The political project-Serb great state project-" All Serbs in one state" resulted in an internal crisis in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, destroyed a common state and escalated in an aggressive wars and genocide.


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I witnessed a similar situation, forty years ago, in Bangladesh, when a Muslim chief of State, President Mujibur Rahman, made the courageous decision to declare birangona -- literally, national heroines -- the dozens of thousands of young women who had been raped by the ruffian soldiers of the Pakistani army and who, for that, had been outcasts not only of society but often of their own families as well. This, mutatis mutandis, is the gesture of Angelina Jolie. And it is what makes the sombre grandeur of her film.

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February 13, 2012, Washington, D.C. - In collaboration with the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo, American Councils for International Education just launched its newest program in Bosnia-Herzegovina, with the purpose of bringing together high school students from the Croat and Bosniak ethnic groups to share a classroom for the first time in 20 years.  

Seven students from the Bosniak ethnic group and seven students from the Croat ethnic group are sharing a classroom and studying English language and American culture during this 27-week course. Bosniak and Croat teachers of English are working together to instruct the class for two hours per week using an "American-style" curriculum, which includes educational films, games, group activities, and individual presentations. American Councils is implementing this pilot project in two high schools in the town of Zepce, Bosnia-Herzegovina. 

As a remnant of the Balkans Wars in the late 1990s, nearly 60 high schools in Bosnia-Herzegovina remain segregated along ethnic lines. Often referred to as "segregated schools" or "two schools under one roof," these high schools hold separate classes for Croats, Serbs, and Bosniaks. Students from different ethnic groups even enter the school through separate doors. This new program marks the first time students of different ethnic groups share a classroom and study together in a segregated school.  

When asked about the anticipated effects of the new program, Lisa Fiala, American Councils' Regional Director for Southeast Europe, explained, "the unique ability of this program to bring together students from different ethnic groups, otherwise educated in segregated classrooms, while incorporating American-style teaching and learning, will prove invaluable and will serve to promote cooperation, interaction, and understanding among participants." After the successful implementation of the pilot project, there are plans are to expand the program to more schools and include other ethnic groups. 

Click here to learn more about American Councils programs in Southeastern Europe: http://www.ac-see.org/.

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After reading “Peace and Punishments” the sensation of “miscarriage of justice” overwhelmed me. Florence Hartman uses this term to describe the decision made by the Appeals Chamber of the United Nations Judicial body in 2006. This decision, was to forego a remedy for the error of the 3 judges of the International Tribune of Serbia in 2003 that made a secret agreement with Belgrade requesting protective measures for all the documents establishing that the Serbian State had authority over its partners in crime in Bosnia, protecting Serbia from genocide conviction, in which 5 judges of the International Court presided by Italian Fausto Polar confirmed the previous decision. Effectively making them willing partners in the manipulation organized by the government in Belgrade. They found new evidence that the decision from 2003 was “wrong as a matter of law”, understanding that Belgrade was not attempting to protect its “national security” but instead to obstruct justice and its search for the truth. These events allowed information directly implicating the Serbian State in the war in Bosnia and the Srebrenica genocide to remain inaccessible to the ICJ and the public.

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The significance of the Serbian government’s arrest of General Ratko Mladic as ordered by President Boris Tadic is enormous, as it enables the courts to start criminal proceedings against one of the worst war criminals. The indictment includes war crimes against humanity and international law during the aggression on Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995, as well as the genocide of Bosniaks in Srebrenica, where more than 8000 unarmed men and boys were killed and more than 25000 women, children, and elderly were expelled from their homes, all under direct orders from Mladic.

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This paper is intended to give contribution to the celebration of the 25th November – Day of Bosnia and Herzegovina statehood and, in this regard, it represents the objective scientific findings related to the history of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which confirms that Bosnia and Herzegovina is a permanent political, social, and historic category. Within the framework of the selected topic and the space, we shall present four major issues – social and scientific findings, such as: ZAVNOBiH (Anti-fascistic Council of the National Defense of Bosnia and Herzegovina) and its historic relevance, Communists and the issue of Bosniac ethnicity, Restoration and the escalation of the Great Serbian movement, and Planning of crimes and defense of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

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Comparing Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosnia) and the U.S. in terms of governance and public policy is a very challenging task even though some of the key elements of Bosnia’s political, legal, economic and judicial systems were created by the U.S. administration. In terms of evaluating the current system of Bosnia and Herzegovina it is important to review the United States’ system of governance and its basic democratic principles. The long term success of the US style of democratic governance can also be attributed to years of trial and error attempts and a somewhat bloody history of civil rights for all American citizens. Bosnia and Herzegovina’s current political and legal system is a result of a war which ravaged the country and the hastily constructed Dayton Peace accord. Even one of the main creators and chief negotiators during the negotiations, the now late Richard Holbrooke, acknowledged the shortfalls of the Dayton Peace agreement regretting not to have made “a stronger effort to drop the name Republika Srpska” and further clarifying that the US administration “underestimated the value to Pale of retaining their blood-soaked name” (Holbrooke, 1999, p. 135).

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Congress of North American Bosniaks (CNAB) , the Canadian Institute for Research of Genocide and the Bosnian-American Genocide Institute and Education Center (BAGI) are disappointed with the extremely lenient decision by the U.S. court regarding the case of Milenko Krstic, a Bosnian Serb and the father of a former Miss Oregon who lied about his army service during the war in Bosnia when he applied for asylum in the United States. Krstic has been sentenced to only one year of probation, the most lenient federal sentence for a felony crime last week.

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Excerpts from an exclusive interview with Florence Hartman (done by Maja Kassa, her associate) for the Bosnian-American Genocide Institute and Education Center (BAGI). The complete interview in Bosnian can be found on the Bosnian library’s website www.bosnianamericanlibrarychicago.com.

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Since Tuesday evening's escalating protests in Egypt, my friends have been contacting me about my Facebook video and photo re-postings of the demonstrations. They are confused about what is happening and why. After all, for many of them Egypt is a tourist friendly destination offering the best of its ancient past wrapped in five-star luxury. Yet, the situation in Egypt has always been complex and the depth of the Egyptian people's anger at its government is difficult to convey in simple a Facebook post. The fundamental problem is decades of life without personal freedoms; the lack of freedom of speech, assembly, association, press, and religion. The government enforced that through menacing totalitarianism.

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On the eve of the Egyptian Coptic Christmas this January 7, I am in pain as I think of the Church of the Two Saints in eastern Alexandria, Egypt, the site of a New Years Day suicide bombing that killed twenty-three and wounded seventy-nine. It was the latest in a recent spate of violent attacks against Christian communities throughout the Middle East. (About ten percent of Egypt's 80 million residents are Coptic Christians. (A recent Time magazine article about the Two Saints bombing is "After Bombing, Egypt's Christians Worship and Worry.")

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In reference to the practice of the International Court of Justice, we have frequent serious and sensitive scientific debates leading to significant dilemmas for both scientific workers – scholars and the professionals but also some social and political subjects. One of the dilemmas, for example, may be formulated in a question - is it a legal or political practice, which serves as the fundament of the approach in the work of the International Court of Justice. One of the apparent examples, which started the serious debate and division and the judiciary practice is the Judgment of the International Court of Justice in the case Bosnia and Herzegovina vs. Serbia and Montenegro of 26 February 2007.

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The film “The Weight of Chains”, by Serbian-Canadian filmmaker Boris Malagurski, is yet another of a series of films that seeks to hide Serbian responsibility for the bloody Balkan wars of the last century‟s final decade. Besides this film, others that fall into this category include documentaries by the Norwegian authors Ole Flyum and David Hebditch. The films “The city that could be sacrificed” – about Srebrenica, and “Traces from Sarajevo” – about Al-Qaeda in Sarajevo, were aired recently on Norwegian national television. Also worth mentioning is the documentary “An agreed-upon war”, recently aired on Serbian television. Although “The Weight of Chains” actually premiered last year in Subotica, these days it‟s being aggressively promoted on the internet. This is most likely in response to the media highlighting the July 11th commemoration of the Srebrenica Genocide.

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