BALKAN WITNESSArticles on the Bosnia Conflict
Post-War Bosnia
This page does not attempt comprehensive coverage of post-war Bosnia, but we will include occasional articles of particular interest.
For regular updates on events and issues in the former Yugoslavia, see also
Balkan Insight by Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN)Note: Each article shown below represents the opinion of the author, and not necessarily of anyone else.
NEW Only Integrating Bosnia Will Complete the Balkan Mosaic
Fifteen years on, the world has yet to define itself clearly in relation to the Srebrenica crime – and unfortunately, this ambiguity encourages Serbia to continue obstructing efforts to rebuild Bosnia. The Srebrenica genocide is and will remain an enduring trauma. Each new judgment passed by the Hague tribunal reveals new details and lays bare the enormity of the crime. But 15 years since the atrocity, people’s consciousness in Serbia remains largely unchanged, blocked by organized amnesia and relativization. By Sonja Biserko, Balkan Insight, July 8, 2010Private security firms in the Balkans harbor corruption, observers say
Organized crime has infiltrated southeastern Europe, particularly Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, and corrupted legitimate business in the region, according to a regional network of investigative journalists. The Sarajevo-based Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) said this development put into question the ability and willingness of the region's governments to combat crime and detain war criminals. Deutsche Welle, June 20, 2010The Hague Convicts His Comrades, Mladic Enjoys Himself Despite the countless promises over the years by various governments in Belgrade that Mladic would be arrested shortly, and the many widely-publicized actions in which special police units were seen on television searching some building where he was supposed to be hiding, the man indicted on charges of genocide for organizing the July 1995 massacre of some 8000 Bosnian Muslim men in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica is still on the run. By Charles Simic, June 11, 2010
Seven Senior Bosnian Serb Officials Convicted of Srebrenica Crimes The former high-ranking Bosnian Serb military and police officials were convicted by Trial Chamber II of a range of crimes committed in 1995 in relation to the fall of the enclaves of Srebrenica and Žepa, eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina. International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), June 10, 2010
The Pillar of Shame Project (PDF) The project aims to erect a permanent sculpture serving as a lasting reminder of the guilt of western politicians and military officials for the genocide of Srebrenica. The Pillar of Shame is to serve as a metaphor for the immense betrayal of the United Nations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and as a warning to all future co-workers of the United Nations. The plan: the 16,744 shoes (representing 8,372 victims) should form two gigantic letters measuring eight metres in height and coloured in shimmering white. The two letters (‘U’ and ‘N’) will be penetrated by three monumental bullet holes with real shoes found in mass graves embedded in them. The actual location of the Pillar of Shame, and the names of western politicians and army generals whose names will be shamed by the Pillar will be selected by the mothers themselves. The Centre for Political Beauty and the Society for Threatened Peoples that together organised one of the biggest memorials for the genocide of Srebrenica in 2009, will also initiate a discussion about the responsibility of the United Nations that has been completely pushed aside in the West for the last fifteen years. Centre for Political Beauty, 2010
Serb mayor says U.S. lacks courage to help reunite Bosnia Foca's Serb mayor, Zdravko Krsmanovic, has reached out to Muslims, who once were a plurality in Foca, by establishing close ties to Gorazde, a mainly Muslim town just downstream that Serbs bombarded mercilessly but never conquered. By Roy Gutman, McClatchy Newspapers, April 25, 2010
Continuing Struggles for Bosnia and Hercegovina A report on political and social tensions and the role of the international community in Bosnia and Herzegovina. (15-minute video) By Kira Kay and Jason Maloney, Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, November 18, 2009
West’s Last Chance To Get Serious on Bosnia Talk of partition as ‘inevitable’ is in danger of becoming an attractive excuse for the EU and US to make a speedy exit from Bosnia’s current stalemate. By Bodo Weber Democratization Policy Council December 1, 2009
The Karadzic trial and Bosnian realities The trial of the Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic is a test of justice and accountability over terrible crimes. But the trend of events in Bosnia itself also demands the international community’s urgent attention. By Martin Shaw openDemocracy, November 3, 2009
Author Aleksandar Hemon brings a touch of Sarajevo to Berlin
Bosnia is bad in a very stable way. I don't think there will be any dramatic changes. The logic of the decline is entirely clear. Many of us could see this happening years ago. The root problem being the Dayton Accord and the way the country is set up. It cannot possibly work the way it is set up. Even if those in power had the best intentions - and they have no intentions other than pilfering their own country. Deutsche Welle, September 18, 2009US Military Met With Mladic After Indictment
American Professor Charles Ingrao says research shows US military often encountered Hague tribunal’s top war-crimes indictee in 1996 but failed to arrest him because that was not then their policy. Balkan Insight, March 4, 2009Sliding toward the Precipice: Europe’s Bosnia Policy
Over the past three years, Bosnia’s political environment has noticeably worsened: the current trajectory could lead to attempts at secession and renewed conflict. Among Bosnians, perceived threats to personal safety and livelihood have risen to new post-war heights as international listlessness has permitted Bosnian politicians to believe they can pursue wartime objectives without challenge. For years the European Union has claimed that reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina is heading in the right direction, albeit slowly. EU officials point to the Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) signed on 16 June 2008 as evidence of progress. But Bosnia has not only stagnated over the past three years – it has been sliding backwards at an accelerating pace. By the Democratic Policy Council, November 7, 2008 (PDF)Genocide's Epic Hero After the initial exhilaration, many Bosnians find Radovan Karadzic’s arrest less satisfying than one would expect. Though he might spend the rest of his life in the comfortable dungeons of the Western European prison system, he will live eternally in the verses of decasyllabic meter written by those for whom the demolition of Bosnia was but material for the grand epic poetry of Serbhood. Bosnians know he should have been booed and run off the stage at the peak of his performance. He should have been seen for what he really was: a thuggish puppet whose head was bloated with delusions of grandeur. He should have let us live outside his epic fantasies. By Aleksandar Hemon, The New York Times, July 27, 2008