one meeting at the "Djindjic Fund". We were presented with a documentary about the life of Zoran Djindjic, who ascended to the office of Prime Minister of Serbia by working with the opposition to overthrow Slobodan Milosevic in 2000. After his assassination on 13 March 2003, his wife set up an NGO to continue pursuing Djindjic's vision of economic and cultural integration with Europe. After the film, we were able to chat with an alum of one of their programs, as well as a current participant in their German Business program. I think a lot of us found it interesting that the organization focuses on business and economics and attempts to stay out of every day politics, but Djindjic's life and death are saturated with political involvement. 

On Friday, we began a three day training with CANVAS, which came out of the Otpor movement to overthrow Milosevic. Over Friday, Saturday and Sunday, we learned about Otpor's success in overthrowing Milosevic and the strategies they used, from understanding pluralistic power structures, potential allies, designing actions, media/propaganda strategies, and how to manage resources in a movement. The training was a good overall approach and can be applied to everything from keeping your town from cutting down a tree to toppling a dictator. The highlight of the training for me was getting to meet Srdja Popovic. He dropped in for a couple hours during the second day. I had the chance to ask him about the delicate balance between international support and international involvement in movements such as Otpor. His answer can be summed up in saying that movements like Otpor must have a uniformed approach to dealing with the international community by knowing what the movement needs and what the movement can get while not merely becoming a puppet for outside agendas and interests.

On Monday, we had a debrief as a class to discuss the training. After the debrief, I went to the 'lake' again with some folks for another afternoon in the sun. It was a great way to relax after spending three days in a stuffy conference room strategizing over different issues. That evening, we stayed in for some wine and card games.

Yesterday, we had one meeting with a representative from an organization called Praxis. Praxis originally worked to help solve refugee and internally displaced person issues in Serbia. I believe that in 1997, when Praxis began its work, there were about 500,000 displaced people in Serbia. Our presenter explained that about 90% of those people have been given the necessary assistance, about 10% are still in limbo after over a decade. Most of the work involves counseling and advocacy around tenancy and citizenship. Over the past few years, they have started working more with minority populations like the Roma people in Serbia to obtain identification and education services for them. We learned that once they get registered and in the system they can start benefiting from some of the social welfare and health care programs in Serbia. However, it is a burdensome process because the bureaucracy is very slow moving and there is miniscule political and administrative will to help refugees and other minorities. 

Even more alarming than the sluggish process in the vulnerability of Praxis's constituents. Some have been living in shacks for the last twenty years and are considered legally invisible. Not surprisingly, this contributes to a relatively high rate of kidnapping and trafficking of persons. We heard one story about a 14 year old girl who was taken to Germany and forced to marry an older man. Luckily, she was rescued from the situation, but others have not been so fortunate. I also suspect that there the black market for fraudulent identity documents and corruption in the Balkans blossomed as a result of the conflict and amount of displaced people. 

I digress. Here is the link to the organization's web page, which gives some more history about their  origins and connections to the Norwegian government:http://www.praxis.org.rs/ . 

Later today, we will be meeting with an advisor to the President of Serbia and getting another informative lecture from our TA. I am not completely knowledgeable about the situation, but the Serbian Parliament is in the process of creating a new government. The President has said that they should be done by the end of the week, but who knows. Ban Ki Moon was also here on Monday before going to Kosovo. I'm excited to hear a little bit from the horse's mouth about the Serbian political scene. Here's a link to an article about the proceedings (B92 is one of the major news outlets in Serbia and has a pretty decent English webpage): http://www.b92.net/eng/news/politics-article.php?yyyy=2012&mm=07&dd=25&nav_id=81437

Here is another english website that covers the Balkans: http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/page/all-balkans-home

Finally, here is a picture from inside the Three Carrots pub. I will write an update once I get the story on this wall.

Beograd

The largest and unfinished Serbian Orthodox church in Serbia. I definitely didn't take this opportunity for granite and I marbled at how impressive the building is.

After visiting with NDC on Monday, we began our trek to Belgrade. We stopped back in Sarajevo to pick up luggage that didn't fit in our bus to Mostar and to get some lunch. Afterwards, it was about a 7 hour drive to Belgrade. I spent the next morning writing our second paper, which asked us to come up with a hypothetical program that the OHR could enact to help re-enfranchise youth in BiH. Tuesday afternoon involved a walking tour of downtown Belgrade with our TA. The church above was at one end of the tour. The tour ended at the other side of Belgrade, at a fort overlooking the rivers Sava and Danube:

It was back to the paper after the tour.

Wednesday morning, we embarked out to the Serbian War Crimes Court. We were able to visit their largest court room, but we obviously couldn't take any pictures. I thought it was interesting that there was about a 2:1 ratio of desks and computers for the defense to the prosecution. As we learned from our host, that particular court room hosts large organized crime trials where there can be as many as 20-30 defendants. They even had separate galleries for families of the victims and families of the defendants.


After seeing the courtroom, we went upstairs to a conference room for a presentation and Q&A period. Although the court has resolved a lot of war crimes cases, they still have about 50 cases left to resolve. On a more legal nerd level, it was interesting for me to hear about how the Serbian legal system adopted some Anglo Saxon/Common Law approaches to trying war crimes and organized crime. When he started talking about collective responsibility and joint criminal enterprises as they apply under the Pinkerton Rule, I started having flashbacks to my Criminal Law class.

As people started asking questions about how and why the courts can hold military leaders responsible for the actions of individual soldiers, I was reminded of previous discussions I have been involved in that revolve around individual actors and organizations. For example, last spring I had a great discussion with some fellow interns and a detainee policy maker from the DOD about how the US should handle "enemy combatants". Should they be detained indefinitely as essentially POWs, or should their cases be brought before a court? If their cases are brought before a court, should it be a civilian court or a military tribunal? And so on. While we weren't able to come to any conclusions, it appeared to me that the difference was that enemy combatants were acting as part of a larger organization that had declared war on the United States, which makes their actions fall under the laws of war. The laws of war, I discovered, are not really within the purview of civilian courts in the justice system. That leaves some combination of detention and potentially a tribunal.

But I digress. If you're confused, we were essentially discussing the question and precedent under Boumediene v. Bush (2008). What it boils down to is the organizational affiliation of the individual, i.e. whether or not they are in the military and what status they have in that organization. It applies to general organizational culture and leadership as well.

Last night, I went out with my scavenger hunt group for some dinner and later went to the only Irish pub in Belgrade- The Three Carrots.

Lucas out.

July 12-18 Sarajevo, Mostar and Arrival in Belgrade

Pictures of candles lit in Serbian Orthodox monastery (where we met Dragon).

Maybe we are all just candles floating in water waiting for our wicks to burn out.... Wow that was deep and depressing (deepressing?).

Picking up from where the last post left off, we had a free day on Thursday, July 12, because of an unfortunate death in the family of the person who we were scheduled to meet (we rescheduled for Friday at 5, so I will get to it). I made use of the day by going for a run, doing some laundry, visiting one of the mosques and getting some delicious dinner (not to mention getting drenched by the rain after dinner). 

Friday the 13th was packed. We started out with a visit to the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina at 10 am. We met with a couple of the international judges, one of whom is a Northeastern alum. After hearing some great insight on the justice system of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as the politics wrapped up in it, we paid a visit to the US Embassy in Sarajevo. There we spoke with the head of the political division for the embassy. He shared with us one of the most interesting and innovative reconciliation programs for students in BiH. The State Department got a group of Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs together and shipped them to a high school in the US. By the end of their stay, they went from only associating with other members of their ethnic group to associating with people of other ethnic groups. The logic was to put the Balkan students in an environment that where their divisions and history were irrelevant and they were cultural outsiders. This forced them to become each other's social network and support. Just like this trip is putting things in perspective for me, their trip gave them a completely new perspective.

Our last engagement of the 13th was a meeting with a former Serbian soldier and Sarajevo native. We met him at an old (we're talking about 5 centuries old) Serbian Orthodox monastery right by one of our hotels (incidentally, this is also the site of the first casualty of the Siege of Sarajevo). He told us a compelling story about how the war separated him from his best friend, a Bosniak Muslim. Before the war, they had been best friends and enrolled in the same university after high school. The war interrupted their university education in 1992. The Serb, Dragon, was able to smuggle his friend and his family out of the Serbian controlled Sarajevo into Bosniak controlled Sarajevo. Dragon even gave his friend his life savings. As time went on, they both joined their respective armies, but Dragon would use a contact in the Red Cross to send over supply packages from time to time. 

After the war, Dragon tried to return to his apartment in Sarajevo. When he was back in Sarajevo, he ran into his old friend, who he had not seen in 7 years. His friend was with three other Bosniaks. The four of them beat Dragon senseless while Dragon's father, too old to help, watched from their car. A couple years later, Dragon ran into his friend's father and asked where his son was. Dragon was told that his friend had probably gone to Afghanistan because he had been radicalized. Some time after he found this out, Dragon received a call from his friend's father, who informed Dragon that his Bosniak friend had been killed in Afghanistan. Apparently his last words to his father were that Dragon had been the best friend he had ever had. 

***One of many Sarajevo Roses that have been left filled in with red. The government decided to leave these pockmarks after the war and fill them in with red plastic to serve as a reminder of the war (as if there weren't enough already). There were so many of these after the war that the government repaved about 80-90%(I can't remember the exact figure, but it was astounding).***

***This is the Holiday Inn in Sarajevo, which was the only large hotel open during the Siege. If you have seen footage of the shelling of Sarajevo, you have probably seen footage of this hotel being hit. ***

********************************************************

On Saturday, July 14, we embarked to Mostar at 2 pm. On the way, we stopped at Tito's bunker from the Cold War. It is open to the public now and has been used to host art exhibits over the past couple years. Some of the exhibits are still in place. Here's a couple pictures from our tour (most of them are art exhibitions that have been left in place. Also, please forgive the formatting. Blogger is being particularly frustrating right now): 

Picture from the communication center

Another art exhibition. 

Art exhibit close to Tito's office in the bunker.

Don't ask. I really don't know about this one.

Supposedly.

Picture from the fuel tank room. The exhibition is by a Finnish artist. It is meant to be red rain falling down on shoulders (there is another large tank on the right side of the room).

We also visited Jablanica, which is where the "Battle of the Neretva" was filmed and where the WWII battle took place between the Partizans and the Natzis. Here's a picture of the bridge wreckage that has been left since the filming of the movie:

**********************************************************

On Sunday, July 15th, I went for a hike with some fellow students. We followed some streets, a stretch of highway and a path up to a cross erected by some Croat Catholics. It was a fun hike, even if it was pretty warm. The place where the cross is was at the top of one of the hills overlooking Mostar. It was also one of the main Croat artillery positions during the war, so there were a couple signs up indicating where there are still active land mines. Anyway, here are a couple pictures from that excursion:

After the hike, we were given a short tour and history lesson by one of our TA's former instructors and friend. He explained the religious, linguistic and cultural dynamics in Mostar, which manifest in interesting architecture. Once you get up on one of the hills, you can see the red orange roofs of mostly Bosniak homes and the other buildings of mostly Croats. Although we stopped our lesson by a small Serbian Orthodox church and graveyard, Serbs are in the minority in Mostar. 

The church happened to be on the other hill overlooking Mostar, which is where the Serbs were positioned during the war. Apparently, since the Bosniaks were trapped in the city in the valley below, without artillery, the Bosniak commander would occasionally call the Serbian commander with coordinates of Croat positions. Sometimes the Serbs would charge for the shelling and sometimes it was on the house. I think this is an excellent example of the absurdities of the war, especially because the Croats and Bosniaks would eventually side with each other to take on the Serbs.

The next morning, before heading back to Sarajevo then north to Belgrade, we met with a program manager from the National Dialogue Center in Mostar. The NDC's in Mostar, Sarajevo, Belgrade, Zagreb, etc., are largely funded by the Norwegian government. Because of some miscommunication, our meeting was cut short, but we got to hear some encouraging stories about how they are working to integrate schools. I think I've mentioned it before in my blog, but many of the schools in BiH are segregated based on ethnicity. NDC has had some success, but there are still a lot of hearts and minds to win over.

I will have to stop here for now. Dinner is calling. In my next post, I'll get to Belgrade.

July 9-11; Day of Remembrance for Srebrenica Victims

Sarajevsko brewery tour: a peek into the fourth pillar of post conflict "state building": Pivo.

On July 7, we kept the ball rolling by visiting the Catholic Cardinal Pulic. He told us about his work during the siege to drill a water pump to get more water for the surrounding community, which is mostly muslim, and himself. During the siege, he would also travel to the US and around Europe, trying to spread the word about what was going on in Sarajevo and to get more resources from Catholic charities. After the war, he has worked to rebuild schools and create interfaith dialogue. Besides being a member of the Multi Faith Council in Sarajevo, he helped to organize camps where Catholics and Serbian Orthodox Children could meet and pray with each other (a third party from Europe did the organizing of the actual prayer, etc., so that there would be no claims of bias one way or the other). He also said that the visits by the Pope in 1997 and 2000 to BiH had a healing effect across religions. 

One couple thing that the Cardinal said that I thought was interesting was how he said that he did not flee from Sarajevo because Sarajevo is his home; nowhere else could possibly be home. I thought this was interesting and showed the level of dedication he had to staying at his post as Sarajevo's Cardinal. He travelled internationally many times during the war, but always returned to the city, even when it was under siege. He also said that he was not surprised that Yugoslavia did not last because it was not founded on justice because things that are not founded on justice will not survive. I appreciate this sentiment, but even though I can not answer the question it still persists: After all of the bloodshed and conflict in BiH, Croatia, Serbia and Kosovo, what will the people here call 'Justice' and would they know it if they saw it?

After a free day on Sunday, we got back to business on Monday, visiting the Grand Mufti, or Dr. Mustafa Ceric, who is the Muslim leader in Sarajevo. He also sits on the Multi Faith Council here in Sarajevo (for those of you keeping track- we have met 3 of the 4 members of the Multi Faith Council- the Catholic, Jewish and Muslim representatives). This time of the year is a very difficult times for muslims in the BiH because today, over 500 remains were added to the memorial graveyard at Srebrenica that we visited on Friday. Dr. Mustafa, as he had us call him, spoke not only about Srebrenica, but also about how the EU will likely not accept BiH because of the high population of Muslims. Some other students have shared the same opinion, which may have some credence to it because there is no predominantly muslim country currently in the EU. 

Although Samuel P. Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations" is a controversial piece standard of International Relations literature, Dr. Mustafa's claim supports Huntington's thesis that the clashes of the 21st century will be over civilizations (ie West v. East, etc.). Turkey's exclusion thus far from the EU has also highlighted the Arab/Christian Europe divide. Dr. Mustafa also delved into the role of religion in the world. Almost quoting directly from Huntington, Dr. Mustafa talked about how the combination of a failure of 18th and 19th century philosophers to give answers to the meaning of life and the 'flattening' of the world and diminishing national identities have given rise to an increased identification based on religion. Essentially, Dr. Mustafa (and Huntington to some extent) claim that more people are turning to religion as a source of identity and purpose of life. In countries like BiH, Croatia and Serbia where religious, ethnic and national identities often coincide, the differences and rivalries are that much stronger.

Anyway, back to the point. Dr. Mustafa did not seem to be afraid to praise the US influence in ending the war and the international influence on bringing perpetrators of genocide to justice. Dr. Mustafa was the only religious leader we have spoken to thus far who has gone on a couple EU or UN project trips to Germany and Japan to learn about post conflict negotiation. His embrace of the international community is important because it verifies what we have heard that the muslims view the international community as the only thing keeping a lid on potential violence, in which they could potentially fighting two fronts again.

After leaving our meeting with Dr. Mustafa, we walked over to the Presidency to watch the procession of the victims of Srebrenica. What astounded me what how quiet the area was. Once the police vehicles and the three trucks carrying the caskets showed up, all you could hear was a low murmur of hushed conversation, the idling of the trucks and people crying. Some people brought flowers with them to put on the trucks(like in the picture). From where we were, we could not see or hear which of the politicians came out to speak, but it was more important for us to observe the non-political interactions. Today the caskets from inside the truck were finally laid to rest.

We had an hour or so to get lunch before visiting the Office of the High Representative. The OHR is the office that was installed to monitor the governance of BiH until such time as it appeared that the political parties in BiH were stable. Obviously, the fact that it is still here after so many years is an indication that there is some trepidation that all is not well. The OHR has the power to remove Presidents and in effect pass laws in lieu of the BiH parliament. Honestly, I am not surprised that it is still here because its mere presence is a huge slap in the face to BiH sovereignty, if it has any. Although it has made some progress and is starting to step back and forcing BiH politicians to resolve their own disputes, I think that it sends the wrong message when an undemocratically appointed High Representative from outside BiH has more authority than elected politicians. 

I will stop writing before I get myself into trouble. I know that the OHR has probably had an overall positive and stabilizing presence, but I also think that its continued presence undercuts its purpose for existing.

Tuesday we took a short drive up to Pale to visit the AUBiH university there. It is just 16 km outside of Sarajevsko (about a 20-25 minute drive through some beautiful country- on a side note, I would love to do more hiking here if I was sure I wouldn't come across any land mines). Pale is just inside the Republic of Srpska and in mostly Serbian in population. We were introduced to some of the faculty and given some background on the university before we were able to ask some questions. Apparently a couple of our questions were too tame for Mladen, who decided to ruffle some feathers by asking about the students' feelings towards the EU and Republic of Srpska. He asked if they would accept a demand from the EU that would effectively strip the Republic of Srpska of any political power or self governance. To put it mildly, the students told us (and Mladen) that they would not accept such an EU mandate, that they did not believe in their politicians or the EU and that such a mandate would eradicate everything they fought for in the 1992-1995 war. 

To most peoples' relief, one of the AUBiH professors suggested that we break into small groups and talk over coffee. I was able to get a seat with a couple other NU students and we had a great talk with 4 AUBiH Serb students. After they were convinced that we would not antagonize them (it helped that one of us was a Greek and Orthodox "brother" to them), they opened up and told us about their perceptions of BiH as a whole, the Republic of Srpska's ambitions for independence, rakje, Srebrenica, etc. It was interesting to hear that each of them had Croat and/or Bosnian friends who they got along with perfectly fine, but that they didn't trust the politicians. This seems to be a common theme, distrust of politicians. I know that Congress has a poor approval rating in the US, but at least we don't suspect that they could potentially bring us into another civil war. 

Today we had a chance to talk all this over as a class. I know that we all had different conversations, but I can not share my peers' pessimism or feelings of depression springing from yesterday's conversations. I think that there is a chance for the younger generations to make some incredible progress towards reconciliation. But that won't occur without phenomenal leadership. There are so many organizations like the OHR and the Multi Faith Council that are trying to heal the divisions, but I think that an organic grass-roots movement would go much further. Like I said above, the common theme seems to be distrust of the politicians to do anything. Like Governor Dukakis constantly told us in Public Policy and Administration, if you can agree on the problem, then you can find a solution. I know that the problem is deeper than simple mistrust of politicians, but I find the absence of an active and engaged civil society here strange. Maybe because of my own background and having just come from a co-op in Washington, D.C., I expected more political activity in the populous. Of course, I should check those expectations because the political dynamics are clearly much different here than in the US. Perhaps because I'm incredibly stubborn, I still believe that right now, even with seemingly insurmountable ethnic and constitutional issues, there is a huge opportunity for a group or a leader to bring a vision of reconciliation and eagerness to engage in dialogue towards solving theses problems (I'll though in my personal bias that starting from scratch and creating an organic, truly BiH constitution would be the ideal here).

Yesterday, after the meeting in Pale, we visited the "Tunnel of Hope/Life", which was used to smuggle arms, humans, food, etc., underneath the UN-controlled Sarajevo airport. The tunnel was used by about 3000 people a day and was 800m long and about 1.5-2 m high. They have preserved about twenty meters of it:

Without this tunnel, I am pretty sure that the humanitarian crisis would have been much worse. At the same time, it highlights the frustrations with the UN's presence in Sarajevo. I think it was interesting that they admitted that many weapons were smuggled into Sarajevo to defend the city against Serbs, which the Serbs obviously weren't happy about. At the same time, if I think about what I would have done in a Sarajevo under siege if I were a Bosnian looking for a way to survive and fight back, I would have done the same thing. Although it is tempting to flee, I don't know if I could handle the guilt of having left my people there to suffer through the siege. 

I know it's a bit hypocritical to condemn the violence that occurred here and also write that I would have fought back if I were in the position that the soldiers were in (this applies to all sides). But for me, in order to attempt to understand as many sides here, I have to ask myself what I would do if I were put in different positions and different situations. Perhaps it is my fear of being absolutely helpless that makes me tend towards wanting to fight back. When it comes down to it, if I were actually put in the situation, depending on who I was responsible for or if it meant the difference between seeing my friends and family live, I may make a different decision. 

So, before signing off, I would suggest that anybody trying to understand the Balkan conflict (or any other conflict) try to get to the root of why people fight. Whether it's religious, because they're defending their home, for survival, they're fighting for independence, etc. Essentially, if someone is willing to die for something, it is worth some attention and contemplation.   

Until next time, Lucas out.

July 6: Srebrenica Visit

I want to preface this blog post by saying that the topic of Srebrenica is one of the most controversial in Bosnia and Herzegovina because of the emotional and human toll it has taken. In many ways, it is the epitome of the senseless violence that occurred during the conflict here. My own personal response to emotional issues like this is to attempt to try to occupy my mind by thinking and analyzing rather than accepting whatever emotional response is waiting for me to let my defenses down. When I do try to acknowledge and identify my emotions, it is usually such a cluster of mixed feelings that no one emotion is able to break through. I am sure that this will come through in this post, so I encourage anyone reading this to read about the events at Srebrenica from different sources to get the fullest story possible and to have an emotional experience of their own. 

July 6 has been our most solemn day thus far. We left for Srebrenica, the UN safe zone turned massacre zone, just after 9 and arrived at noon.We were initially brought into the still standing factory building which was used as a base by the Dutch UN troops. We sat in on a discussion between artists about the ethics of making art (poetry, novels, music, sculpture, paintings, film, etc.) about the conflict and Srebrenica. While some of it was pretentious, pedantic, absurd, absurdly abstract or just hard to follow, I think that the main issue of debate, whether anyone has the right to produce art inspired by the suffering of others, is an interesting topic. 

After about 40 minutes of trying to follow the conversation, we moved into the exhibit part of the factory and were given a brief tour. Unfortunately, we were rushed for time, but our tour guide, who survived Srebrenica but lost his father and a brother, gave us a detailed account of the events that transpired. I admire him for keeping his composure and for his willingness to share the story with outsiders. The part of the story that got to most people in the group was his description of how little the Dutch UN troops did to protect the refugees in their care. We were able to explore the exhibition after the tour. I was able to watch about 5 minutes of the documentary that they were showing, then I walked around and looked at some of the maps, photos and victim's personal effects. The anger and frustration I was experiencing from hearing about the failure of the UN gave way to soul wrenching from the stories describing the last time survivors saw their family members before they were killed. It is impossible to read those stories and not picture your own family members in the place of theirs. 

Our hosts fed us lunch then we visited the memorial graveyard for the Srebrenica victims. While I took about 80 pictures of the graveyard, I have only posted two here in respect of the victims and their families. All of the loose dirt, wood and open graves that you see are there in preparation for the anniversary, 11 July 1995, of Srebrenica. Every year, more graves are prepared to accept the remains of bodies that have been discovered and identified since the last anniversary. They will continue this process until they are unable to find and identify any more remains, or all of the graves have been filled.  The most recent date of birth I found was in 1982, so the boy was only 13 when he was killed. 

Walking around the memorial for forty minutes by myself gave me a chance to attempt to process everything. For a while I was feeling confused, frustrated and angry because of what happened, but also of the difficulty in getting a straightforward, objective, story about what happened at Srebrenica. It reminded me of a workshop I attended last winter discussing some trade policy. The leader of the workshop asked us a question to break the ice: "What was the color of the shirt worn by the featured speaker last night?" Out of the thirty or so participants, there were about 10 different colors suggested. Of course a couple people got it right, but most of us were way off. The point of the exercise, if I recall it correctly, was that we often distort objective facts based on our perspective. We all agreed that the speaker indeed spoke and that he indeed had a shirt on, but we couldn't agree on the color. 

The same phenomenon seems to have happened with Srebrenica. Most people agree that over 8000 people were killed as a result of the siege and downfall of the UN Safe Zone of Srebrenica (there are some deniers of the massacre, who may just not be able to process it or may be the victims of rampant misinformation and propoganda). But you will hear different stories and explanations from different individuals. For instance, the exhibition in the factory said that some individuals were engaged in "food raids" because of the food shortage within the refugee camp. In a couple of the documentaries I have watched about Srebrenica, the food shortage and "food raids" are attributed to the Bosniak commando, Naser Oric, who is believed to have lead raids of Serbian villages surrounding Srebrenica and committing the same atrocities that Mladic and other Serbian soldiers have been accused (and sometimes convicted) of. 

The documentaries also point to Oric as the leader of a black market in Srebrenica, which involved the seizure of large amounts of food aid so that it did not reach the refugees.  In one documentary, Serbs are quoted as saying that the men and boys that were hunted down and killed in the forests around Srebrenica were targeted as potential enemy soldiers. Although Naser Oric left the camp before the Serbian attack, some of his men were potentially amongst the refugees fleeing to Tuzla and elsewhere. While I doubt the Serbian response to Srebrenica, there is absolutely no defense and no justification for the execution of over 8,000 civilians.

As I processed these frustrations, I started to feel feel more empathy for confusion and helplessness of the whole thing. On one hand, I can not blame some of the participants in the "food raids" for refusing to accept that they were at the mercy of the UN and the Serbian General Mladic. Had I been in their situation, I likely would have chosen to raid the villages to bring back food to my family rather than fight by fellow refugees in the camp over the meager available food aid. But on the other hand, burning, looting and executing Serb civilians is unacceptable. Neither is using the spoils of the food raids to profit off of a black market that exploits your fellow refugees. 

Towards the end of my walk, I began to sense a small understanding for the residual anger and need for justice among the victims towards the perpetrators. For that matter, the need for justice for Srebrenica in humanity. What it boils down to is that the UN failed to protect thousands of refugees and 8372 civilians were slaughtered. I think that there is a near universal need to grieve and atone for their deaths, which could have been prevented. There is also a need to comprehend what happened at Srebrenica (and Rwanda, Nazi Germany, etc., for that matter), but more importantly and perhaps most frightening of all, why it happened and why so many stood by and let it happen. The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia is important to establish international law and human rights and to prosecute and determine the punishment and guilt of genocidal perpetrators. More difficult and more crucial is that the international community learn to recognize the patterns of behavior that lead up to ethnic cleansing or genocide and commit to preventing it, with force, if necessary. 

*********************************************************************************

I'm sure that if you've read this far that you're probably having some sort of emotional reaction and maybe considering pointing out flaws in my logic or emotions. Maybe you're wondering whether or not I am an optimist. Well, if you haven't figured it out, here goes. Below is my favorite picture from our visit because you can see almost the entire memorial, the graves being prepared for next week, and the concrete monument with the victims' names. But you can also see the blue sky, the green trees and the water fountain as beautiful and hopeful signs that we can and will move on from this tragedy and that life is as vibrant as ever.

July 4th-5th, or, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AMERICA!"

I don't know if the church was build on an uneven surface, but the towers seem to be pointed at different angles. Is it a Catholic conspiracy? No. But there sure were angels and demons during the war... 

    Anyway, enough with the bad jokes. Our July 4th morning started a little after 10 am with a walking tour of Sarajevo. We stopped by a Catholic Cathedral, Serbian Orthodox Church, Mosque and Jewish Synagogue (now a museum), which are all within a short walking distance of each other in Old Town. The top row of pictures show the mosque on the left, cathedral in the middle and synagogue/Jewish museum on the right. The bottom left is a picture of a bombed out, still unrestored building (located next to the cathedral) and the Serbian Orthodox church on the right. 

 The pictures below are from a bridge on the river. The house in the picture on the right was originally on the left side of the river. In an eminent domain-ish case, people looking to buy the land it was on. The owner of the house refused because he had lived there all of his life and so had his father, grandfather, etc. After refusing offers which were well over its market value, they struck a compromise. They buyers had an exact replica of the house rebuilt in the current location on the right side of the river. The owner even refused a slight re-orientation of the house so the balcony would overlook the river. The house is currently a restaurant for tourists who hear the story and want to see what the house is like on the inside. Genius business strategy.

After the tour, I grabbed some grub with my roommate, Dennis. I got some lamb kebobs, but he went for the steak in honor of the Fourth of July. Little did he know that our friendly waitress would come up behind him and tie on a bib. And the rest, they say, is delicious history.       

After an afternoon siesta, we had a lecture by our TA, Mladen. We went an hour over the scheduled time, but it was the first good chance for us to talk with Mladen, originally from the Vojvodina region of Croatia, about the war and Balkan politics. Besides doing an overview of the history of the war covering when who was fighting who, when and where, and which peace agreements did or didn't work, we discussed some of the international law implications. For instance, it is generally recognized as a rule that a group of people can not unilaterally secede or unilaterally change internationally recognized borders. Slovenia was the first to do this in the breakup of Yugoslavia, with Croatia and Bosnia Herzegovina following their example. However, this seems to conflict with the internationally recognized right to self-determination. The chemistry of secession and self-determination is first determined by the degree of international recognition and secondly, whether or not the people/territory trying to secede or assert self-determination is able to operate as a sovereign state. Slovenia and Croatia received recognition from some of their historical allies like Germany and Austria right away. The decision of whether or not to recognize them as independent states divided the international community and the US was initially against it. Despite the early hesitation, the US was one of the first to recognize BiH as an independent state.

As you can imagine, Serbia and Milosevic were not happy that Slovenia, Croatia and BiH were able to effectively sidestep international norms and receive recognition from the international community. To me, the story is similar to when Abraham Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteer soldiers and the Confederacy responded by seceding from the Union. In the case of Yugoslavia, Milosevic and Serbia were seen as the aggressors attempting to establish Serbian hegemony. Of course, this is a somewhat shallow comparison, but making these comparisons to parts of US history that I am familiar with helps me to gain a deeper understanding of why people acted the way they did. Obviously, the American civil war and the the fall of Yugoslavia ended very differently for the seceding parties.

So, after some good discussion, we were invited to a dinner party and continued celebrating the Fourth at a fine local Sarajevo establishment. After indulging in a few hours of rest, we awoke and visited La Benevolencia, the newer Jewish synagogue and community center in Sarajevo (by new I mean that it was constructed in 1902 rather than 1565). We met with Jacob Finci (the Jewish lawyer and community leader described in my last post) for a couple hours and learned about the phenomenal work La Benevolencia did during the siege of Sarajevo and the lawsuit that he won (while working as a Bosnian diplomat, no less) in the European Court of Human Rights. During the siege, they were able to establish and expand a pharmaceutical network that supplied about 40% of Sarajevo's needs during the siege. They had a medical team, news letter, radio (for a brief time), and post office. The people working for the center came from all religions and ethnicities.

It was fascinating to hear about the activity that happened at Benevolencia after hearing so many times about the constant destruction and demoralization of Sarajevo during the siege. I have nothing but admiration for the strength, courage and cooperative work of Finci and everyone else who made Benevolencia function during the siege. They were also able to help orchestrate a massive evacuation of women, children and elderly citizens. Unfortunately, the Jewish population has diminished (as has the Catholic population) in Sarajevo compared with pre-war numbers. After all of the work they did during the war, it came as no surprise that Finci and others would fight to change the discrimination in the BiH constitution. Hopefully BiH politicians will be able to figure out some changes that will afford every BiH citizen, not just a Croat, Serb or Bosnian, the right to run for the presidency. La Benevolencia's history makes me hopeful for what the people of Sarajevo and BiH as a whole can accomplish through cooperation.