Bolzano/Bozen: Thirteen Years After Dayton

02 June 2008

From May 15 to May 18, Italian city of Bolzano/Bozen, the province of Alto Adige/Sud Tyrol, hosted a group of young people from Prijedor, Srebrenica, Bratunac in BiH and Peć/Peja in Kosovo, under the auspices of the Adopt Srebrenica project, initiative implemeted by Tuzla based organization Amica and the Alexander Langer Foundation from Bolzano/Bozen.

The youth from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo spent four days filled with meetings and cultural events, which concluded with the Thirteen Years after Dayton international conference.

Miroslav Mandić from Odisej youth organization from Bratunac, in his report on the visit, says that he was mainly interested to learn about the history of the province, which had its own share of ethnic strife in the past, and in exchange of experiences with the new friends from Bolzano/Bozen, Prijedor, Srebrenica and Peja/Peć, as well as the students in the masters programme in conflict mediation.

-It is important that Srebrenica was adopted as a location of pilgrimage and rememberance of the victims of war. I am increasingly certain in the importance of frontier crossers mentioned by Alexander Langer, who demolish the paranoia of entrenched ethnicities closed within themselves, which may happen slowly, but is more thorough and more elegant, says Mandić.

Valentina Gagić, one of the founders of SARA NGO from Srebrenica, addressed the participants in the conference, and talked about the life and work in Srebrenica, which `exhausted as it is by its past, provides fertile ground for competition of powerful political figures and negative media exploitation`.

-Today, in Srebrenica, we have had positive moves forward, in spite of the problems and challenges we face. We can`t really talk about definite harmonious human relations and existential needs, but we can`t disregard the efforts by local and international organizations and, to some extent, the local political will. Srebrenica creates the frameworks of social community acceptable to all citizens, says Gagić, adding that we all have to learn from our past in order to be good teachers to the next generations.

Gagić adds taht the tourist potentials, the good investment conditions and the economic growth, together with the hospitable citizens, are good reasons to pay more attention to Srebrenica, but that the town needs time, economic resources and institutional framework to be able to reach its full potential.

Finally, expressing her faith in better future, Gagić said that she was glad to be a part of the positive energy and narrative in Srebrenica, together with her friends who prefer action to criticism.