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. ***

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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:

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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. 

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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.

Update: July 3rd

(I know that I'm a few days behind. It's been a wicked busy few days. I should have this blog up to date on the 8th)

When I think some something witty to say about the above picture, I will promptly edit this post and no one will ever notice.

What was I writing? Ah, yes. July 3, 2012. Tuesday was a doozy of a day. The temperatures were pushing the mid-high nighties and I decided to wear a full suit. Why did I wear a full suit on such a warm day, which involved a 3/4 mile walk (one way) in the sun? Excellent question, dear reader. We had a meeting with the Foreign Policy Adviser to the Bosnian Presidency (there are 3 presidents, so he has three bosses... can you imagine, say, an American Presidency with Obama, McCain and Ron Paul? Yeah, that's what I thought). 

After we got settled into a warm Austro Hungarian era room, with a couple paintings and chandelier, Elvir Comdzic, the Foreign Policy Adviser arrived. Although his position involves foreign policy, he briefed us on his perspective of the current state of affairs in BiH. Although he covered a few different topics, the main issue he discussed was the constitutional issues behind the court case Sejdic and Finci v. Bosnia and Herzegovina, decided in 2009. The European Court of Human Rights ruled that the constitution of BiH, which was established by the officially war-ending Dayton Accords in 1995, contained de facto discrimination by only allowing Bosnians, Croats and Serbs, but not other minority groups, to run for the Presidency (stay tuned- we met Jacob Finci on July 5). As a part of the ruling, the ECRH demanded that BiH amend its constitution to end discrimination (this will also be necessary for European Union ascension). As of today, BiH has not amended its constitution to comply with the ruling, even though it is a party to the European Convention on Human Rights and therefore compelled to do so. As Comdzic explained, this constitutional dilemma illuminates the overarching theme of BiH politics that any political decision must maintain the balance of power between the three main ethnic groups.

After listening to Comdzic and other BiH citizens speak about the issue, it seems as though there is wide agreement that the constitution is discriminatory, but there is no agreement on a solution. As pointed out by some observers, people who support the decision may not think that their ethnic group would suffer if the decision was implemented. 

At this point of my blog entry, before inserting some of my own commentary, I do want to clarify that I am writing from the perspective of a straight white American male and I recognize the privileges known and unknown to me that are associated with my Regular White Guy (RWG) status. That being said, I think that I am gaining a new appreciation for ethnic/racial political issues in the United States. There are always ethnic or racial undertones (or overtones) in US politics, but I have never been in the position where I have consciously voted based on what I as a RWG would have to gain against other ethnicities. 

With all due respect to the experience of everybody in BiH, it seems as though the ethnic divides in the constitution/Dayton Accords have been a stronger force for keeping the ethnicities within BiH divided rather than united. Of course, I can not think of how I would structure the government differently in 1995 (the closest comparisons I can think of in US history are compromises made about the slave trade in the Constitution and in new states). I think that some in BiH, including members of the Presidency and Parliament, recognize that the 1995 Dayton Accords were not meant to be permanent, but the opportunity for a complete constitutional overhaul has not presented itself with any possibility of success. As Comdzic alluded to in articulating one of his personal opinions, such an opportunity may materialize if the international community took three huge steps back from influencing BiH policy and forced the BiH government to solve its constitutional issues.

The involvement of the international community in the discrimination case has also evoked more debate in BiH about the balance of power in Bosnia and Herzegovina. As I explained in an earlier post, BiH is politically and territorially divided into the Federation of Bosnia Herzegovina, including its ten canons, and the Republic of Srpska. This means that, like the US, there are commissioners of education for each level of government. Also like the US, there is ongoing debate about how much power each level should have and whether or not to add, maintain or eliminate certain agencies. On top of these domestic issues, BiH also has to consider its EU aspirations, which will likely require BiH to add certain agencies and change other parts of its constitution. 

During our conversation, Comdzic voiced his frustration with BiH politics concerning EU ascension. Comdzic advocated Bakir Izetbegović's approach of trying to find the right debate to have by not viewing EU ascension as a zero-sum game where in order for somebody to win, somebody must lose. From what Comdzic told us, Izetbegovic has has tried to focus on policies that will benefit everybody in BiH, not just members of any one ethnic group. I have yet to verify this on my own, but I am hopeful for the people of BiH that their politicians will begin putting the state interest above their ethnicity's interests. After all, EU membership is a serious commitment, beyond just the pursuit of EU ascension funds. Military and police reforms have been attempted with varying degrees of success thus far, but more political and economic mandates will surely come down from the EU to see if BiH is serious about playing ball. I doubt that the EU will admit BiH as a member if BiH politics don't make serious progress soon. 

So, herein lies one of the many paradoxes of BiH politics: BiH politicians may very well have more success in hammering out solutions to constitutional issues if the international community were to remove itself from BiH policy. However, without international guidance and/or resources, the needed reforms may not pass. Perhaps, and maybe this is the most radical idea in this post, BiH might consider a constitutional convention and start from scratch. While this might raise some issues that have not entered into serious debate since the breakup of Yugoslavia, I think it might give BiH a chance to outline and establish its values and establish a government that reflects those values and serves the needs of the citizens of BiH. From this hypothetical new constitution, it would be clear how serious BiH is about EU membership. The ball is in their court. 

Oh, by the way, President Izetbegovic dropped in for a photo opp :D

After the meeting with Comdzic, we walked a few more blocks to BiH Parliament (complex pictured above) for a meeting with the Constitutional Committee. They discussed many of the same constitutional issues as Comdzic, such as discrimination and the powers of the different levels of government. They also discussed the importance of establishing and maintaining freedom of movement for people, goods and services. The only justification I recall that they gave was that better infrastructure will help people return to or visit their pre-conflict homes. The MP's also agreed that BiH citizens need to be able to have effective institutions to trust in, although they acknowledged differences on how those institutions should operate. When I asked if the canton system was effective at maintaining the ethnic balance, or if it would be considered as a tool to reform the constitution, the MP's essentially said that it would stay in place. I don't think I expected anything different, but I thought that some redistricting might come in handy to address the European court's decision. 

On our way back to the hotel, I snapped a picture from afar of the Eternal Flame:

After a nap and decompression time, I went out with a couple other students to an excellent dinner of Lamb Kebab. The Catholic Cathedral was on our way and is ever so slightly more picturesque at night:

That does it for this update. I apologize that I am about four days behind, but I will catch up over some kebobs, kafa and/or pivo this weekend. 

Video that didn't upload

This is a video from the battlement that overlooks Sarajevo.

Who? Or What?

The sun gave me a lot of bright ideas today. Like walking up skinny streets on steep hills with no cloud cover to take a picture from a 15th century fort that overlooks Sarajevo.  Here are a couple videos of the views. In the first one, you might be able to hear the nearby mosque announcing the 5 p.m. prayer (my apologies for not knowing the correct name for this). 

 

Before making the trek up the hill, we stroll along the river Miljacka. Here's a picture of the bridge by where Franz Ferdinand was shot:

This morning and early afternoon, before embarking on our local excursion, we meet with some people from the American University of Bosnia-Herzegovina (AUBiH). Two of them are third year law students, who will be joining us for a few days this week and who are from different parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The third person from AUBIH, Dr. Esmir Ganic, gave us some background about the university and the current governance of BiH. Apparently, the constitution has not been updated since the Dayton Accords were signed. The constitution as it stands now allows for a Presidency, with three presidents representing each of the three major ethnicities- Bosnian, Croat, and Serb (I believe that the terms are four years long and that you can run for reelection, but if you have served for eight years straight, you must take a break from the presidency for a term). The different presidents rotate as the Chairman of the Presidency every 8 months. The state is broken down into the Federation of BiH and the Republic of Srpska. The Federation is then broken into 10 Cantons, which were designed to maintain a balance between Croats and Bosniaks. Here's a map that seems to be pretty accurate, as far as I can tell (from http://www.ezilon.com/maps/images/europe/Bosnia-and-Herzegovina-poli.gif):

From what Dr. Esmir told us today, the three political parties are still strongly based on ethnicity. It appears that the current constitution and geographical demographics support having ethnically based political parties, even though the conflict here in the 90s focused on ethnicity as well. One thing that I thought was interesting was that Dr. Esmir said that the aspects of policy that the USA has done a better job than the European Union. For instance, he said that the USA guided military reform succeeded much more than EU guided police reform. It seemed that one difference that may have influenced the different approaches from the EU and USA is that the EU's member states focused more on ethnicity. The concept of the "nation-state", where the citizens of a state are almost entirely of one ethnic background, seems to be much stronger in Europe, whereas the USA (although the USA is not perfect) cares less about having continuous ethnic geographical boundaries. Essentially, America's "ethnic melting pot" attitude (where the American identity comes before Irish, etc. identity) has affected our approach to guiding BiH policy. Obviously, this morning's conversation wasn't an in-depth analysis and the USA certainly wasn't flawless when it came to Balkans policy, but the ideas were headed in this direction. 

After our meeting, we went to the office for the International Commission on Missing Persons. There we heard a couple presentations about what the ICMP does and why they do it. According to their statistics, there were about 40,000 missing persons after the Dayton Accords were signed in 1995. To date, about 28,000 of those have been found and identified. Also, they have exhumed about 3,000 mass graves in BiH, which held on average 200 bodies. While this is devastating and impressive at the same time, it was also frustrating to hear that there are still barriers for them to try to finish the job. The ICMP never exhumes bodies from graves without permission from the local authorities, which is more reluctant or bureaucratic than in others. That being said, the ICMP has had a huge impact in resolving questions and doubts that families have about loved ones that went missing between 1992 and 1995. 

One of the themes that both presenters talked about was their belief or hope that by identifying victims of the 1992-1995 conflict, future perpetrators of ethnically motivated violence will be deterred. I think that this is an interesting view, but I am skeptical that their efforts will have much of a deterrent effect. I think that identifying missing persons is vital in the healing and recovery process for the region, but I also think that they could be used as a powerful political tool, should tensions rise again. 

The presenters also mentioned wanting "justice" and "rule of law" to prevail. The first presenter even alluded to convictions among many of the victims that all of the perpetrators of ethnically motivated killing should be prosecuted in a court and punished if proven guilty. However, I think that without compelling witness testimony (there is scant witness protection in BiH) and/or confessions, the only war criminals that will be prosecuted will be the big names, like General Mladic. 

Professor Sullivan asked us today after our meeting with Dr. Esmir to consider the question, "Who rules or governs Bosnia-Herzegovina?" I don't have a good answer yet, but I do have a small response. If I learned anything from the character V in "V for Vendetta", 'who' is a function of the form 'what'. My early impressions are that the victims and survivors of the 1990s conflict in the Balkans still yearn for a sense of justice for the crimes that have been committed and for the security that a rule of law brings. One of the many steps towards achieving this is likely resolving centuries-old distrust and hatred between ethnicities and religions. 

Tomorrow, we will be meeting with important members of the Presidency and Parliament here in Sarajevo. As for last night, I caught the first half of the game with a couple classmates at an outdoor cafe in the Old Town district. For the second half, we saved a few KM by returning to our hotel and splitting a large bottle of the local brew, Sarajevsko, in their room.

Lucas out.