THE RECONCILIATION PROCESS BEGAN TOO EARLY IN KOSOVO, NOW IT IS DERIDED AS A JOKE. This is how this article should start. With this statement. With a rather generalized, vague and cloudy premise, just like the very concept of reconciliation – of reconciliation between nations which inflicted on each other violence, killings, destruction, deportation, and unforgettable suffering and horrors (oh, […]

Source: BIRN Photo: BIRN The bridge across the river dividing the Kosovo town of Mitrovica into ethnic Albanian and Serb areas is being reopened, but its history as a focus for tensions means locals are wary about expecting progress. Since the war ended in Kosovo in 1999, the bridge over the river Ibar in the town of Mitrovica has become […]

Source: http://www.balkaninsight.com   President Hashim Thaci announced a new Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which he said was intended to encourage mutual forgiveness among Kosovo’s Albanians and Serbs.   Die Morina, Doruntina Baliu, BIRN, Pristina                                                       […]

Source: http://www.warscapes.com Caterina Bonora, Refik Hodžić Established by the United Nations in 1993, when war was still raging in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has finally reached its last year of existence. In its twenty-four years of existence, the Tribunal has brought to justice 121 individuals from the former Yugoslavia. This includes prominent political figures […]

Source: http://www.balkaninsight.com/   Serb politicians have condemned a memorial plaque with a fascist slogan which was installed by Croatian war veterans and right-wing politicians near the Jasenovac WWII concentration camp.   Sven Milekic, BIRN,Zagreb The plaque with the ‘Za dom spremni’ slogan in the Jasenovac municipality. Photo: Udhos Zagreb. Serb politicians in Croatia and Serbia on Sunday strongly criticised former members of the […]

Source: http://www.balkaninsight.com/ Wartime Sarajevo-based correspondent Kevin Sullivan’s new novel The Longest Winter tries to reflect the humanity and courage of people living in the Bosnian capital during the 1992-95 siege. Eleanor Rose BIRN Sarajevo The Grbavica district of Sarajevo just after the war. Photo: US Defence Department. In Kevin Sullivan’s living room, there is a framed photograph of himself lying in a debris-strewn road in […]

Izvor: www.balkaninsight.com Eleanor Rose, BIRN, Sarajevo Despite funding setbacks and broken promises of support, the War Childhood Museum will open in Sarajevo in December to exhibit people’s personal mementoes of growing up during the conflict, its director says.  Jasminko Halilovic is tired. Face taut, he admits he is working 16- to 18-hour days in the run-up to the opening of the War Childhood […]

Source: http://www.balkaninsight.com/ Natalia Zaba BIRN Belgrade When director Gazmend Bajri met the subject of his latest film, he found an outlet for his feelings about how he himself suffered during the Kosovo war – and how he dealt with the trauma afterwards.  Gazmend Bajri might use other people’s experiences in his films, but his understanding of how they think and feel is based […]

Source: http://www.balkandiskurs.com/ By Mladen Lakić “I didn’t feel any support or empathy or hear someone say, ‘I’m sorry’. No! I heard many people say, ‘She got what she asked for.’ That hurts.” “If I had stayed there, in Bosnia, I wouldn’t have had an even remotely normal life,” says MR, a women victim of rape during the war. When the […]

http://www.balkaninsight.com/​ Elameri Skrgic Mikulic BIRN Sarajevo More than 1,000 women in Bosnia and Herzegovina who suffered sexual violence during the 1990s conflict cannot become mothers because of serious psychological traumas and the medical consequences of being raped. “The truth is that they killed my youth. The truth is that I lost my home and marriage. Yes, they took my unborn child. The […]

http://www.balkaninsight.com/ BIRN’s Kosovo War Film Screened at Sarajevo University Sarajevo University’s law and political sciences faculties screened BIRN’s documentary ‘The Unidentified’, about the Serbian fighters responsible for some of the worst atrocities of the Kosovo war in 1999. Ajla Gezo BIRN Sarajevo  ‘The Unidentified’, which investigates attacks on Kosovo villages in 1999 and names those involved in an attempted cover-up […]