Srebrenica

The last weekend of the trip, I went to Srebrenica, the site of a major mass murder. The estimated number of victims at Srebrenica is around 8,000 Bosniaks. The tragedy of Srebrenica is that the UN deemed it a neutral town where Bosniaks would be able to find refuge. Prior to the massacre at Srebrenica, there were about 40,000-50,000 Bosniaks staying in the town before Serb forces forced them out and slaughtered 8,000 people right outside of Srebrenica in Potocari, on July 11-13, 1995.

Once a year, on July 11, Srebrenica hosts a memorial service where all victims identified in the past year are buried. This year, they buried 613 victims (sixteen years later). It was estimated that about 70,000-80,000 people migrated to Srebrenica this year for the memorial service that lasts only a few hours. To put it in perspective, Srebrenica is a relatively small village with no more than a couple thousand residents, if even that. Unfortunately, my camera battery completely died a few days before arriving (I left my charger in the United States even though I planned to do a photoblog). I have a few pictures of the town that I took from my cell phone. However, I did not feel comfortable photographing the memorial and the mass caskets waiting to be buried.

If you would like to see pictures of the memorial, you can visit the wikipedia page at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srebrenica_massacre.

Here are some phone pictures from Srebrenica:

Peace marchers walking from Tuzla arrive in Srebrenica.

More from the peace march.

European Union sign in the center of town.

Keep checking back as I will be putting up to more posts-the last pictures from my camera in Sarajevo and a final reflection.

European Parliament

As mentioned earlier, when I was in Brussels, I saw EU Commission President José Manuel Barroso speak at the European Parliament. My colleague on the trip sent me some of those pictures and I wanted to share them with all of you.

Barroso addressing the European Parliament.



European Parliament before session begins.



While most of the Members of the European Parliament are not present, an entire party will show up to sway the vote on a bill and then leave immediately after the vote has taken place.

Ratko Mladic

Today, Ratko Mladic went to the first day of his trial for war crimes at the Hague. People of Sarajevo rallied in the center square to honor their loved ones who died as a result of the various massacres during the conflict. Unfortunately, I left my camera in the room so my cell phone camera was a sufficient alternative.

On the wall in the center of the square, people posted pictures of loved ones lost.

Gentleman holding two of the original Republic of Bosnia flags.

Woman holding pictures of those she had lost.

A large screen projected Mladic during the war.

Although not in the square, this building right next to UNICEF had a significant number of bulletholes.

First day in Sarajevo

During my first day in Sarajevo, I got a chance to explore different parts of the city on a leisurely Sunday. With my sidekick Ariana, I went to old town Sarajevo where I found a hidden oasis with a tea shop and a Persian market in a courtyard. We also treated ourselves to a high end brunch with mimosas (which is apparently a stereotype drink of Americans), where we were the only people in the entire restaurant. Later, we proceeded to climb up the steep hills much further than needed, which awarded us an amazing view of the city.

The pigeons.

Persian market.

Rules for the Mosque in the center of old town Sarajevo.

Fountain in the center of the Mosque courtyard.

Entry to the Mosque

Our oasis.

Turkish tea.

A lot of the buildings in Sarajevo still show their scars from the war. Bulletholes are the most common mark.

Do sljedeceg puta.

Sanski Most to Banja Luka

These are a few photographs from Sanski Most, Vahidin's village, and Banja Luka.

The 4 minerettes on the mosque in Sanski Most.

Cemetery where the people from Vahidin's village rest.

Written on a plaque at the entrance to the cemetery.

Islamic scripture.

After the cemetery, Vahidin brought us to a cave where people hid during WWI and WWII. However, this was the first place the Serbs looked when the war started so the Bosniaks could not use it as a hiding place.

Gorgeous view from the cave.

Vahidin and his wife invited us to his home for a farewell dinner. These are his roosters.

View from Vahidin's porch.

Paula Green, a professor for the graduate school at the School for International Training, came and spoke to us in Banja Luka. It was truly a rare treat since it has been eight years since her last visit to Bosnia. She seems like such an amazing woman and her work is truly inspiring. She helped teach conflict transformation and nonviolence in Hutu refugee camps in Uganda. In addition, she helped establish dialogue between Serbian and Bosnian women in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Here are some of the wise words that she left us with:

"It is so easy to be angry and so easy to judge...and we have to guard against that. People are pushed to do things in their lives that they wouldn't normally do. They are also the victims... There are no winners in war."

"The only way through healing is through the tunnel of acknowledgement. Bosnia has not done that yet."

The graffiti vulture for the Serbs is comparable to the swastika to the Germans.

The view from our cafe where our waiter shared with us his hate for US politics because of the bombs they dropped on Sarajevo. Our time in Banja Luka was very telling as we discovered the true extent to which so many Serbs do not want to acknowledge their own actions against the Bosniaks. While I understand that the Bosniaks did commit atrocities against civilians in Sarajevo, the number of atrocities committed against the Bosniaks were far more numerous. When we visited the University of Banja Luka, the students there said that the negative image of the Serbians is a result of media propaganda around the world.

As of now, I have left Banja Luka. I am officially in Sarajevo. I will try to post photographs from Sarajevo as soon as I can!

Do sljedeceg puta.