Balkans Part 4

The trip is finally drawing to a close. I am at the airport in Dubrovnik, Croatia. It has been an exciting and tiring week or so. I have been in Dubrovnik for the past day or two with a friend from class just chilling. There is a lot of work to be done when I am home. I have to write up my research report on the Bosnian situation. I also have essays to write and a dissertation proposal to hand in. Good times! This trip was great though. I have taken in a lot of information and have looked at the situation in Bosnia from plenty of different angles. The most interesting part of this trip was visiting the town of Srebrenica. This is where the Serbian army massacred tens of thousands of Bosnian Muslims under the eyes of a battalion of Dutch UN peacekeeping troops. The UN was hopelessly naive in thinking they could create a 'safe zone' around the town of Srebrenica to protect the citizens from the Serbian army which had surrounded the area. This was a huge mistake as it meant that tens of thousands of Bosnian Muslims from the surrounding areas descended on the town hoping for protection. This created a ridiculous situation where the UN peacekeeping troops struggled to maintain order and at the same time protect the Bosnian Muslims from the Serbian army. The Serbian army flouted the safe zone agreement and simply marched into the town. Thousands of men and boys ran for the hills and were massacred by the Serbian army. Those who failed to get away on time were transported in trucks and systematically killed by the Serbian army. The UN peacekeeping troops simply watched on. There was also a crazy situation where thousands of Bosnian Muslims who had managed to seek refuge inside a factory building were asked to leave by the UN peacekeeping troops when the Serbian army arrived. You have to wonder what on earth was going on. Of course, it is easy to blame the UN Dutch peacekeeping troops. I think the problem is found in the higher politics of the UN and the fact that the troops were not granted a clear mandate to use force. The creation of a safe zone was also a mistake if not enough troops were sent to enforce it.
Right. It is soon time to board the plane. The first thing I want when I get back is sleep and a big English breakfast ..
And here are a couple of pictures from my last couple of days in Dubrovnik.

Balkans Part 3

We were in Mostar today. It was one of the towns in Bosnia and Herzegovina which experienced much of the conflict during the Bosnian War. Many of the bombed out buildings were still standing even fifteen years after the conflict. I suppose there are issues to do with property ownership and problems with deciding what to do with these properties. Still, they are a bitter reminder of the conflict. We visited a youth center which provides social space for youth from both Bosnian Muslim and Croatian communities. It is the only one of its kind in Mostar. There are still really obvious divisions between the two ethnic groups in Mostar. We recieved a talk from one of the women who runs the center. The lack of progress since the war fifteen years ago is quite sobering. I discovered the Bosnian government provides very little financial support for initiatives such as this one. This is interesting as many know that the main problem blocking progress in Bosnia is the ethnic divisions and the challenges associated with reconciliation. The biggest source of support for the center came from international donors. The problem is that since the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, the focus of the international community has shifted. As a result, less money is being sent to Bosnia. The international community seems to think that the situation has been resolved when in fact it has not. This is reflected in the higher politics of Bosnia. The Office of the High Representative seems unwilling to intervene and press the Bosnian politicians to form a government, even though it has been four months since the elections. This is because there is very little political will to do this. The Office of the High Representative no longer has the resources it had in the past when Bosnia was higher on the agenda of the international community. The dominant view at this stage is that the Bosnians should take responsibility for their future and not rely on the international community. This is extremely difficult for them to do though when the structure they are working within, which was created by the international community, is one of the major obstacles. Of course, it is very easy to criticise the international community. We criticise when they intervene, and then we criticise when they pull out. This is not constructive. Both the international community and Bosnians are responsible for moving the situation forward. Bosnians are responsible for forgiving each other and overcoming their differences. This is their choice. There is very little the international community can do in this sense other than support initiatives such as the one in Mostar and others in the country. The fact that the Bosnian government displays very little regard for such initiatives is worrying. This needs to change. The international community on the other hand has a responsiblity for supporting Bosnia to reform the structure they put in place after the war. This is something the Bosnians evidently need help with. Again, the shift in focus on the international scene means that this may not happen for a while. Anyway, I still need to learn much more to draw such conclusions, so I'll leave it at that!
After Mostar, we continued on to a Cold War nuclear bunker built for the President of Yugoslavia, Josip Tito. It was located in the mountains surrounding Sarajevo and disguised by an ordinary house infront of a cliff. The road leading up to the house was guarded by a Bosnian soldier. There was also a sign warning of landmines around the hillside. The bunker itself was fascinating. I have attached a few pictures below.
So that was my day. When back in Sarajevo, we had dinner in a Morrocan restaurant in the old town. I'm ready to hit the sack now. Tomorrow, I'm meeting with the British Ambassador for Bosnia in the morning and with the Chief of Staff to the first Bosnian President. Looks like it will be an interesting day, again!

Balkans Part 2

This trip is proving to be quite an eye opener. We have had Q&A sessions with officials from several international organisations in Sarajevo. Their insights have been really valuable and have given me a much broader understanding of the situation in Bosnia. In only two days, we have met with officials from the Bosnian Parliament, World Bank, Organisation for Cooperation and Security in Europe, EU Delegation, UN Development Programme, and the Office of the High Representative. We also met students running a university radio station in Sarajevo and film makers who captured footage during the Bosnian War and the siege of Sarajevo in the early 1990s. As in Dubrovnik, it was an eerie feeling to see footage of familiar sights being bombarded by Serbian shells. It was also the first time I have ever met somebody who has lived through war. I had never realised that the siege lasted for four years from 1992 to 1996. According to Wikipedia, it was the longest siege of a capital city in modern warfare. It is also difficult to imagine that people lived through this year in and year out without the basic needs of heating and running water. I think the following statement made during the prosecution at the International Criminal Tribunal of two Serbian generals who conducted the siege sums it up pretty well.

"The siege of Sarajevo, as it came to be popularly known, was an episode of such notoriety in the conflict in the former Yugoslavia that one must go back to World War II to find a parallel in European history. Not since then had a professional army conducted a campaign of unrelenting violence against the inhabitants of a European city so as to reduce them to a state of medieval deprivation in which they were in constant fear of death. In the period covered in this Indictment, there was nowhere safe for a Sarajevan, not at home, at school, in a hospital, from deliberate attack."

In fact, even as I write this post, I am seeing footage of the war being replayed on the Bosnian news. It confirms the fact that people here are having great difficulty moving on and accepting what happened. The students at the Sarajevo university radio station were saying that all people talk about is the war. I suppose Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats are also having great difficult forgiving the Serbs. This is difficult as they all essentially live in the same country. The ethnic differences are easy to see in the education system as well. Parents of one ethnic group refuse to send their children to a school with a majority of students from another ethnic group. It is plain to see in the media and politics as well. For example, it is common knowledge that politicians play on the ethnic divisions to gain support and votes. People from one particular ethnic group will only vote for politicians of their own ethnicity. And as much of the media is owned by political parties, they end up singing the tune of these politicians. In short, the differences are only exaggerated making reconciliation extremely difficult to achieve. This is only the problem on the ground. The high politics of the Bosnian situation is just as difficult. The consensus is that the peace agreement drawn up by the international community and which ended the Bosnian War only served to seperate the different ethnic groups. The political system is extremely complex. Bosnia has a tripartite presidency. This means Bosnia has a Serbian, Muslim, and Croat President. To complicate things further, each ethnic group have a veto power which blocks progress and slows the decision making progress. The peace agreement also gave a lot of authority to a body called the Office of the High Representative. This body reports back to a higher authority called the Peace Implementation Council consisiting of mostly representatives from Western governments. The office of the High Representative has sweeping powers and can even dismiss Bosnian officials if it so chooses. The current situation is particularly crazy. Since the 2010 elections, Bosnia still hasn't formed a government. The situation has been dragging on for four months. The Office of the High Representative could very well intervene in such a situation and force the Bosnians to form a government. However, the situation is such that Western governments are reluctant to commit more money and resources to Bosnia and the Office of the High Representative, especially when much of the focus has been on the reconstruction of Iraq and the war in Afghanistan. Bosnia is in danger of becoming another forgotten war. We met an official from the Office of the High Representative today who seemed especially concerned with how things will play out if the Bosnians don't get their act together and form a government. The biggest problem is the power of the veto. The situation today for example is only the way it is because three cantons with Croat majorities in the Federation of Bosnia Herzgovina have refused to send their MPs to parliament. The Serbs in the Republic of Serbska are also causing problems and demanding more powers. Note: Bosnia is divided into two entities: The Federation of Bosnia Herzgovina and Republica Serbska.

The consensus is that the Bosnians should reform their constitution as laid out in the peace agreement made after the war. However, this would mean removing the power of veto. This is something the different ethnic groups refuse to accept as they are bent on protecting their own interests. The carrot being offered by the international community is accession to the EU. Still, this is not proving to be enough of an incentive. The feeling I have got from many of the meetings is that the international community has become frustrated with the situation in Bosnia and would even prefer to step back and leave it up to the Bosnians. This is already happening as seen by inaction on the part of the Office of the High Representative in forcing the Bosnians to form a government. The consequences of this could be severe and Bosnia could fall again into violence. This would require the interational community to send in more troops to bolster security.

So that is the situation in nutshell. I have an early start tomorrow so need sleep! We are visiting Mostar, a town which saw a lot of the fighting during the Bosnian War. I have attached some photos I took in Sarajevo over the past two days, so enjoy!


The HQ of the EU Delegation












The Office of the High Representative
















Siege of Sarajevo Film Maker










Bullet ridden building on Sarajevo university campus

Balkans Part 1

This is going to be a short post. It is midnight and I am about to go to sleep. I arrived in Sarajevo, Bosnia this evening. I was in Dubrovnik, Croatia for the past three days with some class mates. This is a fascinating part of the world. Our hotel is in the old town of Sarajevo next to a grave yard. We have a balcony with a view of the city and the mountains. There is a feeling to this place and it probably has something to do with the fact that it has seen conflict only fifteen years ago. I felt this in Dubrovnik. It is a beautiful city on the Croatian coast of the Adriatic Sea. They call it the Gem of the Adriatic and for good reason. The battlements of the old town tower above the sea and surrounds a labyrinth of cobbled streets, passages, and houses with the typical red slate roofs of the Mediterranean. Only fifteen years ago, the city was under siege as Serbian forces attempted to put down the Croatian struggle for independence from the former Yugoslavia. Far above the city, perched on a mountain top, is an old fortress. It was used by the Croatian army during the conflict to defend the city from Serbian forces. Bullet holes pepper the walls and the entrances. Today, the fortress is used as a museum to remember the conflict. We watched footage inside the museum of Serbian shells pounding the fortress and the city. It was an eerie feeling to see the exact location where we had been eating dinner the night before on the docks being pounded by a Serbian shell fired from a destroyer out to sea. The sight of the ancient city walls also being pounded by shells was also quite a thing to see. The next few days will be very interesting. We are going to visit different governmental organisations in Sarajevo and will also be conducting our own interviews and research. For now, I need sleep. There will be more to come!

The Militarisation of Space

I watched an interesting documentary today called the High Frontier. It was about the space industry in the US and Europe. It was kind of frightening actually. The focus was on satellites and weaponry designed to be fired from and at satellites. The prospect of the Chinese or Russians being able to destroy a US satellite is worrying. It also touched on the boom of "space entrepreneurs" finding ways of extracting resources from meteors and the moon. Space after all possesses an abundance of resources. Of course, there isn't any international legislation outlawing any of this. It did mention of the UN attempting to pass legislation, only to be vetoed by the US. An indication that the US has every intention of developing space weaponry and extracting resources from space. All this raises an interesting possibility. Whichever super power gains supremacy over space has exclusive access to the abundance of resources available out there. This begs the question: what will be prepared to do in order to achieve this? I know this might seem far in the future, but it bloody scares me.

Thoughts on the bus home

After much speculation into the general direction of the world and whether the future will be positive or negative, I have come to the conclusion that the outcome balances on the edge of a knife. There is consensus among academics and policy makers that the nature of conflict has changed. The threats of today are not presented by strong states but by weak states. It is weak and failing states which threaten the peace and stability of the international system. Is it a coincidence that natural resources are found in abundance in these weak states and are in great demand by developed states of the global north? Multinational companies have a considerable stake and economic interest in these states. Oil and diamonds are a valuable resource found in abundance in Africa for example. It is therefore logical that peace and stability is secured in order to free up access of such resources. Of course multinational companies are not motivated by profit alone but a growing need to provide for millions of consumers in the developed world. In this sense, there is a convergence of interests at the moment amongst the most powerful states such as the US, China, Russia, India, UK, and France. They all have a big stake in the presence of peace in order to grow their economies. However, these states continue to pursue their defence agendas behind the scenes and continue to have considerable defence budgets for the acquisition of better military equipment and technology. It is unfortunate that the nature of the international system has changed little since the early 1900s. The question is, when will powerful states decide that significant power can only be acquired through military means? In other words, when will they become bored of peace and economic growth? Also, what preventative mechanisms are there to deal with such a change in attitude? The United Nations has proven to be a miserable and weak organisation incapable of preventing the big powers from having their way and pursuing their self interests. We speak of globalisation, but is it merely a convenient phase where states can continue to pursue their self interests in the presence of international peace?

Dawn in Crail

Sunrise near the harbour in Crail - January 2011