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.