Musings
Daniel Callahan
Balkans Dialogue 2011



Before leaving for the Balkans, before the pre-departure trips, before even signing up for the dialogue, I had flirted with the region. In 2007, my parents and I went on a cruise through the eastern Mediterranean, taking me to, among other places Dubrovnik, and that’s where the affair began. The seed that would grow into my love for the region was planted in already fertile soil, Dubrovnik had a rich history going back to the time of the Romans, playing into my affection for history, and had an encounter with 20th century, post communist nationalism, tying it into my interests in both Eastern Europe and international relations. As I made my way through Northeastern I quickly learned that there was a summer study abroad program, and one could take me to the Balkans, obviously I signed up.
The initial meetings and interview with Mladen had me excited long before we were going anywhere, traveling with someone who is not only a local, but a connoisseur of history as well meant that the trip would be engaging and informative for me. Learning that both Dennis Sullivan; the father of the Northeastern Dialogue program, and emperor of International affairs, and Ioannis Livannis; the veritable arch-duke of IAf, and current leader of the other dialogue I want to do, meant that the prospects for this trip were great, and only heightened my excitement. When we were given our fist assignments, reading and documentary watching, I jumped right in, consuming the documentaries in a few weeks, and began reading Holbrooke’s To End a War. This all coincided with the wind down of my co-op, and the weeks immediately prior to departure were full of move out and storage concerns rather than travel, so that when the time did come, there was no room for apprehension, I viewed it as another travel, in fact, I had about the same amount of baggage as when flying home for the summer.
I got to the airport by myself, there were none of those “heart wrenching” goodbyes that I heard about from other kids in the airport, I had gone more than the 5 weeks without contact with my parents before, this would be no different. When all of us finally met up in the airport, I saw a few people I know, I few I knew of and many new people, we exchanged names, and brief life stories, and hopped on the flight to Munich. I changed my seat online for a window seat, not realizing we were all en bloc, during the flights I worried that my relative absence from this prologue to our trip would hinder my getting along with the others, which was only compounded a little later.
We arrived in Belgrade, collected our luggage, and stumbled our way to the bus, meeting Dragan the driver, and Dragan the guide for the first time, driver Dragan maneuvered the bus out of the underground pick up lanes of Belgrade airport with expert skill, again a good omen for the two weeks of travel we’d have on the backend, while guide Dragan gave a minor introduction. Driving through the city for the first time we could pick out the old communist era buildings, the older Austrian buildings, and the new “free market” era buildings, as we approached the hotel, Slavija, the closest thing we had to a home besides the bus, was better than my cynical mind had imagined. When the room situation was being established I was again worried that I would be left un-cliqued due to my being in a room alone, for at least a little while without Miguel, but these fears were belayed as it seemed everyone was as eager to make friends as I was.
By this time I had finished reading To End a War and it helped me to frame the trip a little bit more towards the conflict of the 90s, and how it was negotiated. The book portrayed Milosevic and Serbs as the bad guys, however as I read of the actual Dayton process, it seemed Milosevic was willing to make many more concessions than the Croats or Muslims, mind you, the war in Bosnia was primarily due to Milosevic influenced Serb aggression, but still as Holbrooke points out, it was unprecedented for a force that had never really suffered any major defeat to concede so much. We began seeing the sites, with the first being the Temple of St. Sava, this experience, and this temple itself served as an appropriate representative for the rest of the trip. The church on the outside was beautiful, marble façade, imposing, big windows, but on the inside, it was hollow, the poured concrete walls were visible, none of the windows were decorated, and I see this experience now as a good representative of the region. The people, and the government for that matter, have been trying very hard to make everything right, to make everything beautiful, but something has gotten in the way, in the case of the church, like the case of the region overall, money, war, and foreign interests has hindered the process for the last century.
We saw more of the things to see in Belgrade, wandering through Kalemegdan getting a taste of the ancient through modern military history of Serbia, visiting B92; speaking with the self-proclaimed government watchdog media, and getting a lecture from the Djindjic foundation. These two talks were very interesting; both provided us with examples of the anti-Milosevic movements, as well as pro-reformers and pro-western camps. This is also around the time we went to visit Novi Sad, and this is where my first critique on the program kicks in, Novi Sad was a cool city, and deserved an afternoon of wandering, however I was disappointed by the timing, going to Novi Sad during the Exit festival weekend, and being unable to see the Exit festival left the visit shallow. I for one would have been very interested in meandering through the Petrovaradin fortress, but it was closed for that one weekend we went, for the music festival. We were in Belgrade for two weeks, and only an hour away from Novi Sad all that time, yet the one weekend that we cannot see everything is the weekend we go? On a much lesser note it was very very hot that day, and everyone was in a foul mood, but that is through no fault of our guide or leaders.
We met with the special Prosecutors Office on War Crimes, members of Parliament from the Democratic Party and with members of CANVAS, these meetings too tied in with the pro-reform, anti-authoritarian feeling we were exposed to at the Djindjic and B92 offices. All of these experiences helped us to understand just how unliked the Milosevic regime was by large sectors of the public, and all of the people we met with during these days did something to change their situation. These meetings, I think, all helped to better inform us on the conflict, its resolution and its outcomes, firsthand accounts are better than anything we could read in a book, and they certainly fit within the framework of the program.
My favorite meeting in Belgrade was with the Belgrade Center for Security Policy, the organization was created to focus the issue of why democratic control of armed forces is necessary, and the role of the Yugoslav forces in the conflicts of the 90s. I found this meeting particularly interesting because that is something that I might want to do for a career. While I completely agree that transitional justice and political and social reforms are necessary, that’s not my area of interest. This meeting fit right into my point of view that state power is engendered by its monopoly on violence, and appropriate democratic use of the violence is necessary for a just and healthy society.
The last meeting we had in Belgrade was with an MP, or youth MP, from the Democratic Party of Serbia who describes themselves as center-right. He had a lot to say, and for the first time on our trip it wasn’t blatantly pro-west. While talking to some of the other students I found that they did not particularly like this presentation, but I thought it was absolutely necessary, as I said it was not pro-west and EU accession, it gave us a different point of view on the current and future politics of the region, while the presenter may not have been the best rhetorician, he certainly knew what his party was all about.
Our unlucky journey to Nis was interesting though a little disappointing. As I said earlier I enjoy history stuff, so the prospect of stopping to see a Roman Villa, that was frequented by Constantine was exciting, though in reality, it was mostly some tarps covered in gravel, and ultimately not all that important to the dialogue, being that while Rome is awesome, it had little bearing on the conflict of the late 20th century. However the end half of that trip, visiting the Skull Tower was pretty cool, and had relevance to the issues of the Balkans today, what with the Serb-Muslim, and everyone’s feelings on Kosovo.
Kosovo could have been cool, we only had one meeting there, with an NGO which promotes inter-ethnic youth dialogue, and helping Serbs that fled Kosovo to return, but our hotel was too far away from anything to be too interesting, and we were there for all of 36 hours. If I had to sacrifice a free day in Belgrade for an extra day in Kosovo, I certainly would. I also would like to have visited some of those “cradle of Serb Orthodoxy” churches in Kosovo, and more pertinent to the dialogue, maybe a meeting with an organization which is run by Kosovar Albanians?
The trip from Pristine to Sarajevo was tumultuous; again we could not do anything about it, so no hard feelings there. While I recognize we needed food and potty breaks, I was not a big fan of Mokra Gora, a tourist trap on the top of a big hill, the food was ok, I am glad we did not spend as much time there as originally intended. Sarajevo was very cool, again a situation where if I had to trade a few days in Belgrade for a few days in Sarajevo I would. Visiting the old Serb Orthodox church and closing that with a talk with a Sarajevan Serb who was involved in the war, had multiethnic friends and now lives in the States was very interesting. This Dragan seemed like a very cool guy, he had a touching story that was apposite to our dialogue. Seeing the memorial at Srebrenica was also important to our trip, I guess seeing the gravestones made the entire thing a little more real, imagining 8000 people and seeing 8000 stones is quite different. Though I think we could have used a little more information on what happened during the Srebrenica incidents, I watched all the documentaries, and they didn’t go into much detail, maybe during the bus ride an explanation as to how these atrocities were taking place all over the immediate area, in the other small towns and the hands of some Serb paramilitary forces, some ragtag bands of Serbs and whoever else, because the museum there painted a pretty bleak picture of Milosevic commanding Mladic to roll in there and kill, which I don’t think is exactly how it happened.
The visit to the Constitutional Courthouse in Sarajevo was in my opinion the most important visit we had in Bosnia-Herzegovina. We spoke to two international judges from the US, which was very cool because they had a deeper connection to us than any of the previous speakers, and could break things down into ways that we understand. They did an excellent job explaining to us just how hard the post-war justice process has been, how important the international community has been, and how hard the local governments are working to bring about justice. Unfortunately it sounds like the international presence there will be drawing down in the coming years, and future meetings with international judges may be difficult. The same day we spoke to Azan, our first non-Serb speaker, even after having left Serbia six days earlier. Azan is a Muslim, fought in Sarajevo to defend his neighborhood and family, and eventually commanded a portion of the Muslim army that was established there as the war dragged on. Not only was his story very cool, but it was different, entirely different than what we had been getting up until this point, I cannot emphasis how much I valued his perspective on the conflict, he had firsthand knowledge of how things happened and it was from an entirely different perspective than what we were used to.
Our visit to the Bosnian Parliament was cool, learning about how the government works, or nowadays, doesn’t. While it was primarily a tour I liked it, the lady who spoke to us fielded our questions well, and explained the overly complicated way in which the parliament in Bosnia-Herzegovina works, she seemed rather unbiased towards any one ethnic group which was refreshing. In my opinion we spent too little time in Sarajevo, there are probably more people that we could talk to, and more importantly some Muslim cultural stuff to see maybe? We as a group did not enter a single Mosque, nor did we speak to any Muslim social or political leaders, I feel I would have gotten a better experience of certainly Sarajevo, and the dialogue overall had we gotten more on the Muslim/Bosniak perspective.
Mostar was another cool old city, the fact that it is predominantly Croat in Bosnia-Herzegovina was interesting, and meeting with the members of the Croat Party of Bosnia-Herzegovina was also interesting. While the kids that they had speak to us did not seem to be all that knowledgeable on how exactly the party worked, or how they intended to go about what they wanted, it was a different perspective than the Serb-centric we had been getting for the 3 weeks previous. This is a good a point as any to throw my comments in about Balkan politics, it seems, particularly in Bosnia-Herzegovina, that everyone runs on a platform of victimization, they have their ethnic bloc, and the politicians claim that their party was victimized the most, and therefore needs reparations, in my opinion this is a terrible way to run any kind of politics, particularly in a place where reconciliation and state-building are so important.
Our trip to Dubrovnik also had its ups and downs for me, I appreciated the stop at the old Serb Orthodox Monastery, the history thing intrigued me, and it is an example of the ethnic cleansing that took place during the war, so that’s all fine and dandy. The stop at the purported miracle site, was little more than a food and potty break, the non-Vatican recognized miracle site was secondary, and irrelevant to our studies. Going on Dubrovnik itself, while I absolutely love the town, was inappropriate. Dubrovnik was not directly involved in the politics or the fighting of the war, it was shelled for a few days, but that’s it, it has immense historical value, but it didn’t fit into our dialogue. This continued onto Split, again a beautiful historic city, and the Plitvice lakes, a natural wonder for sure, but this period didn’t fit within our framework. These days were framed as a mini vacation, a sort of R&R for us; however I feel that having that before the end, made it harder for me to finish strong. One of those “Oh we get 4-5 days of vacation and then we get Zagreb to finish strong” turned into a “The trip is done, time to chill out” attitude, and speaking to a few other students they felt similarly.
Our situation in Zagreb was similar to that of Pristine, too far away, and too little time. Our hotel was on the outskirts of the city, we spent as much time in the mall eating as we did in bed, not an authentic Croatian experience by any means, but more time in Zagreb would not have meant much had we not gotten more substance, presentations by more Croatian organizations maybe a legitimate presentation by members of parliament rather than a walking tour of the building. Our discussion with the Foreign Policy Advisor at the Presidents compound was phenomenal. He had a lot to say, all of it interesting, he laid out the five-fold way in which Croatia had to transform, how hard it was for the Croatian and other regional state governments to gain the trust and support of their people in the face of historical precedence. He spoke about how important the EU, and supra-national bodies like the EU are to reconciliation and peacemaking and keeping in the region, he spoke on how the Balkans conflict was not all that unique in the long history of Europe. All in all he was a great speaker, and I think the program would suffer greatly if that wasn’t set up for next year. I found this presentation again valuable because it provided a different point of view, helping to encourage dialogue in my head between the various actors, his talk did not focus on the victimization of Croats at the hands of Serbs, or Yugoslavia or the international community, admittedly that may be because of Croatia’s relatively good standing after the conflict, but it was nice to see that not every person running the various governments down there are stilted by ethnic ideals.
The final talk we had, with the Serb Business Association in Zagreb felt almost superfluous, we had spoken to so many Serbs both in Serbia, and as minorities in the other regions that this felt like it was too much. While I found it interesting that the organization had a history going back to the Austro-Hungarian empire, I was burnt out, and was sick of the Serb victim story.
I regret nothing, I enjoyed almost every minute of my dialogue, I made an effort to go to every presentation and talk we were given, and while I may have been seen and not heard, I absorbed more knowledge in those few weeks than I could have in a dozen classes on the region. Wandering around, touching, tasting and hearing the experiences of the Balkans will leave an indelible mark on the framework through which I examine conflict and negotiations, as well as international relations. Most importantly I think that this dialogue has taught if not the group at large, me, that despite atrocities in the name of relatively arbitrary ideals, there are examples of goodness and integrity that have a profound effect on those immediately around them, and the world as a whole. That kids in OTPOR, or men like Djindjic, can have a beneficial impact on their country, and men like Azan or Dragan can make a positive difference in the lives of their neighbors. Or how the international community can step up to the plate and help in state-building, and encourage reforms. Our multiethnic world will not survive if we focus on our differences; I realize that now more than ever, having seen people that killed and died over those ideals realize that celebration of difference, and praise of similarity is the best way to live in the world today.

Saturday 6811

so we have left the Balkans, ive met my parents in Frankfurt, and i guess the whole thing has settled in my head.

i had a great time learning about the peoples of the Balkans from the peoples themselves. seeing everything that i have seen has only deepened my interest in the region, i can very easily see myself here in some capacity learning more, and doing what i can to help the region to prosper.

after our presentations, and some thinking i believe the EU is a great way to overcome many of the issues facing these countries, which will by extension ease ethnic tensions.

anyways, this will be the last official post of the dialogue, i know, not a bang, but not really a whimper either, ill probably keep everyone updated on my paper writing, and ill start a new blog for my current travels too...

Friday 5811

last day in Zagreb, last day in the Balkans, we woke up today, presented our presentations, i think i did aright, though it has been like 18 months since i was in a class that required me to think critically, none the less present those critical thoughts.

the whole thing hasnt completely set in yet, so this is going to be a little thin.

i loved traveling, seeing everything, getting firsthand accounts of the conflict, and state rebuilding and all that whatnots, getting to know the other kids here with me.

but im tired, and ready to start the traveling with my parents.

i still have the official reflection to write, ill probably throw that on here for anyone that cares to read it, and ill continue another blog that will regale my next travels.

so, i promise ill have something of real substance soon, laters

Thursday 4811

Still in Zagreb, we went to visit the Croatian Parliament, which was called Sabor, which is leftover from medieval times, comes from the word for assembly. The first Sabor is said to have taken place in 832, the first written documentation of a Sabor in Croatia taking place was around the 13th century. Under the Austro-Hungarians the parliament existed though at different times waxed and waned in power. in 1918 the parliament decided to break away from the Austo-Hungarian empire to join the Kingdom of Croats, Serbs and Slovenes. the parliament, though in puppet form existed within the Independent Croatia of WWII.

the building itself was cool, built in the 18th century, very Austro-Hungarian, neoclassical architecture, that survived communism, and exists today as it did before the Hapsburgs got involved, windows and all.

to read more

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croatian_Parliament

Serbian Business Association, Privrednik

Seeks to create economic opportunities in rural areas, where majority of Serbs live in Croatia.

They help to nurture entrepreneurship business skills within the Serb
community.

This organization has its roots in the Austro-Hungarian empire, the empire would gather promising young boys from the poor and rural parts of the empire, and connect them with businessmen in larger cities for apprenticeships.

today they exist as a way for poor and rural kids to go on to higher education, and internships, being that apprenticeships are far less common nowadays.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privrednik

Wednesday 3811

Today we visited the Croatian presidential compound, speaking to a chief foreign policy analyst, these are my notes

Croatian Presidential Palace/office

Built in 1960s as one of the residences and workplacees of Tito. During the initial monts of the war, this building was not the original presidential workplace, the presidential seat was in the center of Zagreb, however when this facility was bombed during the war, Tudjman moved the seat here.

He spoke about the architecture and decor of the building, the building is new and modern, however is filled with older traditional folkish artwork, and he thinks that the art should be changed to more modern stuff, to indicate how new Croatia is, despite its ancient heritage, in that this new Croatia is ready for new challenges.

Chief foreign policy analyst
(Croatia recognizes Kosovo)
(Croatia will likely encourage (Bosnia and Herzegovina [BiH] and Serbia joining the EU if Croatia does, because it does not want to be the border security for the EU at large)

Croatia exists in a Europe that is fraught with ideas of globalization and coexistance, where multinational NGOs have lots of power (EU), but here the worst genocides took place in all of recent history.

Many Europeans forget that there have been numerous conflicts, and examples of very ugly nationalist, secessionist, seperatist, revolutionary movements within Europe.

There are many examples of countries/peoples that have gone through times of extreme tumult, and within that framework, The Balkans are not all that unique, however it must be acknowledged that the Balkans are in a better position than they were 100 years ago.

While the Balkans, and Croatia especially, is trying to move on, and forget about the past, knowing that it is not productive to dwell on the conflict, it is difficult, there are still many people missing, and emotional and physical scars are deep.

Over the past century, the people of the region have learned to never trust the state, as every state will betray you at a crucial time, your taxes; may very well be used to finance the army, which will undermine your civil liberties, and restrict your rights.

However, todays Croatia is trying to earn/gain the trust of the people.

Transformation for Croatia was 5 fold

Economic, state to private, led to corruption and favoritism while
establishing capitalist elites from politicians friends

Political, democratic, while it was mostly democratic, there was still only one party in power for 17 of the last 20 years of independence

Statehood, establishing an efficient state, abolishing or consolidation of parallel structures, or reform of inefficient or redundant structures

Identity, geography and history makes a contiguous identity difficult

War-peace, this includes transitional justice, should we insist on remembering and getting justice for the past, or should we forget about it? ICTY was a good thing to have to encourage this transition with repsect to transitional justice. Accession to the EU has also helped to expedite this transition.

Many people believe that joining the EU is the end of the transition phase of independence, they see it as a movement towards sovereignty.

The speaker believes that joining the EU is best for Croatia and Croatians, it means military protection for the country, solidarity; and receiving of funds from the more developed countries of the union, and freedoms; mostly of movement of people and goods, and progressivism; the EU is seen as a superbloc of progressive states, and by joining this progressivism would envelope Croatia as well.

Speaker believes that there should be more optimism about BiH, because there has been peace from the last 15 yrs. Also nationalist issues should be dropped, while developmental issues should be the focus. BiH is not unworkable.

We also met with a language expert

Leksikografski Zavod Miroslav Krleza

The institute was founded in the 1950s, by the most important modern Croatian writer, Miroslav.

The speaker put the Balkan conflicts of the last hundred years into a social/linguistic framework, and compared it to other identity conflicts of the same kind, such as that or Scandanavia in the 1900s or Spain nowadays.

he was very interesting, and i liked how he put the language politics into context, and the long standing conflict over the issue, i love the whole historical anthropological explanations for todays conflicts, so i found this fascinating.

We also wandered around Zagreb, and stumbled into a cool Catholic church from the 1100s.

so yeah that was cool, reminded me why i like Catholicism, cause i havent found any other places of worship that as thoroughly induce the fear of god with its oppressive, opulant, ostentatiousness.

so yeah that was today now ima sleep

Tuesday 2811

Today we wandered around the Plitzice lakes, it was an interesting natural landscape, and full of tourists, we got a lil lost found our way to Poljanak, and then walked back to the natural parks area, and got on the bus for the last time, to Zagreb.

Havent seen much of Zagreb, as our hotel is in the middle of no where, we did however find a mall, which had a movie theater, which was showing Captain America, with Croatian subtitles, it was awesome. there were explosions, and car chases, and beautiful women, so really all you need to make an entertaining movie.

anyway tomorrow is a meeting with some Croatian members of parliament, it should be interesting.

Monday 1811

Today we left Split for Plitvice, which is a forested, lakey area where i guess lots of people come to enjoy the scenery, not really my thing, but we are only here for like 24 hrs, so we will be out soon. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plitvice

we stopped in Knin for lunch, the town was pretty small, but it has more significance to our trip than Dubrovnik, Split or the Plitvice area in my opinion, as it was the "capital" for the Croatian Serbs during the war, but we didnt talk to anyone of import. Liz, Curtis and i did however eat good sausage and fried potatoes, so thats a plus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knin

so no pictures, and nothing about conflict resolution or anything like that.

we leave for Zagreb in the afternoon tomorrow, and we get back to things of substance.

Sunday 31711

Today we woke up, had probably the most filling breakfast so far, and hopped on the bus for Split. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split,_Croatia

the city is old, having roots that go back to pre-Roman times, it was a small trading/port city for a while, then the Romans got involved, Diocletian built a palace there, which is part of the toursty bit. i wandered around alone which, is the first time ive ever wandered around some historic place alone, its usually with parents or students or whatever, but for much of the time i was wandering around the old palace i was completely alone.

ive meandered through ancient stuff before, but never alone, this was different, i feel i appreciated it more, like touching the walls and knows that this was handcarved by somebody 1700 years ago, that multiple generations of people went into the construction of what i was walking through, over 80 generations ago, that is awesome, in the fullest sense of the word.

the man

the palace

the 1700 year old imports luxury goods

also i wandered into a church that i had to sneak pictures from the hip sorry for the blurryness, but this place is pretty old, dating back to the 16th century i believe.

said church's belltower

sorry, i dont think there is any public place in the city in which you can get a good picture, so its a lil obstructed, but you get the idea, also a shot of the tower from a hole through a roof, and a shot of that roof from the tower.

so yeah, since lately we have been doing touristy things, there isnt too much substance to my blog, these past 2 cities, while absolutely fascinating, are more history (which i love) than conflict resolution, as they only caught some shells, and didnt witness any extensive violence.

tomorrow we are on the road again, stopping in Knin. more to follow

Saturday 30711

full day in Dubrovnik, spent much of the afternoon at the beach, the water was beautiful again, the company was great, and the strangers were... interesting.

wandered into old town, took some pictures, didnt get to walk around the walls this time. did have a decent dinner, and found amazing gelato; coffee and cinnamon, it was awesome, we walked around some more, found our way home and had an early bed time overall lazy day, so ill just post pictures.

if i know any of the people in the picture ill point them out, otherwise they are strangers i was too impatient to wait for

Friday 29711

left Mostar, for Dubrovnik, i absolutely love this city, ill admit a major reason i came on this dialogue was to see Dubrovnik again. but before that...

we stopped off in this town where allegedly some kids saw the Virgin Mary, so the site has been deemed miraculous, however the Catholic church does not recognize the miracle, so they havent fully gotten involved, and the Vatican's lack of support can be seen.

its all new and austere, not the Catholic cathedral i imagine when i think of miracle sight, i think of big gothic, imposing ostentatious building, not Croatian flag draped, whitewash concrete walls. but hey, maybe itll be awesome in 400 years.

we also stopped in a 500 year old Serb Orthodox Monastery, again it was new, cause it was completely annihilated during 92 by the Croatian para-military forces according to the Novice which spoke to us. it was restored in to the original designs, with recovered materials.

heres what is left of the ikonostasis from the 17th century

the also own land on which a vineyard sits, they dont harvest the grapes, but they do collect rent, which is pretty cool, throwback style

but yeah Dubrovnik is awesome, we are staying in a hotel with a beach, the beach isnt all that awesome, but the water is beautiful, and the perfect temperature, its not too hot here, but the water is still refreshing without being cold, its awesome.

we wandered into the old city at night to find someplace to hang out, the city is pretty cool at night too. i will certainly encourage my parents to retire here...

Thursday 28711

another slow day, with slow internet, so i can preempt any excitement, this post will be concise and pictureless.

this is cut and paste from my notes

HDZ, croat party of Bosnia Herzegovina
Croatian Democratic Union
The party, unsurprisingly works toward the ends of the Croat people here, representing approx 27000 memebers, of the 500000 croats in the country.
The party was well connected with the bosnian croat army, and after the wars, they evolved from a movement, into a transparent political party.
They are upset with the disproportionate representation, Bosnia Herzegovina has 3 nations but only 2 entities, within one state.
And the election laws create issues for the appropriate representative to the presidency, in that a predominantly not croat party, elected the croat seat of presidency.
Because of the heavy presance of the international community, decisions are made by armchair politicians in brussels, DC etc, and it leds to a misrepresentative parliament.

this was a small party for the smallest majority ethnicity in Bosnia Herzegovina. yeah its complicated, but Croats are the smallest of the big three in the country, and the group we met with was one of the smaller of the Croat groups. the people we met with were representatives of the Youth party within the party, they had lots to say, and they definitely fit the whole nationalist basis by which parties operate, and also playing up the whole victimization thing. so that was an interesting day. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDZ

now we are doing more lazy things, looking forward to Dubrovnik tomorrow

Wednesday 27711

we are now in Mostar, very cool old city, the hotel is nice, though my IP issues have struck again, and i am unable to get onto the internet on my own computer, so this will be a little brief, and lack pictures, as soon as i get to good internetz, ill upload pictures.

[edit pictures like this]

we left Sarajevo early afternoon, after waking up a lil later, we did get to go to this awesome (read atrocious) museum. it was on the intersection where the whole assassination of Franz Ferdinand took place, the museum was one room, had a handful of rifles and a postmans uniform, and a parlimentarians uniform, and some random hats and knickknacks from the time period.

the busride was uneventful, Mostar is cool, the bridge that was rebuilt is cool, its a shame it was annihilated during the war, the bridge would be alot more impressive if it were 500+ years old.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mostar

the paper is still looming over me, i gotta finish it up, wish me good internet in future hotels so i can make this more interesting for everyone.

Tuesday 26711

first ill address lastnight at the traditional Austrian restaurant.

the food was good, the beer was awesome, and while i was seated a little too far from the judge, and his friend, i did sit next to Mladen and we had some really cool discussions, afterword we wandered around, Mladen, Miguel and myself, got a streetcart crepe and some tea to talk more about Yugoslavia stuff, it was interesting, im putting as much of it as i can into my paper, which is being written now.

today

we visited the state Parliament of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH from now on). it was all new, being that Sarajevo was a warzone for a while there, built with international monies, lots from Norway. the facility was huge and new as i said, however the clean, put-together-look of the building was in contrast with the nature of the parliament itself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_parliament

its got two houses, but both of them are way too small, there are ethnic quotas in place to "ensure" that the groups are represented properly, however this is sometimes (read oftentimes) placed above merit, such that the political leaders are in office because they support an ethnic groups ideals and victimization story, rather than how good a leader they are. anyways, ill prolly come back and edit this post, throw some more pictures up, but im tryna crank out this paper.

Monday 25711

another relatively early morning, went to visit the constitutional courthouse to speak with various people, one lady was involved in public relations, and gave us an overvew of how everything works, the next lady was speaking on prosecutorial procedure, and finally we spoke to two international judges, from the US.

it was very interesting to see the cousin office to the Serbian special prosecutors office, and get to see the differences. this office seems to have much more public support, which makes sense, as the largest of warcrimes/crimes against humanity was committed by Serbs, therefore Serbia isnt entirely happy with the trials, and Bosnia would love them. it was nice to hear from Americans on the issue, they were lawyers in the States, and then went on to work with the ICTY and followed through into the more local courts that will be taking over for the ICTY when it is "finished"

also this is the first major taste of non-serbian perceptions which is also interesting.

the highlight of my day was the talk that Mladen organized with a friend he met in Boston. this guy, i believe is name was Azan was a Bosnian Muslim, served his time in the JNA, and as the political spectrum became more radical after the break up of Yugoslavia, he began to prepare his neighborhood and friends to defend themselves from the Yugoslav national army which was slowly becoming more dominated by Serb nationalists. when war broke out with Slovenia those preparations were kicked into overdrive, and when the war broke out in Croatia, Azan went to join the Croatian army to fight off the Serbs, and as hostilities were on the horizon in Bosnia, he returned home to defend his friends and family.

he organized them into fighting units and served as an impromptu commander. he described how in the beginning of hostilities all the Bosnian forces were independent fighting units that would have to convince eachother to work together. he had cool battle stories, i got his email, ill try to get some more out of him, maybe visit his restaurant in Boston and get some more stories out of him.

at the same time a documentarian was present to throw in his statements, apparently this man documented the battle that Azan took part in, he had interesting things to say, though overall not that much to say, i think the translation he needed and Azan didnt, kinda detracted from his participation, ima try to dig up that documentary.

weather is still crappy and rainy here, but i still think its better than the 100+ degree days of Belgrade. we are supposed to be going out to dinner with one of the judges we met early today, so ill either double post, or add that to tomorrow.

Sunday 24711

today we went to visit the memorial cemetery for the massacre at Srebrenica. the actual cemetery part was pretty impressive, being that there were 8000 plus marble gravestones there. it was all that i expected, the museum? portion however was not all that impressive, it was put into an old industrial building. but it was really just a cleared industrial building with a dozen pictures/plaques placed around the walls, maybe they have more stuff during normal hours?

at the time i was affected, but i feel like ive seen alot of memorial sites/museums to really fucked up events in history, that maybe i am callous to it? i mean, i have no personal connection other than a shared humanity, so now im pretty much over it. like it was certainly impressive seeing all the marked graves, and it was and is a big deal, but i feel that these things happen all to often for us to put effort into mourning, when we should be working on prevention.

anyways, on a far less somber note, Miguel and i wandered around Sarajevo some, finding this

though in recognize this actually is really somber being that that event led to the greatest war in history up to that time, and then a second, and then a clusterfuck of ethnic/national conflict for the rest of the century. so we will look at something more less saddening

buildings still scarred from the war, but that isnt really less sad either, ill try this one

a big church, arguably a primary vehicle for the instigation of violence in the Balkans, which is also sad, so sorry, i couldnt come up with something bright and cheery today.

Saturday 23711

woke up from a good nights sleep here in Sarajevo, to go to the oldest Serb orthodox church in the area. little did we know that this was less about the church, and more about the life story of this guy named Dragan (like our bad ass bus driver, and our tour guide).

the little i have about the church is; all Christian Orthodox churches, Russian, Greek, Serbian etc, have an angry old lady mopping, and this church has a coffin with the preserved remains of a holy baby, though i nor our Mladen know what the baby did to deserve, this, but im sure its important to end up in the oldest Church in the Area.

also the little museum thing has some really old Orthodox Bibles, pictured below

these are my notes on the story of Dragans life



... before the war there were 3 nationalities living in Sarajevo without a problem, his best friend was Muslim, they did everything together.

Prior to the war ethnic background was unimportant, they went to their different churches, but they attended eachothers family/religious events.

When communism fell, the ethnic tensions began to rise, while the speaker invited his Muslim friend to events. In 1990 his Muslim friend stopped inviting him to events, because the father said the Serbs are his enemies.

When the division lines were drawn, he and his friend were in the Serb area of Sarajevo, Dragan took all his money and drove his friend and his family to the Muslim portion of Bosnia. Dragan continued to send money/supplies to the less nice Muslim part. His Muslim friend lost his brother in the war, while Dragan lost 14 members of his family, though Dragan did not begin to hate his friend or their people.

After the war, and Sarajevo was given to the Muslims, over 150000 Serbs moved out of the city, including Dragans family. When he was moving out, his friend came to visit, and claimed Dragan was a Chetnik and oppressor of the Muslims, and told him to leave the Muslim territory.

They moved to the Serb areas of Bosnia, his families Sarajevo apartment was taken by Muslims, when Dragan came back to claim the rest of the families stuff, he was beaten by a group of men, including his friend. Dragan blamed the media, and the war and his friends father, rather than his friend.

After the law was passed which allowed people to reclaim their pre-war property, he went back to claim his families property, and came upon his friends mother living and working there, upon seeing him, she cried and hugged him, explaining that the friend and father had joined the Wahabbi movement. In 2001 through the Wahabbist channels, Dragans friend went to Afghanistan, and was killed. The first person the friends father called was Dragan, and he told Dragan that his son wanted Dragan to know that he was the best friend he could have had. Dragan attended the funeral, and under the fathers protection, and a month later, the father killed himself.

After coming back to the states, Dragan first visited his father, and then his best friends mother. Dragan still visits his friends mother, she understands the ethnic differences and appreciates that Dragan never took to extremes. She has very much love for him.

Besides his friends family, Dargan helped 5 other families to escape to Muslim territory, of the 6 families 2 are still in touch, and 3 families deny they got any assistance at all.

The situation now is very difficult, because all three constituent portions of the Bosnian government have political parties which run on ethnic campaigns, claiming that their group has been victimized by all others.

Things should be getting better, but its not.

Also, side note about Jews

During the war, many Jews left the city through their own channels, and the perception is that they are more aligned with the Serbs and Croats, however all three sides respect the relative "neutrality" of the jews

Sooner or later Bosnia should be getting better, hope is not dead, though the current political elite will stall that change.

overall Dragan has hope for his country.

on a less somber note, the city is really cool, narrow twisting roads between houses, cobblestones, it was very quaint, i got lost with my friends, and eventually broke away from the friends and wandered around by myself, though i did not feel uncomfortable at any time, so overall its a pretty cool city, once it stops raining i should be able to explore fully, with picture of some of the many mosques around here.

hopefully we will get to see that marketplace that was mortared which brought in NATO. also i don know if i mentioned it yesterday, and the internet is too slow for me to reload the previous post. Sarajevo is placed in a strategically idiotic place, in a bowl of mountains, and during the war the city was surrounded and shelled by the Bosnian Serb guns for much of the war. We came down those hills, we tread the very path that Bosnian Serb forces used to dominate the city throughout much of the war. thats kinda cool.

aright, till tomorrow after Srebrenica

Friday 22711

ooookkkkk

so, woke up in Montenegro, hopped on a bus, and drove, and drove and drove and drove.

so as i said (or maybe didnt) we were stamped into Kosovo, and cause Serbia doesnt recognize Kosovo, we couldnt go in without having the Kosovar stamps annulled, so we had to go through a country (Montenegro) which recognized the breakaway province/state, and then go through bordercontrol which could annul the stamp.

so we got that done

and we drove somemore

to Mokra Gora, and this tourist trap of a town on a hill (they call it a mountain, but im Amurrican so when i think of a hill i think of the Rockies i flew over, or the Alps, not some very big hills). it was wooden, apparently made by some famous Serb movie guy, and it then turned into an "authentic" old timey Serbian town. we ate, and then hoped back onto the bus for more driving to the Bosnia Herzigovina border, hopped the border, to the Republika Srpska portion of the country.

We stopped in a small town, Visegrad which had a famous bridge of the Drina, it was in one of the books we could have chosen to read (i did not elect to read this book).

and went on to Serajevo, we drove in at night, and it looks like a real city not these "biggest cities in the province" consisting of like 10,000 people, this looks to have lots of people, and buses and taxis and all that whatnot.

Thursday 21711

a day late, ill explain why eventually

woke up in Prishtina wandered our way around looking for the office of an NGO Nansen, which works with dialogue between the Serbs and the Albanians in Kosovo. They work to bring mainly young people together to learn about eachother and their cultures, in the hopes that it will prevent further conflict. they also work to help the Serbs that fled Kosovo during the war to return to their homes, while this portion of their work has been generally unsuccessful, they continue to try.

Prishtina was a nice city, they ran on the Euro, and considering the entire country is propped up by the West, it was pretty western, thought it was odd spending Euro on not Euro prices, beer was only one Euro for example, so that was pretty cool, everywhere i looked there was alot of construction, i think that is partly because there is so much money pouring into the area, and rebuilding/newbuilding since the war.

on the way out we visited the monument tower to the Battle of Kosovo, in which the Serbians did not get slaughtered by the Ottomans for a while, until the Ottomons brought in the reserves, which numbered larger than the original Serb forces. the monument was protected by KFOR, considering its a Serbian thing in Albanian dominated Kosovo.

here is the tower with me and Kurtis on top of it, after climbing to the top with the group we decided to sprint up the 60m to get a picture with us on top

also fun fun

so we got stamped on our way into Kosovo, even though we requested we not get stamped, and because Serbia does not recognize Kosovo, they couldnt let us back in with a stamp because that would mean that Serbia recognized Kosovo, which would be bad. so they turned us away, and we decided to go through Montenegro. This took us out of our way by quite a bit, so we spent the night in this tiny town in Montenegro, Rozaje, in a nice hotel, i got to share the bed with our TA, he stole the blankets.

Miguel and I in front of a German KFOR car guarding the bridge which, due to my lack of coherency and timeliness makes this post all kindsa messed up.

also while still in Kosovo we stopped Mitrovica, which is a split town across a river, the south side being Albanian, and the North side being Serbian, the town is split by a river and there are EU, KFOR and local Police providing security for the bridge, cause it is a chokepoint for the tensions, which is the town that we tried to leave from Kosovo, and then yeah the shit hit the fan.



anyways its morning now, and we are deciding how we are going to get back into Serbia, and whether we will stop and Srebrenica or go right on to Serajevo.

we are flying by the seat of our pants, ill keep you informed as we go

Wednesday 20711

today while leaving Nis we stopped to visit a WWII concentration camp set up by the Nazis as a concentration camp (i did not forget what i was typing) before sending Serbs, Jews roma, etc to the labor and death camps in Germany and Poland. it was somber? i guess, a big building that used to be a magazine where all the people were crammed, with some walls around it, not too impressive, but some 30,000 people were trafficked through there, unless my memory coupled with poor translation is accurate (for example we were told yesterday that Nis has thirteen-hundred-thousand people in it, in reality it has about a fifth this many)

we also rode on the bus for a while, then went to this quaint little restaurant with roasted meats, i had, of coarse, lamb, there was also beef riblets and pork skewers, all were delicious.

we passed through the Serb-Kosovar border with ease, i expected a heavily fortified secure border, it was less impressive than some of the tolls between Boston and New York. got a Kosovo stamp, saw some KFOR guys, so a good day, tomorrow we get to wander around the city a lil bit after our talkietalk stuff, hopefully me and Miguel can catch some of the Italians and see what they have to say (the KFOR presence in Prishtina is made up of Italians).

i havent gotten a feel for the city yet, as our hotel is new, and like 3km from anything but freeways, so too lazy/late to wander around and see whats up with the city. whenever i can get on with my computer ill post some pics of the border and anything else i find interesting.

Tuesday 19711


left Belgrade, hopped on our bus for a good 2 hrs, all the while it smelled of burning oil, and grinding gears, till finally it died

so yeah there it is dead on the side of the road about 20km outside of Nis, also Kim is there. yeah we sat ariound for about an hour waiting for another older, more characterful bus to come pick us up and take us to some Roman Villa that the emperors used to chill at while visiting the frontier regions, it was particularly special for Constantine, being that he was born around here. the villa was apparently very large and awesome with gardens a full three bath bath house, storage for both local garrison and foodstuffs for the patricians traveling though. here is a shot of some of the lead pipes used to bring in water for the baths from the river, or maybe pipes used to bring drinking water in from the "mountains" (large hills), also to help induce insanity.

also vanit's legs

we also saw the tower of skulls which was a symbol of Ottoman badassery, turned Serb heroism. during one of the Serb uprisings in the 19th century was quashed by the Ottomans, and the Ottoman general Hersid Pasha ordered that a tower be built with the skulls of the Serb rebels embedded into the mortar.

im sure wiki knows more than i do
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skull_Tower

now we are at our new hotel in Nis, its definitively ex-communist style hotel, funstuff

its still hot, very very hot, prolly will fall asleep early tonight, and wake up stupid early.

Monday 18711

We wandered around a bunch of cemeteries today. First was a Jewish cemetery, second was in rememberance of all the people who died liberating Belgrade during WW2, and the third was a big one with all kinds of stuff in it, like this

which is a monument commemorating the defeat of the great enemy, the Austro-Hungarian empire, hence the big fallen eagle at the feet of the Serbian folk-shoe wearing soldier

also, Miguel's head







there was also this, which i thought was pretty cool

that is a memorial to all of the Red Army soldiers who died liberating Yugoslavia, notice who is paying to renovate it?

obviously Aramco needs to step their game up.

Sunday 17711

lazy day, woke up late, got some crepes from a Russian lady, unfortunately the vocabulary of Russian I have retained, (галстук, кошка, молоко, привет, до свидания, and Меня зовут Даниил) did not help to order a eurocreme and banana crepe, but through miming, and pointing, we got what we wanted, and my goodness was the crepe good.

struggling to find motivation to get the writing assignment done, through no fault but my own.

...i think ill go hunt down some food...

Saturday 16711 B

bless John E. Turnbull

Saturday 16711

another rather lazy day, went to visit Tito's museum, to use a highschool english teacher term, it was underwhelming. the first portion of the museum was designated to his and his wife's fashion... and then there was his tomb? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Flowers_%28mausoleum%29) it was a big (impressive) slab or marble with his name on it, in a "flower garden" which he had built in the 70s and then demanded he be interred there.

we also tried to see the Tesla museum, but its closed because its a weekend? i guess?

anyways a few of us then wandered around some tourist trap places. more to come, liked Belgrade, but im looking forward to a change of scenery

Friday 15711

okaaaaay finally caught up with the blogging, so i neednt try to maintain the appropriate tense...

today was another day of obscene hotness, good wakeup considering the night before, we went to meet with Veritas (http://www.veritas.org.rs/engleski/about_us.htm).

Veritas is an NGO established in 1993 in in Knin the capital of the Krajina (or military frontier as Mladen likes to say) which is the section of eastern Croatia dominated by Serbs, which actually claimed itself independent (much like the Republika Srpska in Bosnia) during the first round of fighting in the Croatian war for Independence.

the organization works on bringing attention to the warcrimes committed on Serbs by Croatia, it was the first NGO to do so, distributing its media through a Chicago-Serb.

the NGO has helped to locate and communicate with over 500 victims of warcrimes for the Hague, which ultimately helped the ICC to pass verdict on two major Croat generals for ethnic cleansing through criminal enterprise, and this led to Tudjman being found guilty of overseeing/administering ethnic cleansing, because he is the leader of the military according to the constitution, but he is dead, has been for a while now so its more of a closure thing. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franjo_Tu%C4%91man#War_crimes_allegations)

the NGO also has helped a group of Chicago lawyers to bring suit against MPRI (http://www.mpri.com/web/)for helping to equip and train the Croats in their ethnically driven efforts.

the group claims around 400,000 Serbs were forced from their homes in Croatia, and around 7000 Serbs were killed in some form of ethnic cleansing, however the NGO does not claim this is genocide.

we also met with a representative of the Democratic Party of Serbia, different from the Democratic Party

Now the opposition party, the man speaking began in 2001 in the youth wing, then moved into real politics, and worked under a number 2004 to 2008

Began in the 90s, when broke away from the Democratic party wanted to leave a coalition.

The party calls itself a center-right party, valuing nationalism to an extent but still upholding democratic ideals. Consider themselves legalists, and pro reforms however to do so slowly.

They believe in the free market, and democratic ideals, that slowly take place, in an evolutionary matter, on the premise that if it happens slowly and naturally, it is more likely to take

When Kosovo broke away, is when the coalition split, the dem party of serbia believes that Kosovo is part of Serbian sovereign territory, and wanted to break negotiations with EU because many of the EU countries saw Kosovo as independent. And the Dem party wanted EU integration more than straightening Kosovo issue.

The Democratic party of Serbia since being voted out, they began to discuss issues with radicals, as well as some of the socialists.

The Democratic party of Serbia does not want to recognize Kosovar independence at all. The party believes that many of the countries which recognize Kosovo because of bandwagoning with the US. They beleive the interest of the US in Kosovar independance, because it contains the largest US base in the world, providing the US with a
power projection.

Also the party believes that the international community is afraid for their soldiers/civilians, in that they know that there are many Albanians willing to take arms to get what they want.

The good neighbor policy of the EU is difficult as well, because Kosovo is considered part of Serbia, and relations are not good

The party considers the Dayton agreement as the way to interact with Bosnia, so all agreements are valid, the party has connections to the Republika Srpska, and thinks that relations should be strengthened

However this puts the party against the EU again because the EU is pressing for centralization of the federal state of Bosnia.

His party looks to the Russian alliance as a counterbalance to the NATO.

sorry i got lazy in the end there and copy pasted my notes....

tomorrows post will be up to date, and i wont have done a few before it itll be better i promise

tonight prolly not gunna be doing anything too exciting, though ive said that and been wrong before

maybe some sock and underwear washing, and sitting around in a bar, chatting n whatnot, though that has yet to happen.

again sorry for the late posts

Thursday 14711

on this day we visited Radovan Bigovic, a orthodox priest, Mladen described him as some kind of televangelist time guy? he seemed alot cooler, and more down to earth than any televangelist ive ever seen...

anyways he had a very neat perspective on the state of the church today and its relations with the people and politics. he recognizes the secularity of the state, but sees that many politicians have a good relationship with church communities. Bigovic claims that interrelgious dialogue is prevalent despite the divisions caused by the wars. of note that surprised even me was the inclusion of faith studies in state school, in that everyone learns some about all the primary faiths here, and that that educational program has to be okayed by the various faiths to ensure accuracy/fairness. this will certainly help to prevent violent divisions like those of the past.

he is worried about what will happen when the west pulls out of Kosovo. Kosovo is the cradle of Serbian Orthodoxy, and now the region is dominated by Albanians, and though many of the monasteries and churches still function it is only under protection by Western forces.

also during the wars he claims to have had a number of dialogues with religious leaders across the Balkans, and helped to lead their appeals for peace, but being religios institutions in secular states there wasnt much they could do.

he also commented on how he doesnt blame the Vatican for supporting the Croats, while the Orthodox church got support by Russian orthodoxy and to a lesser extent Greek, and the Muslims got support from "Muslim" nations, in that each faith supported its own kind, which was to be expected.

he ended with saying that he thinks religion should be independent of national identity, because it can and has led to atrocity, reaching back into history beyond the atrocities of the 90s to the Crusades and whatnot.

after this even we chilled out some, and eventually went out to a vary cool swanky nightclub on a boat, lots of loud music and bright colors and beautiful people. again those of us able to enjoyed drinks of various kinds in a (no sarcasm here) responsible way payment was another matter, my niceguy syndrome kicked in and i end up picking up a large...very large portion of the tab, but all is well, im with these people for another 2 weeks, ill be able to get my money back. all told it was a great time.

Wednesday 13711

finally we get to something more my style, we met with people from the Belgrade Center for Security Policy (http://www.ccmr-bg.org/cms/view.php?id=2). the organization was created in 1997 focusing on raising the issue of why democratic control of armed forces is necessary, and the role of the Yugoslav forces in the conflicts of the 90s. around the turn of the century (again love that i can say that) the organization shifted its focus, and became more heavily involved in the military, helping to organize events with local and NATO forces for training and dialogue purposes.

the organization has seen that as the state structures develop so have military and security matter.

the primary goal of the center is to observe and rate the progress on reforms of the military apparatus, and has partner/sister organizations in all of the ex-Yugoslav states so that they can produce comparable data.

much like the US (though in different capacities)Serbia is having issues with private security forces, because there are no laws or regulations governing that sector.

the organization puts alot of thought into EU accession, worrying that if Serbia is not brought in soon, it will be left "outside" and reforms, will slow down heavily because there seems to be a lack of responsible political elite interested in pushing through the reforms.



sorry i missed out on the blogging for a few days, we got kinda caught up in fun-having and sleep-catching-up, been watching plenty Batman in my free time, and reading and generally wandering around the city, i also noticed, that a very large number of the chairs in this country, are of the exact same design, i took a pic of the one in my room, and ill see if i can get more pictures of that time of chair...leftovers from a command economy?

Tuesday 12711

busy academic day.

first we visited the Serbian Parliament building, very cool building, started in 1905, finally finished in 1935, there were a number of wars and attempted revolutions delaying the completion.

we met with MPs of the Democratic party, the party holds 64 of the 250 total seats in parliament. the two MPs we met with were young in their early thirties, apparently representative of the Democratic party followers. they are currently working on changing up the way elections work, it works like the classic parliamentary elections, in that the people vote for a party, and the party gets a representative number of seats in the parliament, and then fills those seats accordingly with people. however they want to change it so that the voters know who exactly they are voting for, and to what position within the party and eventual government.

we asked them all kinds of questions, the Democratic party is all for EU accession, and doing everything they can, proposing laws and whatnot that will expedite that process.

they also spoke to what their party is doing to address the problems of Serbia, not surprisingly unemployment is an issue, due primarily to the economic crises the world over, but they also point to the education system being inadequate for the Serbian people to compete in a globalized market, so the Democratic party is working to attract FDI, and overhaul the education system to address the unemployment issue.

also they noted that industrial output was at 50% of what it was in the early 1990s, due in part to the economic slowdown, and then the sanctions of the 90s, and the us bombing the crap out of them thing. so the Democratic party wants to attract that FDI to help reinvigorate Serbia's industries.

regarding Kosovo, the Democratic party will likely not ever recognize Kosovo as an independent state as long as it is unpopular to do so, however they respect the Un mandate and will not do anything to upset that issue.

and as far as Bosnia goes, they respect to sovereignty of Bosnia, as well as the Dayton accords, and the agreement between Bosnia and the Republica Srpska, and will not do anything to aggravate that issue at all.

then later in the day we met with some members of CANVAS, which is an organization that provides advisory and training services to people opposing oppressive regimes through nonviolence.

CANVAS is a growth from OTPOR, which was the primary youth, grassroots-ish opposition movement against Milosovic at the turn of the century (i love being able to say that).

CANVAS organizes workshops to help (generally) young people to organize nonviolent resistance to authoritarian regimes, and has since helped advise groups in places like the Maldives, Ukraine, Georgia and Egypt.

The group was certainly interesting, particularly because they refuse aid from governments so they can maintain their freedom, however, as Ionnis pointed out, they are willing to work with anyone as long as the group is pursuing nonviolence, including far far right (neo-fascists). so in my opinion the group loses some respect because they are willing to help extremist groups like that...

then later that night we went to a free show at the Kalamegdan fortress hosted by the Serbian branch of MTV, it was some Serbian DJs, it was... interesting, not really my kinda music, but it was cool to see, an experience. afterwords me and a few other made our way home, stopping at a fountain to drink some of the coldest water ive had in the country, and met a dog, that managed to follow our roundabout prolly 3km walk home, and sleep in front of our hotel.

overall a good day, sorry i missed this post yesterday, ill prolly double post later, and relate todays lazy events.

Monday 11711

this morning we went to visit the Republic of Serbia Office of War Crimes Prosecutor. Very interesting presentation from a very knowledgeable person. The special office was established in 2003 to prosecute warcrimes, in cooperation with the Hague, and similar offices in neighboring countries.

it sounds as though they have been doing well, and their progress towards justice has been accelerating. though there are many impediments, from the regional lack of trust and transparency, and domestic pressures. the office works closely with the other special prosecutor for organized crime, primarily because many old time war criminals were/are heavily connected with organized crime nowadays.

everyone really liked this presentation, while i think it was well done, and relevant, its not really my thing. while i havent said it before on the blog, i break up International Affairs (particularly at NU) into two primary branches, the hug the poor children NGO types and the realist government/security types. and while the former is certainly necessary in todays world, i dont fall into that camp. and this presentation with its focus on reconciliation and justice certainly appealed to the former group.

however i did not walk away empty handed, im just saying i didnt appreciate this presentation nearly as much as many of my peers seemed to have. seeing what is being done, locally (domestically in Serbia, which got the most negative press regarding war crimes) regionally, and internationally to bring justice and closure to the conflict was surely intriguing.

i feel that once we start traveling and see the parallel offices and agencies in the other countries it will be far more interesting and telling as to the overall situation.

we also had a lecture from Mladen on the conflicts of the 90s, which to a certain extent cleared things up, but didnt tell me anything i didnt already know. but again that is no fault of Mladen or the program, i just read alot about stuff early.

not much to report, its still stupidly hot here, pretty draining

Sunday 71011

Lazy day, went to the beach, the lake we went to was a manmade offshoot of the river i think. but the lake was refreshing, full of people, not insane full, but busy, the water was clean enough, some of the other kids rented a paddle boat, and we had all kinds of fun climbing and jumping and pushing the boat around. however at the beach the power was out for all the restaurants n stuff, so there was no food, and the beer that i got, was warm and bad.

i dont think i have discussed the beer here, the most common is Jelen (pronounced yelen) it is a very light beer, and honestly not very good, on par with the light domestic beers, Bud, Miller basically not awesome. so i recognize some beer should be drank not ice cold, but that one definately needed it, so that was n unpleasant experience, a warm crappy beer.

other than that the beach was tons of fun, we may very well go again in our free time, thats really all we did today, as i said, lazy day.

Saturday 7911

today we got to visit novi sad, it was crammed with european 20somethings at the Exit festival (http://www.exitfest.org/), it was a pretty city,

before getting there we stopped at Karlovci (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sremski_Karlovci), which the old seat of the Serbian Patriarch, during the the austrohungarian times, but since the seat was moved to Belgrade the town has clearly lost... its appeal, now it is just a palace for the Bishop of the Srem region of Vojvodina. we also had the wonderful experience of wandering into a baptism.

considering i just learned i have followers beyond my parents, and the internet doesnt yet have a sarcasm font, you should know that i find it very uncomfortable for me, and uncouth in general to roll into a place of worship as a tourist and start taking pictures of shit going on. so it took some flexing of my morals to get you all that wondrous photo.

but yeah Novi Sad was cool the city is home to the largest catholic church in the province.

we also found our way to the beach, on the Danube river, the beach was full of people my age enjoying the stupidly hot weather (some 37+ degrees C)and music and whatnots, as well as families with chitlens running around getting yelled at by the lifeguards, i guess thats the way it goes everywhere. though on the lifeguard note, not a big fan of the blowing your whistle everytime you need to tell the little kid not to go too deep, i was ready to set up for compressions and send someone to the gate.

Novi Sad itself, and Karlovci have a very different feel than Belgrade, i mean besides the obvious lack of cosmopolitan-ness in the smaller cities, there was an architectural and physical difference as well. i guess that could be attributed to the fact that those cities werent bombed to shit on multiple occasions, and that they were inside the Austro-Hungarian empire, while Belgrade wasnt, so they had some Baroque, western europe-y buildings, while Belgrade is full of modern, and Soviet era ugliness.

dont get my wrong Belgrade is cool, and the few government buildings that have their late 18th/early19th century architecture are cool and characterful, but there is alot of the large oppressive buildings the commie leadership loved to make.

im sure as we travel more, and especially out of this part of Serbia i will have more contrast to talk about.

i will now go back to my room where there is no internet to distract me from my paper writing

Friday 8711

So we went out last night after the dinner provided by the chaperons, the dinner was very good by the way, multicourse, meats, fish, salads. But after wandering down the riverfront we found our way onto a boat with loud music and bright lights, we got on, many people were very well dressed, luckily we were a lil updressed so it was aright, we quickly noticed an open bar, with very good wine and liquor, and shortly there after I started getting myself trashed, I found Jameson at the downstairs bar, and cool bartenders, so those of us that are of legal age to drink did so (and those of us that weren’t, enjoyed juice and softdrinks), for free with who we found out to be the fucking Miss Serbia pageant contestants, including the winner.

We got all kindsa drunk and danced and took pictures, as we were winding down and ready to leave I went to tip the bartender downstairs I was chatting with, I asked him if he took tips he said “of coarse I taeek all currency” I gave him a 100 dinar note, and he laughed and said “eeeyy man, this is like no thing!” I said “okokok” and slipped him a $5 bill, he said “Yes American dollar, I love amereeka!’ and I was dragged off the boat by the others and a handful of us wandered home while other hopped cabs.

So yeah, that was a great time. Woke up at like 1 today, and wandered around with another handful of kids, we saw Tasmajdan park (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ta%C5%A1majdan_Park), ate some of the scavenger hunt foods, the Kukkuruzna poghachitsa and lehnya pita od yabukeh, after wandering around the park asking where the law school buildings were, as the bakery was across the way, we also found all the monuments we were supposed to find, luckily my Russian could help us to identify which of the two statues was the poet and which was the “caucasian dictator”. Though I am not in any pictures, cause I am notoriously bad, other people have pictures of stuff, and I am in them, maybe once they post theirs ill steal em.

And now im sitting in a café prolly not up to anything tonight

Thursday 7711

more lectures from Mladen, it was all late 19th, 20th century, interesting stuff, so interesting infact, that i have already read all about it, but i dont blame Mladen for that ive read about all that stuff on my own, it was a good review, and the lecture was well connected with the museum yesterday.

then a talk/documentary watch at the Zoran Djindjic Foundation. the foundation was established in 2003 after the assassination of Djindjic (prime minister). the foundation fosters academic excellence, and has hosted over 5000 students in their many workshops, and helped over 500 students to travel to Germany and Austria for work experience.


Djindjic was the first democratically elected official after the fall of the Milosovic regime. Educated in Germany, he had a PhD in Sociology and Philosophy. Major proponent of reform, the leader of the opposition government when Milosovic was in power. advocated  EU integration, and generally instilled feelings of hope in the people. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoran_%C4%90in%C4%91i%C4%87)

after his party swept the elections and he was given the position of prime minister and the leader of the party given position of president. soon after the elections a divide developed and the president kept a number of Milosovic peoples in power, and growing more nationalist, while the PM wanted to work with the Hague. the president began to support crime synducates that furthered his cause while simultaneously using the police/paramilitary forces to harass his opposition.

there were three attempts on Djindjic's life before a sniper, likely supported by the JSO (yugoslav spec ops) finally succeeded. it took around 5 years for all of the entire network to be brought to trial, and over 240 yrs worth of jailtime has been handed out to the parties involved.

other than all that, not much is going on, there is some kind of semifancy dinner tonight provided by the chaperons, and then maybe some kind of barhopping, we'll see how it goes

Wednesday 6711

More lectures, by Mladen this time, this one was far more interesting than the last, as we get more and more in depth i think things will get better. this one was discussing ancient/medieval origins of the "nationalities". i got more interested when we got to the Ottoman Empire times, i got to tie some of the stuff i learned waaay back in freshman year in, about the Janissaries being paid in silver, and using the inflation caused by the influx of Spanish New World silver reducing wages as a reason for the Ottoman decline and slow pull out of Balkans.

We also wandered around a military museum in the fortress we visited firstest, tracing back all the way to the Celts in the region, and up to the NATO involvement 15 years ago. the museum was cool, lots on info...in serbian, but i could pull the important stuff out between my Cyrilic reading and history knowledge. Outside strewn about the fortress they had some WWII era German and Soviet tanks, as well as Soviet/American/JNA/JA towed weapons. i didnt know that Tito's Yugoslavia made as many of their own weapons as were presented in the museum, i guess that split from the soviet union was deeper than i thought. ex below: JNA remake of a US 105mm

while i knew the Balkan peninsula has been fraught with conflict for a LOONG time, and a number of Roman emperors were made here, it was cool to actually see all of this laid out for me at the museum.

Tuesday 5711

went to visit B92 production studios speaking to the CEO, interesting tour, reminded me very much of middleschool morning tv announcements me and my buddies ran, actually their primary studio for their news branch was smaller than our studio back in the day.

random stuff i learned today:
Serbia has over 500 tv networks, mostly because the government seems to hand out licenses like hotcakes nowadays, but there are only 5 (i think is what he said) private national networks and 2 public (read public as government owned and operated).

the fact that there are soo many networks out there, makes it a competition nightmare for channels to attract the relatively little amount of money from advertising.

B92 is the only network that has both a national tv and a national radio presence. which presents unique difficulties because of the demographic differences of the north and south

B92 runs an investigative journalism arm, which attracts...violent attention from the people they investigate, including football hooligans, political leaders, and unsavory tycoons

B92 in the 90s was one of the only stations not to play folk music, according to the CEO, which i took to mean that they didnt play on ethnic/national tensions. B92 and its progressive nature put it at odds with the Milosovic government, and was closed down a number of times, however this worked against the government in that it brought more international attention, and helped to rally more of Milosovic's opposition.

nowadays B92 still acts as a watchdog for the government, drawing negative attention from those in power.

the CEO fears that with the current economic crises, the public will be swayed towards the extremes and lead to badnews (lawl see what i did there?) for the country overall.

i liked getting a taste of a locals opinion, particularly one that was actively involved with governance/media in some way. it seemed as though he did not know exactly what it was we wanted to hear about, and as the chaperons pointed out, it is entirely within our power to direct discussions in a direction we want, so in the coming days we/i will take things there sooner.

we had a lecture by Denis, nothing special considering im an IAF major, ive gotten the gist before, but i recognize its necessary for framing the entire thing

enjoying myself in belgrade, enjoying the city, enjoying the company, im not really feelin the blog tonight, i apologize to all my loyal readers