On Wednesday we took a step back from meeting
with Bosnians and had a lecture by one of the Northeastern professors on the
trip with us, Professor Lovely, and yes he is a lovely guy! Professor Lovely was in the Marines
during the war in Bosnia and was stationed in Sarajevo after the war to help
with reconstruction. Therefore, he
lectured on the role of government and tactics for state
building/counterinsurgency. We
discussed the benefits and the faults of each and the balance that is needed in
government in order to have a legitimate government. After the lecture we were graced with a writing assignment
that in short asked us to find the solution to one of the largest problems in
BiH, how to integrate the youth of Bosnia… a problems that even the experts
have not found the answer for! But
we were up to the challenge are happy to put our knowledge to the test… but if
you have any genius suggestions I will not be opposed to you sending them my
way!
Professor Lovely and Kate in their archeologist outfits!
On Thursday our meeting with a member of the
Serbian Orthodox Church was cancelled due to a death in the family so we had
the entire day off! A lot of
people did their last shopping duties and exploration of the city and some
began working on our paper. It was
nice to have a day to relax!
Friday was a packed day! We first visited the Court of Bosnia
and Herzegovina that focuses on persecution for war crimes and crimes of
genocide that were committed during the Bosnian war. Initially the court was primarily made up of international judges;
however, there are only two international judges that still work for the Court
of BiH. Both of the judges happen
to be American and one is a Northeastern University alumni and the other is a
Northeastern mom, her son is a senior at Northeastern! We are all over the world!
Each of the judges in formed us about
the history behind the Court and problems that they are faced with today. The Court uses a hybrid of common law
(what we use in the US) and civil law systems. Therefore, no one had experience with this type of law,
which made it more difficult to train everyone. They essentially had to start from scratch. They are
currently working with law schools in order to change or at least influence the
curriculum so they do not have to train new employees form the beginning. When the judge spoke about changing the
curriculum it made me realize that they have already been working to prosecute
war criminals since 2002 and they still do not foresee an end in the near
future, which is pretty daunting. Because laws of war crimes
are quite new (around 20 years old) the Court of BiH is still receiving
criticism from all sides of society in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The maximum sentence for a war criminal
is 45 years and for the people that are not informed of this notion criticizes
the court for being too lenient because you can only go down from 45
years. There are also the people
that criticize the court for favoring different ethnic groups because there are
Bosnian judges making decisions for or against their ethnic group. At the same time the Court of BiH is
being used as a model in other countries that are setting up a court system for
war criminals. All publicity is not negative; other citizens in BiH are appreciative of the role that BiH
has played by prosecuting war criminals.
The prosecution of war criminals gives citizens the fulfillment that the
solider that kill their son is being punished. It gives them closure.
After visiting the Court of BiH we took a lunch break then we made our
way to the U.S. Embassy! At the
Embassy we talked to the Head of Political Affairs minister. He informed us of the role that
the U.S. still has in BiH and what new initiatives the US is working towards in
the future for BiH. Because the US
helped end the war in BiH (still a controversial subject but for now we are
sticking with this statement haha) we held a great amount of responsibility in
helping BiH rebuild and become a stable state. The US has people working for the Office of High
Representatives, who we met with last week, and the Court of BiH along with 100
plus people working at the US embassy not to mention other non-governmental
organizations that are working toward strengthening BiH.
Unfortunately, neither the Court of BiH nor the US embassy would allow cameras so I do not have any good shoots from either of the meetings or buildings.
ATM Guard Dog! :)
