Perhaps If You Do Learn The Language October 1, 2011

I grew up with memories of the Holocaust being of Jewish descent. I live with a history taught to me, beginning at the tender age of 10 replete with gruesome imagery, even though my specific ancestry left Europe in the 1920s. They were able to avoid extermination at Hitler’s hands but not from the pogroms, killings, and violent persecutions of anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe, which still occurs across the European continent today (in different forms).

My life has been deeply shaped by the notion that by just being who I am I could be expelled (or killed) from any place at any time. My mother and her family, whose father and his own siblings settled in Cuba after leaving Russia, were also forced to leave the isle when Castro took power in the 1950s. My entire identity has been shaped through these associations as a victim.

I have traveled to a great many places, including Bangladesh (working on women’s rights) and Cambodia (studying genocide prevention and human rights). For the past three months, I was in Bosnia i Herzegovina (BiH) for my master’s research about the Srebrenica-Potočari Memorial Center & Cemetery. I was primarily based in Srebrenica for the entire summer, interspersed with visits to various communities and former sites of atrocities, including painful locations in Omarska, Trnopolje, and Kozarac (all three are in the vicinity of Prijedor in NW BiH); Tuzla; Brčko; Teočak; Jasenovac and Stara Gradina (both near Dubica, where the larger Jasenovac WWII concentration camp is memorialized differently in BiH and Croatia, divided simply by a natural river border); and the villages of the Srebrenica municipality.

To say that I do not understand the complexities of life in BiH is more nuanced that a traditionally black and white vantage point. I can never truly understand, no matter how much I learn, read (and I have read hundreds of books about this country), explore, and observe–I am not from BiH. That is the paradox of my work. But, I have come to appreciate what the universal similarities of people’s lives are no matter where they live, what religion they practice, or who they are. We all have blood, hearts, bones, hearts. Friends, families, colleagues, lives. And souls.

While to the outsider it may appear that I am/was more on a journey to find myself especially based on my last few posts, these personal insights are true for those of us who are sensitive to the lessons that these journeys afford. For me, though, they come at a time in my life where I have the maturity, insights, and skills to propel them into action. And that is how I am coming to define my life’s work while educating those persons around me who care to know.

During the BiH war, no one from the governments of international community understood the nuances on-the-ground and so the dying and suffering only intensified. There are some who did take offense. One person at least found her way into the current US administration (Samantha Powers who wrote the book “A Problem From Hell”), currently pushing for intervention on behalf of the protesting civilians in Libya and Syria. (Obviously, this is not the only reason or motivation for US involvement, but that is a separate discussion.)

My blog is therefore to explain to people in easily understood terms what I see, feel, and, above all, bear witness to. Otherwise, we are collectively condemned to repeat the horrors of the past. So, with that, my next blog will focus upon how I chose to end my field research sojourn: in Oświęcim, Poland and a visit back to the site and hellish horrors of my own inherited ethnic/religious genocide: Auschwitz-Birkenau.

See Samantha Power: “A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide”

http://www.whorunsgov.com/Profiles/Samantha_Power

Young Adult and Thwarted Manhood July 28, 2011

28 July 2011, sometime in the afteroon.

In Teočak, Bosnia i Herzegovina (BiH). I am here with some of closest friends on the planet who treat me like their close family. It was a bit of a journey to get here. After missing the bus from Srebrenica to Tuzla, my new flat mate first drove me to Bratunac, then Konjević Polje with the hope of beating the bus. At Konjević Polje in a gas station we asked when the next bus to Tuzla would arrive. A seemingly simple question, but here in BiH, there is no such thing.

The gas station and cafe are run by Serbs, so they refused to answer the question since Tuzla is in the Federation of BiH. So they sent my pal across the street to the deli owned by Bosniaks who would hopefully have the answer. No bus, though. So, back to the gas station where she asked about buses to Zvornik, which being in the Republika Srpska, they were quick to answer…the bus arrives every thirty minutes. While we waited in the drizzle for the bus, she pointed out a new Orthodox Church right off the side of the road. It was erected after the war on the land of a Bosniak woman who was driven from her home, only to come back and find her property was now a symbol of ethnic nationalism.

Still no bus, but Srebrenica being a small town, a man with a car my mate knew offered me a lift to Zvornik. In the car, it was mostly silent given that neither of us could really understand one another. But as it so often the case, we did. His son studies at the university in Tuzla. During the war, the man tried to escape across the river and was shot in the chest by Serbs. His father was killed. Arriving in Zvornik, I then hoped a bus to Tuzla where I met my friend, Ado. After what was the third coffee of the day, we then boarded the bus to the small village of Teočak, where I currently am. So many parts of a journey that could never safely be entertained as a single woman anywhere in the United States.

Surrounded by Serbian villages, Teočak stands as a firm reminder of the Bosniak defense forces who were able to prevent the town from being overtaken by the Bosnian Serb Army (BSA) led by the commander Hajrudin Mešić. Not without constant shelling and the killing of many innocent civilians and local defenders, including Ado’s father. Mešić was killed in Nezuk in the Federation of BiH, the tiny hamlet where the 110km three day Marš Mira (March of Death, now called the March of Life) begins (another story for a future blog; meanwhile you can check out my blog entry dated 15 July 2010, “Let Me Show You The World In My Eyes”).

In one single day 80 men perished in a single battle and they are buried in hillside cemetery; 400 other souls were killed in the village during the war and are buried in other cemeteries that dot the countryside. Ado told me this quite calmly as we stared at the place where his dad now forever rests. Then, without a beat, we began the evening’s barbeque, eating fruit from the trees and bushes, sans a tear or further discussion. How is this segway even possible, with so much terror and sadness in one moment followed by a return to the present enveloping atmosphere?

On the way back to Ado’s granny’s house, the sky was pitch black, only lit up by the thousands of stars that glisten in the night sky. A plane flew overhead, a sound that, to me, always reminds me of traveling, distant places, new adventures. But for Ado, it signifies blind fear because planes are symbols of bombs dropping, of people crying, of loved ones dying, of houses exploding. In the middle of the night a plane meant you had to hide, run, find safety wherever possible. A mother covering her small son with a blanket to provide symbolic yet impractical comfort and shelter. The stalking of nighttime terror when even walking outside in the gloam could easily yield someone looking to kill you. Having to huddle on a tractor with your mom and sister traveling at a snail’s pace for more than 30 miles to reach Tuzla, the safe haven. Without your father, who stayed behind to fight while the rest of your relatives now live in faraway places in Europe, coming back to visit you in the summer with their new clothes and logo-ed possessions. Reminding you that their lives now are filled with more opportunities than will ever exist here. Can you really afford the luxury of dreams when simply trying to buy groceries, take care of sick child, and pay for routine living expenses dominate your every aching moment?

I used to believe that dreaming was a universal phenomenon. About who you want to be in life, where to settle down, and how to expend your creative and intellectual energies. But here, in the drowsy isolation of Teočak and other ravaged villages that dot the BiH landscape, dreaming is a privilege. Because finding work is next to impossible, getting into a good school beyond expensive, moving abroad a sheer impossibility. Relatives send promises of help only to forget them—and you—when they go back to their new lives in Western Europe, America, and Scandinavia.

With hot running water whenever you want it, dawn or dusk. While here in Teočak, the local officials collect money every so often with the promise of constant water that never materializes. So you are forced to take matters into your own hands, digging wells and installing pumps, that is, if you can afford it or a man of the house (or a neighbor’s if your men have all been murdered and/or have disappeared) can arrange it for you. Otherwise, you wait for the water to reach an outdoor pump, where you fill up as many containers and bottles as you can. To flush the toilet, wash your face, take a sponge bath. Three, four, five days go by without a proper bath if you are unlucky. Good thing everyone smells the same way.

So, you spend the days visiting friends, relatives, and neighbors, chatting the afternoon away over endless cups of coffee and delicacies, because regardless of how much money you don’t have, generosity reigns here. You don’t have to call; you just stop by and enjoy the sweetness of each other’s company. Evenings are spent in front of the television if you are older and outside on the post office steps if you are young. Watching the clouds go by and talking about whatever it is to pass the time. Feeding a sweet puppy who lives in the street yet you call Ahmet, a person’s name, and who nips at your footsteps. And that is when the beauty of life can be felt even though it seems as though time truly stands still. It is in the these shadows where your dreams lurk, if you are brave enough to believe that your life will have more meaning than the demons that you try to outrun whenever you can.

Young adult and thwarted manhood. Perpetually caught in the present, knowing that what you want out of life is a dangerous concept. For if you spend too much time believing things will change, you may enter the hamster wheel of dashed visions of a more fulfilling future.

A Long Way From Home July 24, 2011

Sunday, 545am, 24 July 2011.

The day is just breaking in Srebrenica. The dogs are falling asleep in the streets after a full night of wandering, barking, and fighting with one another. My wrist aches, a reoccurring injury that is more annoying than anything else. I still have a lingering cough from a chest infection of sorts that, despite a trip to the local clinic for an antibiotic IV infusion plus additional meds, continues because I am smoking like a chimney. I am constantly hungry because it is difficult to eat a varied vegetarian diet here and if I never see another raw tomato or cucumber, all the better. I did not sleep at all last night and decided to get up and start writing this blog after being in Sarajevo and now Srebrenica, Bosnia i Herzegovina (BiH) for well over a month.

Which brings me back to this moment. What on earth am I doing here exactly? The rational answers are easy. Write my master’s thesis, conduct interviews, and research the role of the Srebrenica-Potočari Memorial Center (SPMC) as a way to connect the 1995 genocide to contemporary societal issues with the hope of bringing a divided population together. Learn how to conduct human rights work in the field, understand the realities of a post-conflict society, fulfill a long-term dream to undertake such a thing. Immerse myself in what human rights activism means in reality versus in the thousands of pages I have studied on the topic. Find my true path in life, become a scholar, try to make a small difference to one or two people in the world.

But really, why? Alone for months at a time, away from my husband, my family, my friends, New York City, and my life.

Alone in a small town and even tinier hamlets and villages whose very existences, from the people, to the houses and buildings, to the forests, were utterly wiped away in 1995. Alone, speaking with the Bosnian Muslims (Bosniaks) who live here now and who, for the most part are the remaining family members that were not murdered. All of whom have suffered such devastating loses and personal humiliations that no amount of time can heal. Many of whom are continuing only now to find out what really happened to their loved ones over 16 years ago. And even many more of whom are still searching for the mortal remains of the male family members who were wiped off the face of the earth during that fateful period leading up to and during July 1995.

Back home, I spend most nights up until dawn consuming grim and terrifying accounts of genocide, mass rapes, and crimes against humanity searching for knowledge about the unanswerable question of why. Yes, I watch the occasional reality television show or read a music rag, but for the most part, my passion for human rights and the prevention of these kinds of atrocities drives me to learn and research as much as I possibly can.

Here in Srebrenica, I am beyond immersed in the duality of the struggles of the current population’s struggles to normalize their lives. Good jobs, education, psychological support, social services, and an adequate institutional infrastructure barely exist. All the while, they wrestle with horrors that render a great many of them incapacitated. Within a climate that they are all too keenly aware could change at any moment. It is little wonder that all I can do here is just sit, observe, reflect, and nap, unable to write or read books about these experiences. I sorely miss the stack of novels I left back home choosing instead, stupidly, to bring books about the genocide which I simply cannot stomach. It is one thing to read about genocide from the comfort of my bed. It is quite another to be submerged within it, even as an outsider for several long weeks.

But still, no clear answers. Just a growing sense about what my mission in life really is after all those years of corporate whoring, some of which I enjoyed but the majority of which I actually suffered.

So, over the course of the rest of the summer I hope to be better able answer my own question—why—as I come to terms with this monumentous personal, academic, and spiritual journey that I am on.

“A Migrant’s Bill of Rights”: Response April 11, 2011

“A Migrant’s Bill of Rights”: Response

Here is an essay I recently posted on the site, www.Atlantic-Community.org, in response to an Op-Ed written by Julia Follick

The article can be found here: http://www.atlantic-community.org/index/articles/view/A_Migrant%27s_Bill_of_Rights

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Julia, thank you for your informative and well-articulated position on the development and promotion of a more integrated international migrants human rights regime.

As you are aware, the rights of migrants have long been on the radar of the UN and its related agencies. I would like to call your attention to two Conventions currently in force: the UNESCO Convention on Migrants’ Rights and the UNHCHR International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families. Also, the International Labour Organization has a database on “Anti-discrimination Actions Profiles” that is a part of its International Migration Programme.

Your call for “emphasizing uniform rights and promoting fairer treatment” is well posited. As you point out, more and more people are emigrating from their home countries in search of a greater realization of their socio-economic rights. And as we are currently witnessing with respect to the uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa, this trend will only increase in the months and years ahead. These reactions to the rising inequities between the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ are but one downside of our globalized—and increasing polarized—world. This migration is also causing, as you rightly note, a backlash against foreigners and immigrants in countries with different social and cultural practices than their own. Rather than serving to bring the world’s populations closer, globalization is instead creating a Pandora’s box of issues that are much more difficult to reconcile. Of greatest concern are both the rise in anti-discriminatory practices and international security threats.

Compiling a uniform approach to the plethora of issues that both legal and illegal migrants face is challenging, as your article notes. These populations face cultural intolerance, social isolation, political manipulation, and economic discrimination. I also agree with your assertion that Muslim immigrant populations living across Western Europe and Scandinavia face numerous hostilities. Left on their own, and without politico-economic recourse, these groups may, in turn, become radicalized. This is exemplified by the controversial French attempt to ban the wearing of the veil and the burqa in public.

These challenges are acutely felt by millions of Roma/gypsies across Eastern and Western Europe who are deprived of a set of borders to call home. National political elites and majority groups seek to blame and target the Roma for all sorts of socio-economic ills plaguing their economies and societies. The rights of the Roma people are frequently ignored and violated, falling though the cracks of the international human rights regime. Just observe French Prime Minister Nicolas Sarkozy’s recent call for the expulsion of the French Roma to Eastern European countries.

Creating an international rights-based framework that advocates for the civil, political, social, economic, and cultural rights and equality of all migrants is but one challenge. Legislating and realizing these rights through national policies, structural institutions, policing mechanisms, and grassroots campaigns requires cooperation across all levels of society. Delineating between the rights of legal and illegal migrants is another hurdle, as witnessed by the contentious debate in America with respect to the pros and cons of Mexican immigration.

Educating marginalized migrant populations about their human rights is essential. After all, migrants’ rights, just like the rights of women, children, and the disabled, are human rights. The larger questions facing each country now is how to internalize and normalize these rights in ways that engenders the support of national citizens, who are currently facing similar challenges to their own economic livelihoods. As the slow recovery from the global economic crisis lingers, including a general decrease in livable wages, job availability, and social safety nets, citizens are naturally defensive about the prioritization of their own needs. Collectively, we must expand their understanding of how migrant populations can positively serve their host countries and improve the lives for everyone.

American Culture: St. Patrick’s Day March 17, 2011

Here is the first of many posts I will be authoring on behalf of Embassy Sarajevo as a part of my work as Virtual Student Foreign Intern with the U.S. Department of State.

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March 17: A Time for Americans to Celebrate and Wear Green

Although the colors of the American flag are red, white, and blue, each year the streets of the United States flow with green. In America, St. Patrick’s Day has become a largely secular holiday celebrated by all Americans — especially those with Irish heritage. There are parades, festivals, dinners featuring corned beef and cabbage, and the drinking of beer infused with green dye. It’s not just beer that’s colored green — the entire Chicago River, which flows through the heart of this city, is dyed green.

In a country built by immigrants from the world over, St. Patrick’s Day is a reminder of the suffering that the Irish endured before arriving in the U.S. Following the population’s widespread starvation during the Potato Famine of the 19th Century, more than 5 million Irish immigrants came to American shores in search of a better life. As with many new groups of immigrants, the Irish faced religious and economic discrimination. They also endured many financial hardships in their attempts to find low-wage jobs. However, over time and through hard work, tenacity, and education, the Irish-American community escaped the rampant poverty that typified the early immigrant settlements in the Five Points slum of New York City. Life in the Five Points was famously captured by the documentary photographer Jacob Riis in his book, “How the Other Half Lives,” and its civil strife fictionally portrayed in the 2002 film “Gangs of New York,” directed by Martin Scorsese.

Today, the Irish-American population has made valuable contributions to American culture, as well as to the educational, social, business, economic, governmental, and civil society sectors. In 1961, John F. Kennedy became the first U.S. president with Irish-Catholic roots. His election helped to break down the racial and religious barriers against Irish-American citizens. Other famous Irish Americans include Vice President Joe Biden; the Princess of Monaco and actress Grace Kelley; the singer and actress Maureen O’Hara; and playwright and Nobel Laureate of Literature Eugene O’Neill.

Today, many American cities have large populations of citizens with Irish roots, including New York City, San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Butte, Montana. In recent years, American Presidents, including George W. Bush and Barack Obama, have declared March as Irish-American heritage month to “honor the contributions made by the tens of millions of Americans who trace their heritage to the Emerald Isle.”

Written by Laura Cohen, Embassy Sarajevo’s new Virtual Foreign Service intern.

http://sarajevo.usembassy.gov/

“Sérgio” in Conversation / Commemorating Balkans Legacies January 8, 2011

Temporary grave marker, Srebrenica-Potočari Memorial Center

Evan at the Stari Most Bridge, Mostar

11th July Remembrance Ceremony, Srebrenica-Potočari Memorial Center

Statute of remembrance, Srebrenica-Potočari Memorial Center

Graffiti, Mostar

Samantha Power and Jamal Benomar in conversation with the audience at the UNA screening of “Sérgio”

Attached is a blog entry that I co-wrote with a professor and fellow student at New York University’s Center for Global Affairs in the fall of 2010.

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“Sérgio” in Conversation with the International Community: Reflections on Emerging 21st Century Pedagogies for the Global Affairs Curriculum By Colette Mazzucelli, Laura Cohen, and Evan Rosenstock

On July 30, 2010, Professor Colette Mazzucelli attended a screening of “Sérgio” organized at the Tribeca Grand Hotel by the United Nations Association (UNA)-New York Film Committee, which includes MSGA candidate in the Center for Global Affairs at New York University, Ms. Halina Hofmann. The experience a number of us in the MSGA Program share watching the film leads to reflections together on the ways in which the documentary may be integrated with other social networking tools in modern pedagogies to learn about transformations in our world today.

The evolution of new technologies, particularly mobile applications, offers the Academy unimagined possibilities in learning. The documentary “Sérgio” profiles the life and philosophy of a pioneer in his field, the late United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Sérgio Vieira de Mello. This is an uplifting story of how one person worked enthusiastically to make a difference in the world and of the 2003 bombing that took his life in the Canal Hotel, home to the United Nations Headquarters in Iraq and the United Nations Assistance Mission established there.

Sérgio is inspirational in its focus on one man’s choice to live a life in the service of justice and international humanitarian issues. The documentary encourages us to reflect on the importance of leadership in international relations, which is a factor often ignored by scholars focused on the systemic level, Waltz’s third image in Man, the State and War. In the age of social networks, individual choices are increasingly decisive as human agency directs the ways in which digitally networked technology (DNT) changes our lives and influences, constructively or destructively, the development of states.

As educators, we now have a much broader choice of resource materials to teach our courses in global and humanitarian affairs. The challenges we face in our world, the radicalization of youth, the oppression of women in fragile states, the transnational reach of terrorist networks, call for innovative thinking in pedagogical applications to bridge theory and practice. “Sérgio” provides insights into how a leading UN humanitarian civil servant lived to respond to the needs of human beings in conflict areas. It is also a testimony to the legacy of his actions, which can guide our academic initiatives and policy thinking today.

After the screening, the final question posed to the author of the book upon which the documentary is based, Samantha Power, Chasing the Flame: Sérgio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World, asked us to contemplate the relevance of his life in the face of crisis in Afghanistan. Sérgio’s life instructs by example as we consider his talks with the Khmer Rouge and the ways in which at present, as his UN colleague Jamal Benomar explained, Sérgio would have advocated Western engagement with the Taliban. Most importantly, this screening prompts us to consider how we may, as educators and citizens, integrate technology, including mobile phone learning, to reach areas previously excluded from globalization’s reach. Ours is a call today to act to address the humanitarian needs of the underserved as well as to understand the moral responsibilities of those who are served.

As we reflect on the initiatives we take, it is clear that technology is presently, and has been historically, a two-edged sword. The examples in history are striking if we think back, as Joshua Cooper Ramo does in The Age of the Unthinkable, on the experience of statesmen in World War I. The leaders of that era, monarchs and foreign ministers in Europe, were not used to the speed of information or to the quantity available as the telegraph replaced the letter. The technological change, and the pressure to take decisions that kept pace with the telegraph relay of information, confused their thinking and, more decisively, destroyed their judgment.¹ How does our education help us draw on the lessons of the early 20th century given how the speed of thought impacts our lives today?

We realize in the period since the 1994 Rwandan genocide and the 1995 Srebrenica massacre that communication power, in the form of SMS, has evolved in crisis areas. As Goldstein and Rotich underline, SMS is a multi-directional tool unlike the hate-radio that incited mass violence in Rwanda. This is why in Kenya, the CEO of Safaricom, the largest mobile provider in country, could send text messages to counter initial voices of hate with texts urging calm and peace after the 2007 elections in that country. What are the implications of technologies that offer ordinary citizens the chance to make a difference in extraordinary ways: by their involvement with Ushahidi to bear witness reporting acts of mass atrocity; by taking the initiative to hear the voices of citizens most in need as a result of state abuses against civil society or natural disasters, which leave populations vulnerable to transnational security threats; and by learning together in the global classroom with those in areas where emergency crisis response is urgent. It is our experiences together in the classroom and in the field, which reveal what we can accomplish and what has yet to be learned.²

Ms. Laura Cohen, a MSGA candidate in the Center for Global Affairs at New York University, spent four weeks during July 2010 researching the Srebrenica genocide and its legacy on communities in Eastern Bosnia’s Podrinje/Drina Valley. Her experience reveals the importance of technology as a mechanism for education, which is readily apparent in Bosnia i Herzegovina (BiH). In a country divided into two entities and two governments–the Federation of BiH and Republika Srpska (RS)–plus a third territory–Brčko–administered by the international community’s Office of the High Representative–the provision of an ethnically inclusive educational system is by no means a reality. The Bosnian media, including its television, radio, and print outlets, remains dominated by an ethno-nationalist discourse that continues to foster ethnic separation and contradictory information about the 1992-95 war’s criminal masterminds, social devastation, and political aftereffects. This technological divide is underscored by the country’s fractured capital infrastructure, with each entity retaining its own water, electrical, telephony, medical, and educational systems.

Technology, in this respect, can help diminish the psychological blinders that Bosnian youth are continually subjected to given the vast emphasis on ethnically-segregated schools throughout the country. Whereas before the war, children from all ethnicities would socialize with each other during school and in their communities, this practice no longer takes place. The importance of education in post-conflict BiH has diminished greatly since school life was regularly interrupted for months at a time during the war and was not considered a priority when families were trying to remain intact and alive. Schools during the war were also used, in many locations, as sites of torture and massacres that were part and parcel of the ethnic cleansing campaigns to homogenize villages and towns throughout the Podrinje. The teaching of an ethno-biased history is actively creating an emotional and political divide amongst the current generation. Young people are learning about how the war affected members of their own ethnic group and not the country–or its people–as a whole. This distorted history emphasizes the nationalist rhetoric based upon mythologized ancient ethnic hatreds, victimization, revenge, and glory.

The use of technology to bridge the educational divide provides the opportunity for young Bosnians to access neutral historical facts and contemporary information otherwise unavailable. Access to digital information via mobile phones, the internet, games, and interactive applications, provide Bosnian youth the opportunity to connect with each other and to the rest of the world beyond the prejudiced information enthusiastically fed to them. Simply stated, technology enables young Bosnians to escape from the predominance of ethnic-bias and extremist views that dominate their post-war media and educational landscape. The use of Smart phones, You Tube, and Facebook, are just three examples of how Bosnian youth connect to the greater world around them without socially-enforced ethnic blinders. Given that secondary and tertiary educational avenues remain limited, segregated, and corrupted across the country, these interactive applications serve as way to connect young users to global politics, culture, and cosmopolitanism.

Towns, including Srebrenica, have had difficulty in rebuilding their technological infrastructure without massive investments of international financial aid and support. Nonetheless, local initiatives exist to supplement part of BiH’s educational vacuum. Efforts by native organizations, including the Sarajevo-based Youth Initiative for Human Rights (YIHR) and Udruženje Prijatelji Srebrenice (UPS, Friends of Srebrenica) are actively working to connect young people scattered, segregated, and isolated in their local villages. Their efforts focus on rebuilding civil society and ethnic reconciliation for youth of all ethnicities. For example, YIHR has mapped the timeline of the July 1995 Srebrenica genocide by creating an interactive and animated documentary program in an effort to teach young people about the facts and to counteract the widespread claims that this event did not take place.³ Meanwhile, UPS empowers the local youth population through education and media training, including the use of television, journalism, and creative expression as a means to foster economic development, civil society, and community cohesion.⁴ UPS’s programs include radio broadcasts, an annual short film festival, and a weekly video journal, all with the goal of connecting young people across the region.

Mr. Evan Rosenstock, also a MSGA candidate in the Center for Global Affairs, has observed that the primary issue regarding “bringing life” and increased understanding about the Balkans is simply a lack of knowledge and/or awareness about the conflict among younger generations under 30. For many who consider themselves fairly well-educated, who have attended elite undergraduate universities with access to numerous outlets for information-gathering, including Internet, TV, and the opportunities living in New York City, “the Balkans” is an unfamiliar region. Evan was accepted to participate in the Abraham’s Vision Fellowship program to study in the region this past summer. All of his peers are under 30. Most were unsure of what the Balkans is or where the region is located. As Evan tried to explain conflict there to them, many were able to recall bits and pieces of information surrounding the break-up of the former Yugoslavia. Yet, they were unaware that this part of the world is still a focus of popular attention. The spotlight in the US today is on Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, and Iran. The Balkans seems to have taken a back seat to more active, “sexy” conflicts. This is where we believe technology can make a qualitative difference in our experience of the world in which we live and learn.

Simple dissemination of information about the Balkan conflicts is one way in which technology can play a role. News websites, film documentaries, and current video footage are all ways in which the younger generations can become informed about this part of the world. We are bombarded with this type of information coming out of Iraq and Afghanistan – countries that are no doubt less accessible than those in the Balkans. There should be no reason why similar information cannot also reach us in the United States. In the global classroom, the award-winning documentary “No Man’s Land” can provide insights into the human tragedy of conflict in Bosnia i Herzegovina as well as the challenges to address the legacy of tensions there. Our challenge in pedagogy is to focus attention on the cycles of conflict that endure across generations in the Balkans. Although the US is fixated on Afghanistan and Iraq, in Albania, Russia, and Greece, the countries of the former Yugoslavia are still very much on the agenda. If American youths can connect with Russian or Greek youths (through technological means such as Facebook), or access news coming out of those countries through the Internet, they may more easily realize that conflict persists in the Balkans.

We acknowledge the potential of digitally networked technology to foster greater involvement by younger adults in the Balkans region. This awareness is greater than simply improving the human condition by abolishing barriers. The communications revolution places techniques and tools at the service of states or private actors, which are driven mainly by self-interest and ideology, and seldom by humanitarian imperatives.⁵ In the 21st century, the “Enlightenment” stereotype of globalization continues to provoke dissatisfaction and intra-state conflict as faith in traditions, feelings of humiliation, and the experience of injustice outweigh aspirations to increased living standards in many areas of the world. Technology is no panacea in the face of persistent conflict inside states, which traditional paradigms of international relations have yet to address.

As educators and students, we recognize that an important corollary to our engagement in region using new technologies, including the dissemination of film documentaries like “Sergio,” is to inform those outside the Balkans, who learn in the classroom without borders,⁶ about realities in the former Yugoslavia. Our evolving discussions in that classroom must stay focused on empowering individuals in region through our interaction with the learning programs Laura describes, which digitally networked technology unquestionably enables and supports.

Our concerns in global affairs education suggest that the relevance of new technologies is likely to be less in their applications to promote democracy or topple authoritarian regimes⁷ and more in their capacity, when utilized imaginatively, to create alternative pedagogies that interrupt existing colonial narratives.⁸ In so doing, our learning in what NYU President John Sexton has defined as the “global network university”⁹ may provide voice to groups traditionally marginalized in the analysis of transformations in our world today. This is one relatively unexplored aspect of the “new humanitarianism,”¹⁰ to which global affairs education with a focus on social justice may contribute.

Footnotes

1. Joshua Cooper Ramo, The Age of the Unthinkable, New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2009, p. 106.

2. Colette Mazzucelli, “The ‘DNT-R2P Connection:’ Humanitarianism in the 21st Century?” Conversations on Diplomacy and Power Politics, June 25, 2010, http://www.diplomacyandpower.com/?p=742

3. See: http://tinyurl.com/2bjexvs. For more information, contact Ms. Alma Mašić, Head of Office, Youth Initiative for Human Rights; www.yihr.org; email: alma@yihr.org

4. See: http://www.prijateljisrebrenice.org/index.php?p=1. For more information, contact Ms. Dragana Jovanović, President, Udruženje “Prijatelji Srebrenice”, www.prijateljisrebrenice.org, email: dragana.j@prijateljisrebrenice.org

5. Stanley Hoffmann, “The Clash of Globalizations,” Foreign Affairs 81 4 (July/August 2002): 1-7 online, http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/58044/stanley-hoffmann/clash-of-globalizations

6. Colette Mazzucelli and A. Nicholas Fargnoli, “Ethics and International Relations in Today’s Classrooms Without Borders,” Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, July 14, 2010, http://www.cceia.org/education/001/ethics/0004.html

7. Ian Bremmer, “Democracy in Cyberspace,” Foreign Affairs Volume 6 Number 89 (November/December 2010) 1-4 online, http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/66803/ian-bremmer/democracy-in-cyberspace

8. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Nationalism and the Imagination, Calcutta: Seagull Books, 2010.

9. John Sexton, “Technology and the University,” big think, June 27, 2008, http://bigthink.com/ideas/633

10. Feinstein International Center, Humanitarian Horizons, Medford, MA: Feinstein International Center, 2010, p. 44.

******************

Colette Mazzucelli has taught on graduate faculty, Center for Global Affairs at New York University, where she is Adjunct Clinical Associate Professor, since 2005. She is also Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Hofstra University’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Dr. Mazzucelli teaches courses in comparative politics, international relations, EUrope in the 21st Century, ethnic conflicts, From the Mughals to Modernity: India’s Democracy and Its Discontents, and New Technologies in Emergencies and Conflicts: Mapping the Field of Information and Social Networks. She is particularly interested in the integration of mobile phone learning in the global affairs curriculum. Presently, she is a WFI Fellow at Citizens for Global Solutions. In addition, Dr. Mazzucelli participates as a member of the Board of Directors, Center for War/Peace Studies and the UN Chronicle Advisory Group at the United Nations. Her 2009-10 syllabi are featured in a Faculty Spotlight online in Foreign Affairs Classroom webpages. In 2010, she was profiled in the Council on Foreign Relations Educators Bulletin. As a member of the full-time faculty, Dr. Mazzucelli was cited as one of twelve recipients of the Monsignor Robert Sheeran Award 2006 for servant leadership and teaching excellence in the Seton Hall University community. She is the recipient of 11 national and international fellowships, including Bosch, Fulbright, Pi Gamma Mu, Rotary and Swiss Universities Grants. Her biography appears in Marquis Who’s Who in the World 2011 and Marquis Who’s Who in America 2011.

Laura Cohen is a part-time student at New York University’s Center for Global Affairs where she is pursuing a Master of Science in Human Rights. Her thesis focuses on the role of memorial sites as mechanisms for transitional justice and societal healing in post-conflict environments. In July 2010, she was one of 15 research fellows invited to participate in the first annual Summer Research University sponsored by the Srebrenica-Potočari Memorial Center. As a part of the program and to commemorate the Srebrenica genocide, she participated in a three day, 110 KM peace march, Mars Mira, retracing the steps–in the opposite direction–of the 16,000 men and boys who attempted to flee into the forest during the Bosnian Serb Army’s siege of the enclave. Laura also completed a six month program internship with the International Coalition for Sites of Conscience in October 2010. In 2009, Laura was an international volunteer with the women’s rights organization, Promoting Human Rights and Education in Bangladesh, and a member of the NYU Alternative Breaks volunteer team at an orphanage in the Dominican Republic. Previously, she spent fourteen years in the advertising and entertainments businesses, including with Ogilvy and Mather and MTV: Music Television.

Evan, 28, is currently a Masters student at NYU’s Center for Global Affairs studying International Relations with a focus on the Nonprofit Sector. Prior to his graduate studies, he was living in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he co-founded and co-directed a small Jewish cultural project called Moishe House–Buenos Aires. He is the recipient of the “Charlie Award” – an annual recognition of excellence and vision in the international Jewish community, as well as an Abraham’s Vision fellow – an academic honor to travel to the Balkans to study ethnic conflict. Evan is a graduate of Emory University in Atlanta where he earned his BBA in Marketing, and spent a semester abroad studying at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. He is writing his graduate thesis on the American Jewish identity and its relationship to Israel, and plans to soon become a professional in the international Jewish nonprofit sector. He is fluent in Spanish and enamored with all things Latino. Outside of the classroom, Evan enjoys running, engaging with foreigners, dancing salsa (poorly), and watching Coen Brothers movie marathons.

Farewell, Srebrenica July 25, 2010

On Friday, the Summer Research University program ended. In an hour we headed to Sarajevo and from there our group goes our separate ways. But before the next part of my journey begins (including stops in Mostar and Istanbul), I wanted to share the speech I presented to the conference organizers and my fellow participants. More blog entries about the memorial center, transitional justice, and life in Bosnia i Herzegovina to follow.

Closing Speech of the Srebrenica-Potočari Memorial Center’s Summer Research University
Presented by Laurie Cohen
22 July 2010

Dobar Dan.

My name is Laurie Cohen and I would like to say a few words on behalf of the participants of the first annual Summer Research University held in Srebrenica for the past three weeks.

Intrigued by the opportunity to study at Srebrenica, we came from all over the world to immerse ourselves in the Summer Research University at the Srebrenica-Potočari Memorial Center, Marš Mira, and the commemoration ceremony on July 11th.

Collectively we represent the next generation of members of the international community.

A modern international community informed by the desire to serve, the desire to learn, the desire to respect, the desire to contribute, and the desire to be your partners.

Together, we come from Germany, Italy, the United States, Australia, Mexico, Ireland, Scotland, Montenegro, and the Czech Republic.

We are scholars, Ph.D. candidates, professors, professionals, and Master’s students.

We represent a variety of different religions, cultural backgrounds, global experiences, and ages.

All that linked us was a common desire to study and learn more about Srebrenica’s past, present, and future.

Some of us have had extensive experiences throughout Bosnia.

Some of us speak the language and understand your culture.

For others in the group, it was our very first experience in BiH, having only learned about the war, the genocide, and the country in textbooks and in our classes — far away from here emotionally and geographically.

Our research interests are varied. They include the study of:

• Peace building and transitional justice mechanisms
• The social anthropology of post-conflict societies
• Charity practices and post-socialist and post-war networks of solidarity in Bosnia
• Memorial sites as connections between past atrocities and contemporary society as mechanisms for healing and neutral discourse
• The anthropology of remembering: the memory of wartime violence and the politics of healing
• Ethnic identity and nationalism in the former Yugoslavia
• Religion and peace building in post-war BiH
• Economic revitalization and sustainable development in contemporary BiH
• Contested historical memory of the Srebrenica genocide in relation to contemporary society
• Media, politics, popular thought, and public memory
• The evolution of nationalism in contemporary BiH and the former Yugoslavia
• The responsibility of the international community as it relates to humanitarian intervention
• The ethical implications of September 11th

We came to Srebrenica to:

• Srebrenica and the memorial center as well as Zepa, Tuzla, and villages along the Marš Mira
• Broaden our understanding of BiH
• Learn about the Memorial Center and how it functions in present day BiH
• Gain first hand perspectives of life in Srebrenica and BiH
• Expand our understanding of Srebrenica, the war, the genocide, and current challenges facing BiH today
• Take the message of what happened back to our homes and communities to promote a greater understanding and awareness of BiH, Srebrenica, and your stories of survival
• Build upon what we have learned here, draw parallels in our own societies, and apply these insights to future conflicts so as to prevent war and genocide from happening again
• Contribute positively to the local economy and community

Our goals for next summer are to:

• Participate in the Marš Mira along with members of the local community
• Bring more scholars and increase interest and participation in the Summer Research University
• Secure international funding for future programming
• Contribute to the economic revitalization of the Srebrenica community

By the end of the trip, our group became a family infused by your tradition of hospitality.

We have been welcomed with open arms into your community.

You have shared with us your most painful, vivid, and personal memories.

You have entrusted us to carry your stories and emotions back to our homes so that we may share them with our families, friends, fellow students, work colleagues, and the rest of the world.

You have put a very real and personalized face on what happened here and we are truly blessed to have met you, to have had the opportunity to visit, and to increase our respect for and understanding of your lives and work in rebuilding BiH.

Thank you, Muhammed, for:

• Opening your home to us, even though we trashed it
• Listening to our endless needs, requests, and demands
• Planning, improvising, and improvising at every step of the journey to ensure our group was happy
• Sharing your stories of courage and survival
• And most of all, for having the vision to make this program a reality

Thank you, Ajdin and Kiran, for:

• Organizing the thousands of details involved in getting 15 people and our rolling luggage to and from everywhere
• Answering our questions every hour
• Booking such amazing and thoughtful speakers
• Sharing your time and your hearts
• And for being such fabulous program hosts

Thank you to the team at the Memorial Center, for:

• Inviting us into the center and the cemetery
• Letting us explore the property
• and sharing your experiences with us

Thank you to everyone from the bottom of our hearts. We are eternally grateful and blessed to have shared this experience with you. We will see you next summer! Živjeli!

Bones. Thugs. Disharmony. July 21, 2010

A single human skeleton contains 206 bones. Fingers. Knuckles. Toes. Pelvis. Spine. Legs. Arms. Neck. Hips. Skull.
—
A single human body contains a heart. Lungs. Blood. A brain.
—
A single human being contains a mind. Love. Hope. Joy. And most of all, a soul.
—
A single human existence is precious.
—
A single human life reduced to a pile of bones whose remains are found in four separate locations across fifteen separate mass graves/pits. Perhaps a single broken fragment of a bone is found. Or two. Ten. Thirty. With or without the skull attached.

Re-association: the process of putting the bones of a body together based upon DNA testing.
—
On this trip, we had the occasion to visit the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) in Tuzla, about a three hours drive from Srebrenica. The ICMP is the largest international organization dedicated to the forensic identification of persons missing from war, genocide, natural disasters, and other tragedies.
—
Upon walking into the ICMP’s Podrinje Identification Facility, it looked like a regular disheveled office with a long hallway and several offices. Papers and office equipment stacked haphazardly in the hallway, except for the large yellow doors that look like the entrances to commercial freezers. Following a detailed explanation of the ICMP’s work I was staring into what appeared to be a large room with bookshelves, medical equipment, and two washing machines. Nothing much to stare at. Then I poked my head into the space a bit further. And there he was. The skeletal remains of an adult male spread out on metal table organized as though this soul was lying down taking a nap. His ribs. Pelvis. Femurs. Hands — a series of bony parts sans his skull. I went numb.
—
Behind the yellow door we walked into a large warehouse with a clammy temperature and a gassy, odd smell. Inside it were trays and trays of bags stacked ceiling to floor. Plastic mesh and brown paper bags with identification numbers on them containing unearthed bone fragments, clothes, and other artifacts excavated from mass graves. My tears began to flow. My breath became shallow. My skin pale. My head pounding. My stomach turning. The experience will live within me forever.
—
The Popović trial heard by the International Criminal Tribunal of the Former Yugoslavia proved beyond a reasonable doubt that genocide was indeed committed at Srebrenica on 11 July 1995. The physical evidence accumulated makes this a proven fact despite Serbian nationalist propaganda and rhetoric claiming otherwise.
—
To date, the ICMP has identified 5,036 missing persons from Srebrenica. Identifying those murdered in the genocide presents a number of forensic challenges, not the least of which is the large number of people who met ‘missing’ in such short span of time. This is compounded by the lack of forensic capacity in the local municipalities and the sheer number of primary and secondary mass graves located throughout the countryside. As a result, the challenge of identifying a single human being is extremely difficult because the remains of each person slaughtered have been violently disturbed, even after the most gruesome of deaths. This problem is because the Bosnian Serbs disinterred bodies from primary graves to secondary ones. In the process, the bones were damaged. Clothing, objects, and even identification cards fell away that may have more quickly made the recognition process somewhat easier.
—
Following the war, an army of international archaeologists and anthropologists descended upon Bosnia. Some remains were excavated by hand, while others were dug up using mechanical equipment, further damaging the evidence. The process of identifying each bone requires a DNA sample to be taken. But in order to make a match, DNA samples from family members are also required. Since over 8,000 men and boys went missing, the ICMP had to collect blood samples from 8,000 families in the Bosnian Diaspora scattered across the globe. As such, over 28,000 separate DNA tests were collected for over 15,000 victims given the scattering of forensic evidence and large number of mass graves.
—
The ICMP estimates that approximately 8-10,000 bodies are still buried underneath the ground. The location of these graves is complicated by the fact that there are few witnesses willing to come forward. The reason? These particular persons are frequently eye witnesses and/or participants in the murders. And even though the Bosniak men and boys killed were from Bosnia i Herzegovina (BiH), their remains may also turn up in other territories. These locations include Serbia and Croatia given that the Drina River Valley is the natural division between countries rather than the politically-enforced borders. As a result, the site of a person’s disappearance may not in fact guarantee the recovery of his remains in the same place.
—
The Research and Documentation Center in Sarajevo (RDC) runs the Human Losses Project. This recording process has collected evidence of 100,000 persons killed, lost, and missing during the war of all ethnic backgrounds. The project provides irrefutable evidence of the war’s devastation on the population. The RDCS uses Google Atlas technology to locate these mass graves. 4,500 bodies have been buried to date. The decision to bury one of the identified victims is solely up to the family. However, the process of identification does not end when a body is buried since additional bones may turn up in graves at a later date. Some families choose to delay this process as long as possible especially when the skull is missing and/or to ensure that the majority of bones have been located.
—
As luck would have it, on the Marš Mira Peace March, I met Sarah Wagner, an assistant professor at the University of South Carolina at Greensboro. She wrote an influential book entitled, ““To Know Where He Lies: DNA Technology and the Search for Srebrenica’s Missing.”While remains from victims from the 1995 Srebrenica genocide have been mostly located, those persons slaughtered in 1992 are not as likely given the passage of time.
—
Forensic re-association and DNA matching remain a scientific process. Not so for the families of the missing. During our visit to the Srebrenica-Potočari Memorial Center, we met with a staff member whose father was killed in the genocide and who was missing for several years. One night she had a dream that her father’s remains would be identified with the exception of a single piece. A call from the ICMP came the next day confirming her vision: her father’s body had been found and was only missing one part. The bones may turn to dust, but the soul remains.
—————————————————————————-
International Commission on Missing Persons:

http://www.ic-mp.org/

**
Popović et al. (IT-05-88) “Srebrenica”: http://www.icty.org/case/popovic/4
**
The Research and Documentation Center: Human Losses Project:

http://www.norveska.ba/ARKIV/Ongoing_Projects/6CFD9857_BDFA_402B_8CF2_45E9803E08B5/

***
Sarah Wagner’s book, “To Know Where He Lies: DNA Technology and the Search for Srebrenica’s Missing”:
http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520255753

Let me show you the world in my eyes July 15, 2010

 My deepest suspicions are true: in that place during that time I would not have lived. I would be dead. From mortar shells, from sniper gunfire, from execution, from dehydration, from hunger, from exhaustion, from rape, from torture, or from much worse. It does not matter how, but the truth remains the same. The fate of my immediate family, extended kin, and beloved friends would remain unknown. How easy is it to think about the past and contemplate what you would do to escape a war? Targeted persecution? The face of evil? How easy is it to believe that you would be the one to be saved, to possess super human strength to survive, to beat the odds and live to tell the harrowing tale?

         

 I came to Bosnia i Herzegovina (BiH) for two reasons. One was to conduct research at the Srebrenica-Potočari Memorial Center for my master’s thesis on the relevancy of memorial sites as a way to connect past atrocities with contemporary issues. The other was to reconcile my historic categorization as the other with my emerging identity as a visible and empowered global citizen advocating equality, human rights, and tolerance for all.

        But first things first. My journey to BiH began with my acceptance as one of 15 participants taking part in the inaugural Summer Research University (SRU) sponsored by the Srebrenica-Potočari Memorial Center. On this trip are a mix of master’s and Ph.D. students, researchers, and professors from countries including Montenegro, Australia, the Czech Republic, Mexico, Ireland, Italy, and the United States (US).

        In the parts of the countryside I have seen to date, signs of war, shells, bullets, and destroyed buildings abound. Reconstruction is most definitely visible. But for a newcomer to BiH, the destruction is overwhelming. Everywhere you look there are reminders of war. Houses that have not yet been resurfaced look as though they have severe acne. Marks on buildings from bombs and mortar rounds look like deep splatters and ‘bear claws’ as Christopher Hutchins describes. After studying the war in BiH for many years, and in-depth in my graduate coursework, nothing could still have prepared me for the realities on the ground. No amount of research can approximate my experiences here to date, both negatively and positively.  

        BiH is one state with two political entities: the Federation of BiH (mostly inhabited by Bosnian Muslims aka Bosniaks and Croats) and Republika Srpska (RS), dominated by Bosnian Serbs. For example, while there is one army and a single currency, there are different educational and telecommunication institutions. While BiH has a new flag for the entire country, the territory of RS features many Serbian nationalist symbols including its own flag and religious three finger hand moniker. The reality is more complicated as resettlement programs initiated by the international community have resulted in a mix of these three ethnic groups. This is despite the fact that returning refugees encounter a terrain that no longer resembles the homes of their memories. 

        This three week in-country immersion features two components. The program’s first half was a 110KM three day peace march (Marš Mira) attended by over 6,000 people throughout the BiH countryside (primarily in the territory of RS) between 8-10 July 2010. The other portion of the program is to meet with survivors and staff from the memorial center as well as with local, regional, and international experts about the war and the reconstruction challenges and opportunities within this post-conflict landscape. So far we have met with a legal advisor from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE); a police investigator with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY); the head a civil-society organization, and a former soldier from the Dutchbat 3 (Dutch Battalion) peacekeeping mission. This does not include the myriad of people we have met along the way who survived the genocide, fought in the army, and/or remain deeply affected by the aftermath of war.

        Marš Mira took us through the woods, mud, steep hills, corn fields, gravel roads, and local villages. It is described as “to freedom via the route of death” and considered a peaceful protest attended by national and international participants of all ages. Residents along the route came to watch the marchers and at many homes coffee, tea, juice, snacks, and water were freely distributed.

        We camped for three nights. The first evening outdoors (prior to the start of the march) was in a small field surrounded by the woods with approximately ten houses nearby. Upon our group’s arrival, complete with a pile of backpacks and rolling luggage (for reasons to difficult to explain), we discovered that men outnumbered women by 50 to one (or so it seemed). The group could not have looked more conspicuous and ridiculous. Our luggage and laptops were eventually evacuated to a more secure location. We could se se nearly everyone, including the Bosnian army, staring at us, as though we were aliens arriving from another planet. Large tents housing 60 persons each were set up by the army. After being heckled out of one of these massive tents, a kind soul came out to welcome our group, putting us somewhat more at ease. My single person tent stood out as though adorned in neon. Needless to say, one of the men in our SRU group used it instead.

        At dusk, it began to pour while consumption of alcohol flowed throughout the crowd, even though this was strictly prohibited. Nothing about that first night indicated the sentimental journey to follow in the coming days. “God is crying for Srebrenica,” a new compassionate acquaintance told me. His parents unable to secure US visas for him and his two brothers, the three boys were forced to return to BiH and lived here with relatives throughout the war.

        During the darkness, especially when the army’s floodlights were turned off, the rowdiness of the crowd intensified. So did the aggressiveness of the men towards the women in our group. That is not to say that there were not gentlemen or soldiers present who were willing to strongly shoo away our determined and over-stimulated suitors. A few older women and children from the neighboring village came out and invited us to spend the night in their homes. It was a blessing from above after having had my nerves utterly shattered. During this night, I began smoking cigarettes to quell my intense anxiety and fear. I was visibly shaking unable to hold the smoke, as a fellow female SRU participant later told me.

        At dawn the following day, the march began in earnest. Thousands of men, women, and small children marched body to body for a long time in the intense heat. A water tanker followed us and bread and high caloric snacks were provided at key junctures from the Tuzla Canton’s Red Cross. I found it extremely difficult to walk and was overwhelmed with the irony that the now peaceful, lush, and gorgeous countryside was a death trap in 1995. The walking sticks I balked at purchasing back in the US were the primary reason I was able to march at all. (More on that later).

        Interspersed throughout the walk were small printed signs denoting numerous locations of mass graves. The signage indicated both primary execution sites as well as secondary pits where the remains of those massacred were moved by the Bosnian Serbs in an effort to destroy forensic evidence. At all times the path we took was within sight of mountainous areas that had sheltered snipers determined to kill those fleeing during the war.

        Over the course of three days, the march took us from a small village in Nezuk back to Potočari. The path retraced the steps – in the opposite direction – of the thousands of Bosniak men who fled Srebrenica and Potočari in an effort to reach Tuzla, part of the ‘free’ territory during the war. This route became a journey of death for the thousands of men who took to the hills in an effort to escape. Despite the cover of trees and foliage, this human column was surrounded by Bosnian Serbs who subsequently captured and murdered a significant number of male refugees. The fate of thousands, mostly men and boys, remain unknown to this day. The vast majority of persons executed were males aged 12 to 75.

     A separate mass of people–some 40,000, including men, women, children, the infirm, the elderly, and the newly born–all fled from surrounding villages first to Srebrenica and later to the industrial center in Potočari as the Bosnian Serb army continued to ethnically cleanse the area. It is at Potočari where the primary United Nations (UN) compound is located. This massive site was declared by the UN Security Council’s Resolution 819 a ‘safe haven.’ (UNSC Resolution 824 later extended this categorization to Tuzla, Žepa, Bihač, Goražde, and Sarajevo.) History proved otherwise. Men, women, and children were separated from one another at the Potočari site, which included an old battery factory. Women and children were put on buses and sent to Tuzla via a harrowing journey throughout hostile territory and constant harassment from armed Bosnian Serbs demanding cash and goods. Eight thousand men and boys suffered a more gruesome and genocidal fate.

        The march ended in the commemoration of the fifteenth anniversary of the genocide that took place in and around the Srebrenica enclave on 11 July 1995. The event was attended by international diplomats, BiH government officials, and well over 20,000 local visitors. These included families, an overwhelming number who were women, mourning their beloved sons, husbands, grandfathers, uncles, neighbors, and friends. Approximately 750 persons were buried, whose remains were recently identified. The iconic images of a two rows of men passing these green coffins from the battery factory several hundred feet to the cemetery across the street was humbling, numbing, and intensely emotional. Interspersed were international photojournalists looking for the perfect shot of women crying and praying for their loved ones. Even members of the SRU group, including myself, confronted the ethical dilemma of taking pictures to document the experience while trying to respect the intense mourning that engulfed us.

        More installments, including happier encounters, to follow.

Background on the Srebrenica Genocide:

http://www.srebrenicagenocide.org/

http://srebrenica-genocide.blogspot.com/

Marš Mira:

http://www.Maršmira.org/en_Maršmira.php

Srebrenica-Potočari Memorial Center Summer Research Institute:

http://sru.potocarimc.ba/cat_2010.php

UN Security Council Resolution 819:

http://www.nato.int/ifor/un/u930416a.htm

“The 10 Worst U.N. Security Council Resolutions Ever” by Colum Lynch

(Foreign Policy Magazine, 24 May 2010) 

http://tinyurl.com/3ahxry8

Back from outer space November 24, 2009

Over three months have passed since our return from Bangladesh. I must confess, though. My head is very much still immersed in the developing world and the adjustment back to my ultra-urbanized life has been a challenge.

 

Nonetheless I have been attending classes – writing policy papers and op-ed articles about reflections on South Asia and broader humanitarian issues. Some of these experiences have been highlighted in brochures from New York University’s Center for Global Affairs. It is an honor to have been included in these publications and I am really proud to share them. They represent the first published steps in my journey to become an international human rights practitioner.

 

During the first month back I completed an application for a Fulbright research grant. Funded by the US State Department, I would study abroad for ten months beginning next August. The research will form the basis for my master’s thesis on women’s rights in Cambodia. The completion of this application is significant milestone. It is one that I could not have achieved without the support of NYU’s network of professors and partnerships. I also received guidance from within my extended family versed in grant writing. All of which I am eternally grateful.

 

My husband Gregory and I also received good news from PHREB, the NGO where we worked this summer. The first grant proposal we pitched for PHREB was accepted by one of the five largest Dutch development organizations. The initial correspondence was written after landing in the country for a mere three days. Subsequently, we (the NGO) were invited to submit a detailed programmatic and financial action plan.

 

The €40,000 euro funding covers a one year pilot study to investigate ways to improve maternal mortality rates in Moheshkhali. A remote island in the Bay of Bengal, the isle has a single hospital for 600,000 people. There are virtually no obstetric services.  (You can read more in my blog entry 5 July 2009: The Caged Bird Sings).

 

And a few weeks ago, we received positive word from another potential funder. This partner has asked PHREB to submit a proposal to fund physical education programming for girls. It is based upon a single page expression of interest that I recently wrote. Greg and I are now compiling a ten page application that is due at the start of December. Fingers crossed.

 

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