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Special Report |
LAST UPDATE July 12, 2005
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| site design imagesparkle.com |
| July 24, 2003 |
Eight years after the war in Bosnia – Presentation - Jasmina Opardija |
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| Bosnian, Jasmina Opardija, talking about the conflict in the Balkans |
The decision for Jasmina Opardija to go back to Bosnia was not an easy one to make. But in 1999, seven years after her and her family had fled to Switzerland from the fighting, she returned to find a very different Sarajevo to the one she had remembered before the war. The longest siege of a city in modern history by the Serbian Army had left many houses and buildings still in ruins.
Bosnia is a small country, and pre 1991 its ethnically mixed population of nearly four million, Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks lived together - it was nicknamed a "Leopard Skin" because of its diversity of peoples. But after the death of Tito and the break up of the communist regimes in the 80s, Slobodan Milosovic rose to nationalistic power with designs on a larger, single state for Serbs only. Using the Yugoslavian Army to start war in Slovenia and Croatia, the infamous policy of "Ethnic Cleansing" began.
Because Bosnia was so ethnically mixed and harmonic, many believed that the conflict wouldn't happen there. Aged 12 years old, Jasmina remembers her parents insisting, "War is not possible, it is just a crisis that will pass." When her friends left town her family stayed. Then one day her parents came back from work after only an hour, telling her to pack some clothes because they were "going on holiday to Croatia." The "holiday" would last over seven years, taking them and thousands of other refugees through camps in Croatia, Italy and finally Switzerland. Over 50 percent of the Bosnian population were forced from their homes during the war, and Jasmina says that displacement of people is "one of the biggest problems" of the conflict.
The Hague tribunals, for the terrible war crimes that occurred in the former Yugoslavia are "important for people who lost relatives to find out the truth of what really happened." and to bring to justice those responsible. There were many massacres during the conflict that are still being investigated now. One of the worst was in a so-called "UN Safe Zone" in East Bosnia, where over 8,000 men and boys from the village of Srebrenica were killed by the Serb Army. |
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| Jasmina with Greek Cypriot student Effie Gavriel |
Also vital to the people who still don't know the whereabouts of their family members who disappeared during the war, is the Missing Persons Commission. Jasmina showed a documentary to the audience that followed a team searching for missing persons amongst the many mass graves that have still not been uncovered. The focus of the film was a woman looking for her children who had been taken from her during the fighting. She was hoping she could identify her son's remains by the red boots he was wearing, but like many of the mass graves that are discovered, the Commission could not fully investigate the site because it was booby-trapped against potential discovery. Though the war has officially ended, it still continues for those who have never found out what became of their missing family members.
In 1995, the Dayton Peace Agreement officially ended the war. A new constitution split the country into two ethnic areas - The Republic of Sprska was made Serbian, with The Federation of Bosnia Herzegovina for Croats and Bosniaks. Jasmina disagrees with these newly established "clean" areas, saying that although the international body maintains the peace agreement, it hasn't planned enough for a sustainable solution. Jasmina argues that if the peacekeeping bodies left Bosnia, war would break out again within a few days.
There are numerous post-conflict problems that still need to be addressed in Bosnia, including corrupt politicians; refugees unable to return to their homes because others are now living there; the "lost intelligence" of the intellectuals who fled when war started; the depleted uranium munitions used by NATO and the increase in cancer deaths; the thousands of unexploded mines that are still littered throughout the country.
Though there are many challenges to the rebuilding of her homeland, Jasmina says it is "the need to improve things that gives her the strength to stay." She loves her country and the friends and family she still has there, and stressed the importance of the Hague tribunals by contending, "To not repeat war it is important to find out the truth." |
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