A weeklong course examining the history, context, and changing politics of peacebuilding It is now more than twenty years since the war in Bosnia but the economy is still struggling, the infrastructure is still crumbling, and the political institutions are still stalled in conflict. For the international community, Bosnia is the textbook case for post-conflict peacebuilding, but what has actually […]

Source: http://www.balkaninsight.com   Anti-smoking warning “Smoking kills” on a packet of cigarettes in Bosnia, written completely the same in all languages, with the only difference is that the Serbian warning is written in the Cyrillic script. Photo: Facebook/Sava Mandic    A declaration that Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin and Serbian are all variations of the same language has annoyed conservatives, but received […]

Source:balkaninsight Photo: Srebrenica town centre, Samun Benutzer/Wikicommons   Mladen Grujicic, Srebrenica’s first Serb mayor, says he wants to look beyond the trauma of war and the bitterly-contested genocide debate to seek a better future for the depopulated, impoverished town. “When people see things going forwards, they will stop going back to the past. The past has only created conflict and […]

Source: http://www.balkaninsight.com Sven Milekić, BIRN, Zagreb Croatia’s tourist guide association told BIRN that it is working alongside the country’s tourism ministry to change the regulations on qualifying examinations for guides to include specialised tuition on the 1990s war. “We see tourist guides as a link between tourism and cultural heritage; without a well-educated guide, there can be no cultural tourism. And […]

Source: recom.link By Denisa Kostovicova* ABSTRACT Contemporary conflicts are seldom contained within nation states. The cross-border nature of violence has prompted scholars to call for a regional approach to transitional justice (TJ). This article furthers our understanding of the regional dimension of postconflict justice by addressing the puzzle of whether discourse in regional-level debates is different from that in national- […]

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 […]