LOCAL PRESS

 

Vucic and Dodik on conclusions of conference in Berlin (RTS)

Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic has talked in Belgrade to the President of the Republika Srpska (RS) Milorad Dodik about the conclusions of the Berlin conference on the West Balkans. A special emphasis was laid on the importance of realizing the infrastructural projects that the Serbian delegation suggested in Berlin, and which should connect Serbia, the RS and Federation of B&H. The statement of the government Office for Media Relations reads that Vucic and Dodik have discussed improving the economic cooperation in line with the Law on special and parallel ties between Serbia and the republic of Srpska, particularly in the fields of agriculture and construction. They have also agreed to hold soon a joint session of the two governments.

 

Mogherini’s and Tusk’s appointments – good news for Serbia (Radio Serbia)

EU leaders have appointed Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk successor to Herman Van Rompuy at the position of the president of the European Council whereas Italian Foreign Minister Federica Mogherini is to replace Catherine Ashton at the position of EU high representative for foreign affairs and security policy. The nominations are to be confirmed by the European Parliament. Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic congratulated Tusk and Mogherini on their appointments to those positions in the EU and added the two would have sincere and truthful partners and friends in Serbia. Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic greeted the appointments, stressing that both officials are attached to Serbia’s EU integrations. As Mogherini will be now conducting Belgrade-Pristina talks, Minister in charge of EU integrations Jadranka Joksimovic assessed she expected the constructive and impartial approach to the Brussels dialogue to continue.

 

Djuric: The Kosovo Albanian that fulfills Kosovo Serb requests will be the next premier of Kosovo (NIN, by Antonela Riha)

The European Commission (EC) will complete the report on the outcome of the Brussels dialogue in the course of September. The Head of the Government Office for Kosovo and Metohija Marko Djuric says that Serbia had demonstrated, according to the EC’ assessment, “a surprisingly high level of administrative capacities”. “I expect this to result in the upcoming opening of EU accession negotiations,” believes Djuric. He refutes doubts that the beginning of negotiations will wait for 2015, and that one of the reasons is precisely the deadlock in the dialogue on normalization of relations in the province of Kosovo: “The Brussels agreement is not hindering EU accession. We have had intensive dialogue with Brussels over the past months. We are investing maximum effort that, due to the formation of the next provincial government in Kosovo and Metohija we don’t have a real partner for resolving open political issues, this doesn’t reflect on the opening of Chapter 35. It is very difficult to predict the dynamics when it doesn’t depend on us. We will do and implement everything that depends on us fully. I expect that the effort by Serbia will be recognized and valorized, and that, both in the interest of the EU and Serbia, Chapter 35, together with one more, will be opened by the end of the year.

There are very specific issues that must be done according to the agenda of which we are constantly reminded. One of them is the initialing of the agreement on the judiciary. Will this occur in the next month?

“Serbia is completely ready for what had been practically completed in the dialogue as the possible agreement on the judiciary to be formally initialed at the first following meeting of the two prime ministers. The moment when there is political readiness in Pristina, when the provincial government is elected, I suppose that this will occur. What is important for us is that the EC report will include our positive stand and constructive stand towards these problems.”

What is the situation with other topics, an agreement has not been even reached on telecommunications and energy?

“We have implemented all agreements to which the Serbian government had been committed in the period before the current Government of Aleksandar Vucic was formed. These are agreements on university diplomas, integrated management of administrative boundary line crossings and they concern a whole series of issues where there is no delay as far as Serbia is concerned. The working group on telecommunications has reached certain agreements and we are now expecting the Pristina side to enable Telekom and other telecommunications operators from Serbia to receive a license, to enable and repair mobile telephones in Kosovo Serb-populated regions of the province and for residents to feel improvement.”

What about energy? Is there any progress here?

“Informal talks between Belgrade, Brussels and Pristina will continue this week.”

How much are these informal talks productive, how much do they determine the dynamics of further talks?

“Talks at the expert level are mostly very productive. Problems start when politicians meet, when Ms. Tahiri and I sit down. There is a perception with the Kosovo Albanian representatives that every political issue in all spheres should be used for the promotion of the so-called Kosovo statehood. That is why every line of every paper represents a battlefield where measured are not expertise or creativity in resolving problems, but political power and quantity of support to affirm this or that outcome. These talks are in fact being conducted in the shadow of the unresolved status issue.”

You have also managed to create a battlefield with the Peace Park that you placed on the bridge in Mitrovica. You compelled a discussion that was completely unexpected.

“For normal people, a park that replaces an ugly barricade of concrete and sand cannot be a motive to demolish the southern part of town, to set on fire 15 vehicles. The fact is that now this bridge is passable and that pedestrians are normally crossing it, that we have flowers instead of concrete, and that hundred meters to the left and right we have two other bridges that are open both for vehicular and pedestrian traffic that is functioning normally. The essential importance of this park on the bridge is psychological since it prevents extremists and fundamentalists, who undoubtedly exist, from endangering feeling of security by running vehicles towards the northern side. That was a move aimed at calming tensions, further instability and eventual bloodshed and I think this goal has been achieved.”

Your critics say that, in fact, there have not been negotiations at all this year except on the occasion of the dispute on the bridge in Mitrovica. How much are they right?

“There weren’t enough dialogue sessions this year. This year was characterized by the fact that Belgrade has been completely ready to discuss everything, including the trickiest topics that exist and political instability, regression towards nationalism, and I would say also fundamentalism in the part of political elites of Kosovo Albanians. Two are necessary for a quarrel, but two are also necessary for reconciliation. The fact that Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic went three times to negotiate in Brussels in the election campaign and before the formation of the government speaks sufficiently about our treatment of these negotiations, while during the elections for the provincial institutions and after there was no readiness from the Pristina side to discuss at all or more seriously many topics.”

There are people from Kosovo who say that nothing had been done, that they don’t see any changes, no implementation of the agreed, that nothing of vital importance for them has been resolved. Do you feel pressure and responsibility?

“Our priority is the formation of the Community of Serbian Municipalities in Kosovo, return of displaced, consolidation of other Kosovo Serb institutions, more transparent and efficient spending of money that Serbia invests in the province of Kosovo and Metohija. I would like actions to speak more about the results of our work in the future since only a little over two months had passed since my appointment to the post of the head of the Office, and during this period we had provincial elections and a crisis linked to the events around the bridge in Kosovska Mitrovica.”

It is correct that you have been two months at this post, but the current policy has been conducted for two years. What of the priorities have been fulfilled so far?

“Serbia, which always knew only what it doesn’t want in the province of Kosovo and Metohija, now finally has established key policy directions. Serious projects have been launched when it comes to state policy, it received clear outlines in the course of these two years. But, if we need to adopt, let’s say, the constitutional law that will define the existence of the Union of Serb Municipalities, it is necessary for us to first agree at the political level with the new government in Pristina how the competencies of the Kosovo Serb Community, envisaged by the Brussels Agreement, will be transferred into laws.”

The ruling coalition declared the Serbs who were part of the Pristina government and assembly before the last elections as Thaqi’s Serbs and traitors. Suddenly they become a necessary factor for the formation of the Kosovo government. How did this happen?

“Previous governments had for a long time conducted a policy of political self-isolation of our nation, which led to a complete fall of our influence in the provisional provincial institutions. Now we have the Serb (Srpska) List that is a product of political agreement of Kosovo Serb representatives and the authorities in Belgrade for Kosovo Serbs not to take part in the political life particularly through parties, but to increase, with joint presentation, influence of the Kosovo Serb community and Belgrade on the events in the province of Kosovo and Metohija. We have encouraged people to take part in these provincial institutions so Serbs could finally have influence on them after 15 years. We abolished and left aside all divisions because there is too few of us, we have burning problems that we must resolve but which we can’t even broach if we are forced into parties.”

There are Serbs who say that we should in fact be neutral in the formation of the government in Pristina while support to Isa Mustafa to head the assembly has been interpreted as clear support to Haradinaj.

“We are not electing the leaders of the Kosovo Albanians and we haven’t gathered in the provincial Kosovo Assembly in order to support this or that option, but around our political goals. In the personal sense we find the only acceptable person the one who is capable and politically ready to support, in exchange for our support, realization of the goals of the Kosovo Serb community.”

Who are you talking with?

“We will see in the following days and weeks with whom we can realize our goals. There is presently an institutional confusion in the province of Kosovo and Metohija, all talks are holding and waiting for the moment to clear the problem linked to the election of the assembly speaker.”

How much readiness was there in the past talks to support Serb requests, from the Union of Serb Municipalities to the issue of privatization, amendment of the election law?

“The Serb List hasn’t joined the talks on the government.”

Who do you recognize as the one who could respond to requests and give guarantees that they will be fulfilled?

“The moment when we recognize him or her, he or she will become the Assembly Speaker of the provincial authorities.”

Could it happen that you “overplay” and that a technical government is formed in the end?

“Our goal is not to prevent the functioning of provincial institutions and I don’t think that these requests posed by the Serb List will endanger the vital interests of the Kosovo Albanians and that they will be unacceptable to present political players on the scene. What the Kosovo Serbs are requesting is not to be discriminated against, they are asking for normality and equality of the institutions’ approach towards them and the exercising of collective political rights. This is manifested through agreement on the competencies of the Community of Serb Municipalities, but also through the resolution of a range of seemingly minor issues. I will give you an example of the village of Velika Hoca, where some Kosovo Albanian bought property in the protected ecological zone and now he is poisoning, with his agricultural activity, the water sources used by the people. In resolving such issue you will not get help of KFOR, EU or the Security Council, but we must agree through participation in the provisional institutions, and such things mean a lot for the life of the Kosovo Serbs.”

One of the key objections is that this government has been working according to Germany’s agenda over the past two years and that it is only fulfilling the already known demands.

“Serbia is in a very complex geo-political situation, which isn’t preventing the Serbian government and other institutions to implement, by respecting international interests, its policy completely independently. Since 1999 we haven’t been in control of nearly 15 percent of our territory in the security and, to a large extent, political sense. The international administration in the province of Kosovo and Metohija has been partially transferred to the local provisional institutions and the struggle of this part of the government that I am conducting is for our community to be as strong as possible, in the interest of all in the province of Kosovo and Metohija.”

 

REGIONAL PRESS

 

Sixteen people connected with Wahabi movement arrested in B&H (Fena)

By the order of the B&H Prosecution, members of the B&H State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA) arrested this morning 16 people connected with the Wahhabi movement. The operation coded “Damascus” was conducted in 17 towns throughout B&H. These people were suspected of criminal offences of financing terrorist activities, public incitement to terrorist activities, recruitment for terrorist activities, organizing terrorist groups, reads the SIPA statement. The operation is aimed at finding evidence that point to the link between the arrested with the B&H citizens that are taking part in the wars in Syria and Iraq on the side of radical terrorist groups and organizations.

 

Lukac: We are not informed of SIPA operation (Dnevni avaz)

The Director of the Federal Police Administration (FUP) Dragan Lukac confirmed for Dnevni avaz that FUP is not taking part in this morning’s operation led by SIPA. “We haven’t been either informed or acquainted with this morning’s operation so that FUP members are not taking part in these activities,” said Lukac. Sources close to SIPA and Avaz have learned that among the arrested is also Husein Bosnic, known as Bilal, one of the leaders of the Wahhabi community in B&H. Also arrested are Mirza Kapic (34), Fikret Zukic, Eduard Durguti (30), Latif Talic (43), Muhamed Dzerahovic (34) and Elvir Muratovic.

 

Cvijanovic meets with German Ambassador to B&H (Srna)

The Republika Srpska (RS) Prime Minister Zeljka Cvijanovic spoke with the German Ambassador to B&H Christian Hellbach about prospects for overcoming the stalemate in B&H’s European integration process, primarily when it comes to the coordination mechanism and the implementation of the decision of the European Court of Human Rights in the Sejdic-Finci versus B&H case. Cvijanovic and Hellbach also spoke about prospects for improving the economic cooperation between the RS and Germany, and about the conference on the Western Balkans recently held in Berlin. They also discussed the current political and economic situation in the RS and B&H, says a press release of the RS government press office.

 

 

 

David M. Robinson appointed First Deputy of the High Representative (Fena)

The High Representative in B&H Valentin Inzko welcomed David M. Robinson at his new post of the first deputy of the high representative and the supervisor of Brcko. “Ambassador Robinson is a very experienced diplomat. His nomination for this function is another proof of U.S. votes for peace in B&H. It is a great pleasure to wish him welcome in our team while we continue to work on solving the challenges that remain in the post-war period in this country. It’s necessary to effectuate reforms waited for years now. It’s a pleasure for me that Ambassador Robinson will be a part of those aspirations.” said Inzko. Prior to his nomination in B&H, Robinson was advisor of the Chief of the U.S. Embassy mission in Afghanistan.

 

Mogherini warns on possible internal issues in Macedonia unless name dispute is settled (MIA)

Newly appointed EU High Representative Federica Mogherini, in her remarks before the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament, said that the name issue imposed by Greece on Macedonia needs to be resolved. Mogherini warned that unless this is done, it is possible that the internal situation in FYROM may deteriorate, MIA correspondent from Brussels reports. Speaking as a representative of the current European Council chair Italy, Mogherini said that additional efforts need to be made to resolve the issue between Greece and FYROM. “A greater effort is required, not only in contacts with the FYROM, but with other countries as well. We need to try to resolve this issue, and move things forward, because the internal situation in the country can move in an undesired direction if the name issue remains unsolved and things do not change”, Mogherini said. During her comments she constantly used the shorthand “FYROM”, which Macedonians find offensive. Mogherini said that EU enlargement remains on the agenda of the Italian presidency with the European Council that will be in effect until the end of the year. Still, she added that the name issue must be resolved, if FYROM is to make any progress in its integration talks.

 

INTERNATIONAL PRESS

 

The Buzz: The Shortsightedness of NATO's War with Serbia Over Kosovo Haunts Ukraine (The National Interest, by Matthew Dal Santo, 2 September 2014)
Today it seems the past is just history. US president Barack Obama and secretary of state, John Kerry, have lamented the return to "19th century politics," with its outdated "spheres of influence" in Eastern Europe.
Dismissing Russian hostility to Ukraine's drift towards the West, German chancellor Angela Merkel has claimed that Russian president Vladimir Putin is living "in another world."
"The Cold War," she has said, "should be over for everyone."
"Russia," says Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott in his assessment of Eastern European geopolitics, "is a big country trying to bully a small one."
With the conflict still boiling, NATO now appears ready to go further than ever before in its commitments to Kiev. On Wednesday The Guardian reported that Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko will be "the sole non-NATO head of state to negotiate with alliance leaders" at their Cardiff summit next week.
They're expected to create four "trust funds" to modernize the Ukrainian armed forces, including its command and control structures. By degrees Ukraine is being drawn into the Western alliance.
Since nothing suggests that sanctions have changed Russia's calculus - note Wednesday's other report of up to 100 Russian tanks on the Ukrainian side of the border - looming more than ever now is a lasting estrangement. Anders Fogh Rasmussen, NATO's Secretary-General, is nonplussed:
“We have to face the reality that Russia does not consider NATO a partner. Russia is a nation that unfortunately for the first time since the Second World War has grabbed land by force ... It is safe to say that nobody had expected Russia to grab land by force.”
For the first time, NATO forces will be permanently stationed in Eastern Europe, probably the Baltics, on Russia's own borders.
At best, this strategy will intimidate Russia into a humiliating backdown. At worst, it could inaugurate a lasting rebalancing of the global order.
Now 91 years old, Henry Kissinger, Nixon's secretary of state, has just published his latest book, World Order. It reiterates, for a new age, the classically realist principle that a stable international order lies in equilibrium among the world's great powers.
The reviews will come—and some already have. But, especially relevant today is his warning, in a 1999 Newsweek article, about the shortsightedness of NATO's war with Serbia over Kosovo:
“The rejection of long-range strategy explains how it was possible to slide into the Kosovo conflict without adequate consideration of its implications ... The transformation of the NATO alliance from a defensive military grouping to an institution prepared to impose its values by force ... undercut repeated American and allied assurances that Russia had nothing to fear from NATO expansion.”
Those who believe Putin's Russia a corporatist, nationalistic state with scant regard for the rule of law will find Kissinger's prescience remarkable:
“The tribulations of Yugoslavia ... emphasized Russia's decline and have generated a hostility towards America and the West that may produce a nationalist and socialist Russia - akin to the European Fascism of the 1930s.”
Now, Putin is no Hitler. But he is a "Great Russian" nationalist. Since Russia annexed Crimea in March, Putin has repeatedly invoked the war, and Serbia's partition that culminated in the establishment of an independent Kosovo, as both a legal precedent for Russia's actions and as a demonstration of the alliance's aggressive intent.
Kissinger began his career as a historian of 19th century diplomacy. His first book, ‘A World Restored: Castlereagh, Metternich and the Problems of the Peace,’ analyzed the rebuilding of the European order after the chaos of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1792-1815). It's Kissinger's "19th century logic" that puts paid to the idea that that Russian "bullying" in Ukraine is all a one-way street.
The same logic suggests that, instead of promoting a return to equilibrium, NATO's latest moves will merely confirm its nefarious purposes in Russian eyes. Combined with sanctions, they will "prove" that the only interests that count are the West's, spurring Moscow into making common cause with other capitals frustrated by what they perceive to be the West's blinkered vision.
It's a notably shortsighted way to handle foreign relations. Indeed, Kissinger's judgment on the Clinton administration's policies in Kosovo in 1999 could be made of Washington and Brussels today:
“(They) have little concern with notions of international equilibrium ... (and) are ever tempted to treat foreign policy as an extension of domestic politics. Their diplomacy is quite skillful in dealing with short-term issues but obtuse with respect to strategy.”
Where does all of this leave Australia, formally a NATO "global partner", with deep political, defense, and intelligence links with its two most important military contributors (the US and UK), but not itself a member?
The easiest answer is to shrug our shoulders and get on with the "Asian Century." Officially on ice, it's still the bedrock of Australian thinking. (Though, of course, Russia is an Asian country too.)
The problem is that as an increasingly frequent participation in extra-regional fora - not only is Australia a NATO "global partner," but an OSCE "partner for cooperation," member of the G20, and a non-permanent member of the Security Council for 2013-14 - is making an account of Australian aims beyond littoral Asia, and strategy for pursuing them, more important than ever.
Indeed, as a country usually able to produce sharp-eyed assessments of its interests (think of recent agreements with Washington and Tokyo as part of a strategy aimed at balancing China), Australia's role could be to work through with NATO partners closer to Russia - geographically, economically or politically - the high stakes involved for the West as a whole when it comes to getting policy with Russia right. As Kissinger said in 1999:
“Russia's image of itself as an historic player on the world stage must be taken seriously. This requires less lecturing and more dialogue; less sentimentality and more recognition that Russia's national interests are not always congruent with ours.”
Today, that might be too late: "History in its perversity," Columbia University's Robert Legvold has recently written, "often ... locks key actors inside the events they are struggling to master and obscures from them the larger implications of their actions."
All the same, Kissinger's career shows that it's precisely the study of the past that means that that doesn't have to happen. To help revive, so to speak, the "art of grand strategy," we need to be thinking more about history, not less.
Postscript
Now that NATO appears to have photographic evidence that the Russian army is operating on Ukrainian territory, one last extract from Kissinger's essay seems pertinent:
“It was conventional wisdom in Washington that Serbia's historic attachment to Kosovo was exaggerated … But what if Serbia did not yield? How far were we willing to go?”
With Obama affirming that the US is "not taking military action to solve the Ukrainian problem," that question, and the gap in ambition between means and ends it points to, appears as open now as it always has in this crisis.
Matthew Dal Santo is a freelance writer and foreign affairs correspondent. He previously worked for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. This piece first appeared in ABC’s The Drum here.

Bosnian police detain 16 for involvement in Syria, Iraq conflict (Reuters, 3 September 2014)
Bosnian police detained 16 people on Wednesday on charges of financing terrorist activities, recruiting and fighting on the side of radical groups in Syria and Iraq, authorities said.
The arrests were made in 17 raids the police conducted across the Balkan country, the State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA) said in a statement.
It was the first such security sweep since April when Bosnia introduced jail terms of up to 10 years for its citizens who fight or recruit fighters for conflicts abroad.
The move was aimed at discouraging young Bosnians from going to fight in Syria. Many of those are seen as a possible security threat upon their return home.
"The suspects are connected to financing, organizing and recruiting Bosnian citizens to depart for Syria and Iraq, and taking part in armed conflicts in Syria and Iraq, fighting on the side of radical terrorist groups and organizations," the police statement said.
Experts estimate that several hundred people have left Bosnia, where Muslims make up 45 percent of the population, heading for Syria. Some of them reportedly crossed into Iraq this year to fight for the Islamic State group.
Several dozen have been reported killed, the latest case that of a young Bosnian who died in a suicide attack in Iraq in early August, according to local media.
Many young Muslims from the Balkans, including Serbia, Kosovo and Macedonia, have become radicalized to fight for global Islamic causes in the recent years.

In Bosnia's schools, three different people learn three different histories (Christian Science Monitor, by Kristen Chick, 31 August 2014)
Two decades after Bosnia's brutal civil war ended, reconciliation is still out of reach. And the country's education system is only widening the divide
When Daniel Eror studied World War II in high school, his textbook included one sentence noting that the Croatian fascist Ustase regime ran a concentration camp during the war.
Only much later did Mr. Eror, now a university graduate, learn that the Jasenovac camp was the site of the murder of up to 100,000 people. He was shocked that his school had glossed over such a significant historical event.
“They were trying to hide it,” says Eror. "If we're talking about reconciliation we need to be honest."
Recommended: The Balkans 101: How much do you know? Take our quiz.
Two decades after Bosnia's brutal civil war ended, reconciliation is still a dream, one the education system is pushing further away from reality. Bosnia Serbs, Bosniak Muslims and Croats typically study in schools with curricula tailored to their ethnic biases. World War II is hardly the only period that receives wildly different treatments depending on the school.
Test your knowledge| The Balkans 101: How much do you know? Take our quiz.
“If it's difficult to talk about the Second World War, you can imagine how difficult it is to talk about this recent war,” says Eror, who studied the Croat curriculum at a Catholic school.
Drifting apart
Bosnia's civil war ended with the Dayton Accords in 1995, which divided Bosnia into two largely autonomous entities, the mostly Serb Republika Srpska, and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is populated mostly by Bosniak Muslims and Croats. Education policy has been in the hands of local governments since and consequently there are 13 ministries of education in Bosnia.
As a result, each ethnic group is taught a Bosniak-, Croat-, or Serb-specific curriculum, complete with its own textbooks, that often portray the other groups as aggressors and its own as victims. Serb textbooks describe the Ottoman period as a cruel time, while Bosniak textbooks call it a golden era. "National" history in the Serbian curricula is a history of Serb people and of Serbia, not of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Problems only multiply when dealing with recent history. Semir Hambo, who teaches history at a school in Sarajevo that uses the Bosniak curriculum, says textbooks and teachers skirt controversial issues by giving a simple overview with just facts. For example, when covering the civil war, “the main points of the war are (told), just enough so the children know it actually happened,” he says.
Many say this education system is pushing Bosnia's citizens further apart.
“If you don't have a common curriculum, if you don't agree about history, how can we make a modern political culture?” asks Dubravko Lovrenovic, a prominent historian and former deputy minister of education in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. “How can we create citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina? How can we talk about a common future? We can only talk about division.”
But politicians here seem to like the educational divide. Dr. Lovrenovic says he tried to implement a common curriculum in the Federation more than a decade ago, but was rejected by Croat-majority cantons.
Damir Marjanovic, who spent nearly a year as minister of education in Sarajevo Canton, says some politicians use the nationalist issue as an excuse  to avoid reforming any aspect of education, even the non-controversial subjects.
"A neutron is a neutron in any language," he says. But “most politicians are using the story about language, history, and religion to do nothing about chemistry and biology. It's a political issue."
Avoiding controversy
Katarina Batarilo-Henschen, a research fellow at the Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research, says that teachers have been urged to use a multi-perspective approach, particularly for contested issues. And multiple attempts to improve textbooks have resulted in incremental changes, such as removing terms considered offensive or presenting contested issues in a less controversial way.
But the multi-perspective approach has been difficult to implement in classrooms, and significant problems remain with the texts, Dr. Batarilo-Henschen says.
Some nongovernmental organizations are trying get around the bureaucracy and politics by publishing supplemental workbooks for teachers.
The Center for Democracy and Reconstruction in Southeast Europe (CDRSEE) produced a booklet for history classrooms throughout the Balkans that uses primary sources to present differing perspectives on historical events, hoping to open students' minds and promote critical thinking. The organization is now in the process of producing a book that will cover more recent history, including the wars of the 1990s. The European Association of History Educators is also releasing a multi-perspective history workbook in Bosnia and other Balkan countries. Both organizations also conduct teacher training.
Batarilo-Henschen says such supplements and teacher trainings are beneficial. But she adds that the ideal solution may not be to force all students to use the same textbooks, but improve all curricula.
“I think it’s OK to have your own curriculum and your own history textbook," she says, but you have to use "the right approach to history teaching that will help you not to see the other one as a perpetrator, as an enemy.... [You have to teach] that many many events in history are being perceived differently from different views.”

Croatia War Veterans Stage New Anti-Cyrillic Protest (BIRN, by Josip Ivanovic, 3 September 2014)
Campaigners in Vukovar put large stickers with Croatian flags over Serb Cyrillic lettering on signs on official buildings in renewed protests after their bid to force a national referendum failed.
The renewed protest in the wartime flashpoint town on Tuesday was staged by the Headquarters for the Defence of Croatian Vukovar, a campaign group led by veterans who oppose the introduction of bilingual signs in Croatian Latin and Serb Cyrillic on official buildings.
The symbolic protest was held to mark the anniversary of the mass smashing of the bilingual signs during protests last year in Vukovar, which was besieged and devastated by the Yugoslav Army and Serb fighters during the 1990s conflict.
“We covered the signs with the Croatian flag, which should not irritate anybody,” said Tomislav Josic, the president of Headquarters.
Josic warned that if the authorities do not remove the bilingual signs, the Headquarters will bring together other veterans’ organisations in two weeks’ time to plan further action at the annual commemoration marking the 23rd anniversary of the fall of Vukovar to the Yugoslav People’s Army on November 18.
“We call upon the government to remove these objects that were put on the walls illegally, using violence,” he added.
Last year on November 18, the Headquarters launched a campaign for a referendum on reducing minority rights, which would effectively stop the introduction of Cyrillic in Vukovar.
Within two weeks, the Headquarters had collected over 650,000 signatures, sufficient to trigger a referendum. But in August this year, Croatia’s constitutional court ruled the referendum question unconstitutional, saying it would undermine minority rights, effectively scuppering the Headquarters’ initiative.
“This referendum was stopped politically,” said Josic on Tuesday. But, he insisted, the centre-left government that opposed the referendum “cannot forbid the will of the Croatian people to express what it wants”.
After covering up the bilingual signs with Croatian flag stickers on Tuesday, protesters presented Marijan Zivkovic, a war veteran who smashed the first bilingual sign installed on the police station in Vukovar on September 2 last year, with a wooden plaque engraved with images of a hammer and a smashed sign.
The Headquarters argues that even 23 years after the brutal siege of Vukovar, the situation in the town remains too emotionally sensitive for the introduction of Cyrillic script.
However Croatia’s minorities law says that ethnic minorities are entitled to the official use of their language and script in areas where they make up more than a third of the population – as Serbs do in Vukovar.

 

 

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Media summaries are produced for the internal use of the United Nations Office in Belgrade, UNMIK and UNHQ. The contents do not represent anything other than a selection of articles likely to be of interest to a United Nations readership.