Building Open Society in the Western Balkans, 1991–2011

Home , 2011 Zagreb Open, Mladina, Nikos Economopoulos, Parliament of Yugoslavia, President of Croatia, Slavenka Drakulic

Building Open S Building Open Society in the Western Balkans o ciety in the Western Balkans Western 19 91 – 2 0 11

Building Open Society in the Western Balkans

1991–2011

The story of the Open Society Foundations’ activities during a time of transformation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia © 2011 by the Open Society Foundations

This publication is available as a pdf on the Open Society Foundations website under a Creative Commons license that allows copying and distributing the publication, only in its entirety, as long as it is attributed to the Open Society Foundations and used for noncommercial purposes. Photographs may not be used separately from the publication.

Published by the Open Society Foundations 400 West 59th Street New York, New York 10019 USA www.soros.org

Produced by the Office of Communications Laura Silber, Director of Public Affairs Ari Korpivaara, Director of Publications [email protected]

The Historical Highlights and Foundation Activities sections of this report were prepared by the Open Society foundations in the countries of the former Yugoslavia, the Open Society Foundations programs, and Beka Vučo, regional director for the Western Balkans. The Open Society Foundations commissioned the articles in this report. The Sarajevo Notebooks excerpts are reprinted with the permission of that journal.

Articles Editor Chuck Sudetic

Report Editors Ari Korpivaara, William Kramer, Laura Silber, Beka Vučo

Photography Editor Pamela Chen

Designer Jeanne Criscola | Criscola Design

Printer GHP Media, Inc.

Cover photographs Front cover: Mostar’s Old Bridge, originally built in 1566, was destroyed in 1993 and rebuilt in 2004 when this photograph was taken. © Andrew Testa/Panos Pictures Back cover: Mostar’s Old Bridge, with a temporary footbridge, in 1994. The postcard in the foreground depicted the bridge before it was destroyed during fighting. © Josef Koudelka/Magnum Photos Contents

05 Sarajevo Notebooks: Nothing Is Lost by Slavenka Drakulić

06 Introduction by George Soros

10 1991–1995 Historical Overview | Foundation Activities

17 Sarajevo Notebooks: Shaming the Culprits Among Us by Predrag Matvejević

19 Humanitarian Assistance: Keeping the Balkans Alive by Aryeh Neier

23 Never Again: Judgments on a Decade of Bestiality by Mirko Klarin

27 Still Waiting: The “Erased” People of Slovenia by Neža Kogovšek Šalamon

32 1996–2000 Historical Overview | Foundation Activities

38 Sarajevo Notebooks: The Preservation of Bare Life by Andrej Nikolaidis

41 Remnants: Documentary Drama by Tea Alagić

44 My Decision to Return Home by Ivan Barbalić

46 Sarajevo Notebooks Story: A Need to Talk to Each Other by Vojka Smiljanić-Djikić

50 2001–2005 Historical Overview | Foundation Activities

57 Sarajevo Notebooks: Family Across Borders by Boris A. Novak

59 Turning the Power of Art Against Fear and Hatred by Milena Dragićević-Šešić

64 Reviving Creativity After the War by Dunja Blažević

67 The Aid Dilemma: Lessons (Not) Learned in Bosnia and Herzegovina by Žarko Papić

74 2006–2011 Historical Overview | Foundation Activities

83 News Update: Media Support Still Needed by Brankica Petković

87 Education Efforts—and Our Impact—in the Former Yugoslavia by Terrice Bassler

91 Sarajevo Notebooks: Coming Back Without Returning by Daša Drndić

Sarajevo Notebooks Nothing Is Lost

It is not possible to return to childhood and youth, I cannot resurrect my father or my brother, nor can I go back to a country that does not exist, and not even entirely to that in which I still live. And yet, it all exists, because it is a part of my present identity, composed of strata of the past and the present, of diverse countries and languages, friends and experiences. Like filo sheets in an apple strudel, like layers of crème in a torte. I feel this as the multiplicity of my identity, in which nothing is lost, nothing fades, one thing does not exclude another, they fit on top of each other, or alongside each other. Pain too is part of this, and the no-man’s- land. Slipping away from the mother tongue sometimes does hurt, but entry into something else—into a new language, another milieu—is a gain. The hole gets filled up, the pain is assuaged, there is wholeness after all. I am here and there, included, present, counted in at least twice. I thought about that last year when I was standing on the dais and speaking my text in my mother tongue. And today, standing at the corner of the Ku’damm and Uhlanstrasse, while the snow is falling, I am thinking about slippers and cakes.

Slavenka Drakulić “Language, Shoes and Cakes,” Volume No.13, 2006

Slavenka Drakulić, who is from Croatia, has written numerous newspaper and magazine articles, as well as nonfiction books and novels.

| 5 | Building Open Society in the Western Balkans

George Soros

| 6 | building open society in the western balkans hen I first wenT TO keep the country together had failed. I soon Yugoslavia I did not plan to established foundations in country after start a foundation, much less country emerging from the violent breakup W seven foundations. of Yugoslavia. In the late 1980s, at seminars we sponsored In 1993, I announced a $50 million fund in Dubrovnik, academics, artists, and lawyers for humanitarian assistance to the civilian from Yugoslavia approached me about population of besieged Sarajevo and the establishing a foundation there, but I wasn’t region. The original idea was to get aid convinced that there was a need. After all, I workers into the war zones so that the United thought Prime Minister Ante Marković was Nations would protect them. I remember well doing a good job initiating economic reforms the heroic efforts of my foundations’ directors that would put the country on the right path. and staff. The academics and artists, however, argued that, economy aside, little else in Yugoslavia Twenty years later I am disappointed that, was moving in the direction of open society. despite some progress, the countries still The old authoritarian practices still ruled have a long way to go. The war took a heavy the country. toll; its effects linger, but no longer paralyze. My foundations continue their work. I am These intellectuals changed my mind. Many extremely grateful to the many who have people helped sort out the myriad details devoted their lives—and sometimes risked of launching the foundation. On June 17, their lives—to building open society in the 1991, in Belgrade, I signed an agreement Western Balkans. with Marković establishing the Soros Yugoslavia Foundation. A week later war George Soros is founder and chairman of the erupted in Slovenia and Yugoslavia started Open Society Foundations. to disintegrate. Marković’s last attempts to

building open society in the western balkans | 7 | | 8 | building open society in the western balkans Children hauled water from one of the few remaining wells in besieged Sarajevo in 1993. As part of the siege, Serb forces blocked the city’s clean water supply. Civilians, including children and the elderly, were exposed to sniper and mortar fire as they attempted to fill their containers and return home. George Soros and the Open Society foundation in Bosnia and Herzegovina funded the construction of a water purification system that helped bring clean river water to city residents. © Gilles Peress/Magnum photos

building open society in the western balkans | 9 | 1991–1995 N I T the communists. Croatia sweeps elections. multiparty r imposed. crushed, astate is ofemergency demonstr them. Croats support the of the I to come. crowd ofstruggles insupport usesto rally the which Milošević battle, ofalegendary anniversary Polje to commemorate the600th t and Vojvodina. Franjo theautonomyto of curtail S M M hold itt attempt to reform forms agovernment inalast,failed Marković, out A Background one million H n January 1990,at thefinalC n January zetbegović f epublics holdthefirstfree o power inCroatia. udjman’s par erbian constitutionerbian isamended s communism collapses through- ationalist P ontenegro acquiesces to ilošević, S E istorical lov aster Y ugoslav Communist P ogether. enes walk out and the enes walk outandthe I ations in Y n n thespring, the S ugoslav minist prime erbia’ S E arty ( arty ounds the Muslim ounds theMuslim erbs flock erbs to urope in1989, ty to victory.ty N s president. SDA ew leadership in ew leadershipin Y K ugoslavia and osov O S A ) in Bosnia ) inBosnia n June 28, n June28, T lov lbanian lbanian udjman rises udjman rises o are enia ousts enia ousts K A K Y S osov A osov ugoslav lija lija lobodan lobodan T arty, arty, ongress nt he he

e e o o er,

o o

OVERVIE B Milošević’s Muslim nationalist parties—the D the establishment ofthe communist) winsin and HD SDA by S Y and Y state, to save visitsBelgrade to try June JamesBaker, U. down. rotating 15 deadinBorovo discuss car force. meets Milošević tions inBelgrade are broken upby March Macedonia’s firstpresident. January 1991 May ugoslav ugoslavia, butisignor lov osnia and emocratic P R Z— enia’s independence. , the adovan H S A lov erz first military c firstmilitary win 85percent ofthevote. A nti-M Y enia declare independence. K egovina followed by S A ugoslav presidenc iro erb erb ving up rm S H K ocialist Part erz G arty ( arty aradžić. y moves to stop ilošević demonstra- SDS ligoro egovina thethree , andtheCroa SDS S Y elo, Croa ugoslavia. S onflict leavesonflict S v elected v elected erbia. . secretar I ) he n thefall, in T ed. Croatia udjman to y (formerly W S erbian erbian aded aded y breaks tia; tia; y of y of t t July European Community–brokered of Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia and April Bosnian Croats launch Brioni accords end fighting in Herzegovina. offensive against their one-time Slovenia; war spreads through Muslim allies. UN admits Macedonia Croatia. May Multiparty elections are held under the temporary name “former in Kosovo. Ratko Mladić named Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia August Bombardment of Croatian commander of Bosnian Serb Army. (FYROM).” city of Vukovar. Major Serb offensive United Nations imposes sanctions in Western Slavonia. on what is left of Yugoslavia—Serbia May UN Security Council resolution and Montenegro. 808 establishes the International September Voters in Macedonia in a Criminal Tribunal for the former referendum endorse independence. June Serbian police obstruct the Yugoslavia, but a chief prosecutor, establishment of the Kosovo South African Judge Richard October Bombardment of Croatian Assembly. Milošević creates Goldstone, is not named until July city of Dubrovnik. Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, 1994. UN gives “safe area” status to Montenegrins vote to join. Goražde, Žepa, Tuzla, Bihać, Sarajevo, November Vukovar falls after siege; UNPROFOR takes over control and Srebrenica. more than 200 non-Serbs are of Sarajevo airport, airlift of food removed from a hospital and killed. begins. Serb concentration camps June Tudjman and Milošević unveil In a referendum, Bosnian Serbs vote spread throughout Bosnia and a plan for a three-party division to remain part of Yugoslavia. Herzegovina. of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but Izetbegović rejects it. July Food and water cut off in 1992 Sarajevo. Croat community of July The Muslim-Croat war rages; January Most European Community Herceg-Bosnia proclaimed. Croat concentration camps operate countries recognize independence mainly in the Herzegovina area. of Croatia and Slovenia. August Franjo Tudjman elected president of Croatia. November Croat mortars destroy March Bosnian President Mostar’s Old Bridge. Serbia suffers Izetbegović declares Bosnia and December Milan Kučan elected hyperinflation; Milošević reelected Herzegovina independent when president of Slovenia and Milošević president. the majority of Bosnia’s inhabitants and Socialists win Serbian presiden- vote to break away in a referendum tial and parliamentary elections. boycotted by most Serbs. 1994 February Serbian mortar attack April War in Bosnia and Herzegovina 1993 kills 68 civilians at the Markale breaks out, the siege of Sarajevo January The proposed Vance-Owen marketplace in Sarajevo. Although starts, and ethnic cleansing begins. peace plan divides Bosnia and the city remains under siege, the Janez Drnovšek elected prime Herzegovina into 10 cantons. trams start to run again. Greece minister of Slovenia. The United closes its borders to Macedonia and States recognizes the independence introduces a trade embargo.

building open society in the western balkans | 11 | March Washington Agreement July Srebrenica falls, Bosnian Serbs November The United States brokers signed between Croatia, represent- massacre over 7,000 Muslim men. the Dayton Peace Agreement, ing the Bosnian Croats, and the signed in Paris on December Bosnian Muslim leadership, ending August Croatian forces overrun Serb- 14 by presidents Slobodan the military conflict between the held Krajina. Over 150,000 Serbs Milošević, Franjo Tudjman, and two sides; Muslim-Croat Federation flee eastward toward Serbia. Second Alija Izetbegović, ending the war in is formed. The “Contact Group” mortar attack on the Markale Bosnia and Herzegovina. UN sus- consisting of diplomats from Britain, marketplace in Sarajevo kills 37 pends sanctions against Yugoslavia, France, Germany, Russia, and the civilians. President Clinton appoints and lifts them a year later. United States is established to try Richard Holbrooke to start the to settle the division of Bosnia and negotiations to end the war. Three Herzegovina; their plan is accepted senior U.S. diplomats on Holbrooke’s by the Muslim-Croat Federation but team are killed in an accident on rejected by the Bosnian Serbs. Igman mountain above Sarajevo.

July Pressure mounts again on September Siege of Sarajevo Sarajevo after on-and-off agree- ends. At the Geneva meeting, the ments on a cease-fire. foreign ministers of Serbia, Croatia, and Bosnia recognize Karadžić’s December Jimmy Carter visits Republika Srpska as an entity within Sarajevo and Pale, announcing a Bosnia and Herzegovina. four-month cease-fire but fighting continues in the Bihac area. October Macedonian President Gligorov survives an assassination attempt. Greece lifts its embargo on 1995 the country. May Bosnian Serbs take UN soldiers hostage.

| 12 | building open society in the western balkans Foundation Activities

On June 17, 1991, George Soros and to collect evidence on war crimes Promoting peace, Ante Marković, the prime minister and their perpetrators. The UN’s aiding Sarajevo, of Yugoslavia, signed an agreement International Criminal Tribunal founding the Soros Yugoslavia for the former Yugoslavia became helping refugees, Foundation to undertake projects the first international war crimes supporting in all of the country’s republics. In tribunal since the Nuremberg and 1992, Soros and the Open Society Tokyo tribunals. independent Foundations established separate media, reviving foundations in first Croatia and In 1993, the Soros Yugoslavia Slovenia, then Macedonia, and Foundation opened branch education, seeding Bosnia and Herzegovina in early offices inN ovi Sad (Vojvodina), democracy . . . 1993, leaving the Soros Yugoslavia Pristina (Kosovo), and Podgorica Foundation to operate in Serbia (Montenegro). Starting in 1994, (including its provinces Vojvodina the Open Society Foundations and Kosovo) and Montenegro. began, among other things, to support organizations such as With ethnic cleansing, war crimes, the Humanitarian Law Center in and the formation of concentration Belgrade and the Croatian Helsinki camps throughout the region Committee in their efforts to triggering a humanitarian crisis, document and seek justice for war Soros and Aryeh Neier, the execu- crimes and human rights abuses. tive director of Human Rights Watch The Open Society Foundations who was appointed president of launched the Supplementary the Open Society Foundations in Grants for Students from the Former 1993, advocated for the creation of Yugoslavia program, which from a United Nations war crimes tribunal 1993 to 2000 gave grants to stu- for Yugoslavia. The Open Society dents displaced by the Balkan wars. Foundations provided significant The Open Society Foundations’ East financial, advocacy, and technical East Program established a subpro- support for its establishment and gram for Southeast Europe, which development, including efforts operated until 2002, supporting 80

building open society in the western balkans | 13 | initiatives to promote cross-border magazines, and book publishers in and a high school with instruction cooperation among organizations in besieged Sarajevo. The foundation in classical languages. The founda- the countries of the region, includ- supported publication of 52 primary tion also provided computers, ing Greece and Turkey. and secondary school textbooks, equipment, and copy machines to awarded scholarships to nearly 500 elementary schools, high schools, university students, funded the universities, and public and univer- Bosnia and Herzegovina Sarajevo film and jazz festivals, and sity libraries. In response to the siege of Sarajevo, provided training for journalists. George Soros and the Open Society foundation in Bosnia and Macedonia Herzegovina spent tens of millions Croatia The country was hit hard by the of dollars to fund a purification The Open Society foundation in severing of economic ties with the system to pump clean water to Croatia provided equipment and rest of Yugoslavia and an economic the city’s residents; plastic pipes research support for Zagreb’s embargo imposed by Greece. The through which 60 percent of University Hospital for Cancer, Open Society foundation in Sarajevo’s homes received natural the Institute of Immunology, the Macedonia provided a $1 million gas for heating and cooking; an Institute for Protection of Children grant for medical supplies to electricity line through a tunnel and Mothers, medical schools in Macedonia’s hospitals and clinics; under the city’s airport that ensured Zagreb and Rijeka, and several more helped set up an internet connec- uninterrupted power for hospitals, hospitals. The foundation helped tion for universities and civil society the central bakery, television the refugees flowing in from Bosnia organizations; supplied educational, and radio stations, the presi- and Herzegovina. It funded several health, art, and cultural institutions dency building, and other facilities; restoration projects, including the with computers, photocopiers, and vegetable seeds that enabled effort to repair shell damage to fax machines; and awarded scholar- residents to grow food on terraces Dubrovnik’s sixteenth-century ships to graduates from Macedonia’s and in gardens; and clothing for customhouse, the Sponza Palace. universities. elderly people, refugees, internally The foundation established a school displaced persons, students, and debate program; Step by Step pre- With Macedonia’s economic woes teachers. school programs; a network of edu- unabated, tensions grew between cational information and counseling Slavic Macedonians and members In 1994 and 1995, the Open centers; the Center for Education of the country’s large Albanian Society foundation in Bosnia and Research and Development; and an minority. The foundation worked Herzegovina played a key role in e-school with courses in biology, to help establish Macedonia as a helping public discourse survive, chemistry, physics, geography, and democratic state for all citizens, shipping and distributing over astronomy. It provided funding for regardless of their ethnic origins 180 tons of paper to newspapers, the International University Center and religious background, through

| 14 | building open society in the western balkans efforts such as a network of private students from transition countries, journalists, including threats to their radio and television stations that exempted them from paying tuition lives and freedom. broadcast in the Macedonian, for postgraduate studies in the Albanian, Turkish, Roma, Serbian, humanities and social sciences. In the province of Kosovo, where and Vlah languages. the Milošević regime had forced all Albanians out of their jobs in local Yugoslavia hospitals, schools, and other public Slovenia In Serbia, the local Open Society institutions, the foundation funded The Open Society foundation in foundation supported a number of a teacher-training program and Slovenia provided more than media outlets independent of the provided lesson materials to help $1 million for educational, Milošević regime, including B92 of a parallel school system set up by psychological, social, and legal Belgrade, a symbol of resistance Albanians in homes, garages, and assistance to refugees in the to nationalist policies; Radio Boom other private premises. The branch country. More than 1,000 refugee 93 of Požarevac (home town of office supported conferences children received financial support the Milošević family); and Radio that brought together Kosovo, for their education, and 140 refugee Bajina Bašta, whose signal, though Albanian, and Serbian intellectuals; university students from Bosnia and weak, reached Srebrenica and underwrote publications about the Herzegovina received stipends to other safe-haven, cut-off areas of Kosovo conflict; and assisted a daily study in Slovenia. The foundation eastern Bosnia. The foundation newspaper and weekly magazine. provided support for the Step also provided assistance to a small In the province of Vojvodina, by Step preschool program; for group that traveled from Serbia to the foundation focused on work more than 100 young people from Sarajevo to show solidarity with the with the province’s multiethnic Slovenia to participate in interna- citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina. communities. tional exchanges with schools and colleges in Great Britain and the When Serbs fled or were expelled In Montenegro, the foundation United States; for more than 500 from Croatia, Soros gave the helped establish and develop student groups, youth newspapers, foundation an extra $15 million nongovernmental organizations, and youth organizations; and for for assistance to refugees. The independent media organizations, debate groups in 26 elementary foundation also helped establish independent cultural institutions, and secondary schools and at both associations of independent alternative arts groups, and of Slovenia’s universities. About 50 publications, electronic media, university and alternative educa- students from Slovenia received and journalists. The Association of tion centers. It assisted refugees, stipends to UK and U.S. universities, Independent Journalists of Serbia supported the civil society sector, and 66 students attended the demanded freedom of information women’s organizations, and judicial Central European University, which, and exposed suppression of the training, and established a library in keeping with its policy of helping media and violations of the rights of for vision-impaired people.

building open society in the western balkans | 15 |

Sarajevo Notebooks Shaming the Culprits Among Us

The parts of intelligentsia imbued with nationalism are also to blame for what has happened. The names of the culprits are not unknown to us. The culprits live among us. Many of them contrive to prove that they had only been trying to help their own nation. Courts of honor should be established here, similar to those which in various European countries tried intellectuals who had collaborated with Fascist and Nazi occupation forces, the courts which would check and evaluate what these people did and how they acted. We do not need any legal trials or jailing—these have never done any good to anyone. It would suffice if those who had wnso hatred would be forced to bow their heads when passing by those who have suffered the most, it would suffice to teach them to be ashamed.

Predrag Matvejević “Food for Thought,” Volume No. 3, 2003

Predrag Matvejević is a Croatian writer, publicist, and professor at the New Sorbonne of Paris and the Sapienza in Rome.

| 17 | An ethnic Albanian man hugged his brother’s grandson as the boy’s family returned in 1999 from a refugee camp to their destroyed village in Kosovo. © Associated Press/David Guttenfelder

| 18 | building open society in the western balkans Humanitarian Assistance: Keeping the Balkans Alive

Aryeh Neier

he Open Society Foundations have never made humanitarian assistance a major part of our mission. Even so, we have sometimes Tdecided that the best way to promote our mission of developing open societies is to provide such assistance. That was the case in the western Balkans in the early 1990s.

In 1992, George Soros committed $50 million for humanitarian assistance to victims of the war The Open Society foundation then underway in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He in Bosnia and Herzegovina also had two purposes: First, he wanted to help those who had suffered from the crimes that were being distributed seeds to besieged committed in the name of “ethnic cleansing.” Sarajevo residents so that they Second, he thought providing the funds would bring nongovernmental humanitarian assistance could grow vegetables on terraces, organizations into Bosnia and their personnel in backyards, and in parks. would thereby bear witness to the crimes taking place and inform the world. Under the guidance of a five-member committee of individuals connected to the Open Society Foundations, $36 million was given to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) to redistribute to nongovernmental humanitarian organizations; $2 million went to the International Committee

building open society in the western balkans | 19 | of the Red Cross; $2 million went to Human the residents were connected to gas in their homes. Rights Watch to redistribute to human rights Cuny brought plastic pipes into Sarajevo on relief organizations reporting on the conflict; and $10 planes and he and the foundation enlisted 15,000 million was spent through our foundations in the of the city’s residents to dig trenches for the pipes. region, mainly for the provision of medicine and Eventually, the project connected about 60 percent medical equipment. of the residents to gas.

A substantial part of the funding donated The Open Society foundation in Bosnia and through UNHCR went to projects in Bosnia Herzegovina also distributed seeds to Sarajevo and Herzegovina devised and managed by an residents so that they could grow vegetables on extraordinary American, Fred Cuny, operating terraces, in backyards, and in parks. Another under the auspices of the International Rescue project increased the city’s supply of electricity by Committee, and implemented by our foundation about 30 percent. there. Seeing that many of those killed by sniper fire in the besieged city of Sarajevo were hauling Tragically, Fred Cuny was killed in 1995 while water from a couple of wells in the city, Cuny undertaking a mission on humanitarian assistance created a new water system for the city. He for the Open Society Foundations in Chechnya. designed a 200-meter-long filtration system to A number of reports have been published on how purify river water and had it constructed in an he died and who killed him, but all of these have old road tunnel under a hill next to the river. The speculative components. We cannot say with hill over the tunnel protected the system against certainty how he died but we can say that, using the shelling by the Bosnian Serb forces commanded humanitarian assistance funds provided by George by Radovan Karadžić and General Ratko Mladić Soros, he helped keep the city of Sarajevo and most who were besieging the city. The filtration system of its residents alive during the 1992-1995 war in was built in long narrow segments by a company in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Texas, Cuny’s home state, and flown into Sarajevo on UNHCR relief flights. The Open Society Foundations also committed substantial funds for humanitarian assistance Another project was designed to keep the residents in Serbia. During the war in Bosnia, Serbia was of Sarajevo warm during the bitter Bosnian winter subjected to international sanctions. Unfortunately, and also allow them to cook their food. Sarajevo one consequence was a severe shortage of had access to natural gas that was piped into the pharmaceuticals and other medical supplies. The city (from Russia, through Ukraine, Hungary, and Foundations organized a program to determine Serbia), but before the war only about 10 percent of what shortages were causing particular harm and

| 20 | building open society in the western balkans then purchased those supplies that were needed, At other times, the Open Society Foundations mainly in the United States, for shipment to Serbia. have provided humanitarian assistance in many This program required extensive negotiations with countries following natural disasters or man-made the U.S. Department of the Treasury in order to disasters. To date, however, the largest amount of secure permission for the shipment of supplies that such assistance, and the place where the assistance were not supposed to be subject to the sanctions. made the greatest difference, has been in the We also organized extensive humanitarian countries of the former Yugoslavia during the assistance in Serbia for Serbs from the Krajina wars of the 1990s. region in Croatia who were driven out of the territory by Croatian forces in the summer of Aryeh Neier is president of the Open Society 1995. Also, the foundation in Serbia organized Foundations. summer camps for children of refugees and the internally displaced.

During the war in Bosnia, the Open Society Foundations organized humanitarian assistance projects in Macedonia and Croatia, including medical supplies, equipment, and ambulances, support for trauma centers, and educational services for refugee children. We also supported humanitarian assistance programs for Bosnian refugees in Slovenia.

The Open Society Foundations initiated a new round of humanitarian assistance projects in the region when President Slobodan Milošević launched a war in Kosovo in 1998 and when NATO intervened in that war in 1999. In that period, Serb forces drove more than a million people out of Kosovo, mostly into Macedonia to the east and Albania to the west. In addition to helping the refugees, we provided assistance when they returned to Kosovo following the war.

building open society in the western balkans | 21 | A woman mourned among 600 coffins of recovered remains prepared for a burial ceremony to mark the 11th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre in July 1995. © Andrew Testa/Panos Pictures

| 22 | building open society in the western balkans Never Again: Judgments on a Decade of Bestiality

Mirko Klarin

uring the second half of the 20th century, the Balkan societies underwent a number of transitions: from Stalinist D“real communism” through Titoist “socialist self- management” to a kind of “socialism with a human face.” These transitions brought them a greater degree of freedom and a better quality of life than Even its proponents in the Security that experienced by people living in the Soviet- Council did not believe that the dominated Eastern bloc.

International Criminal Tribunal In the late 1980s, however, as the Eastern bloc for the former Yugoslavia would countries were embarking on their transition ever put anyone—least of all toward democracy, open society, and market economy, the Balkan societies made a fatal about- Milošević or Karadžić—on trial. face. They experienced a transition characterized succinctly by an Austrian poet, Franz Grillparzer, in the revolutionary year 1848: Von der Humanität, durch Nationalität, zur Bestialitat, meaning “From Humanity, through Nationalism, to Bestiality.”

The 1990s in the Balkans were an era of bestial violence. The international community, unable to muster enough political pressure to halt atrocities and unwilling to intervene militarily to stop them, opted in May 1993 for “judicial intervention.” The

building open society in the western balkans | 23 | United Nations Security Council established the Milošević and Vojislav Šešelj, a Serbian nationalist International Criminal Tribunal for the former politician also indicted for war crimes by the Yugoslavia (ICTY). tribunal. They both, on more than one occasion, described the ICTY as “Soros’s Court.” Even its proponents in the Security Council did not believe the ICTY would ever put anyone—least But the tribunal survived the initial neglect of of all Milošević or Karadžić—on trial. One of its the Security Council, the contempt of the Balkan most vocal supporters, Madeleine Albright, the warlords, and the obstructions by the new political former United States ambassador to the United elites that began running Balkan societies after the Nations, admitted as much during testimony in decade of bestial violence. The Hague. “It was easy enough to take a vote to get the tribunal created,” she said, “but nobody really The ICTY never developed a cordial relationship believed that it would work. . . . Nobody thought with its “constituency,” as the institution’s former that there would ever be a court that actually president, Gabrielle Kirk McDonald, used to call functioned.” the various peoples of the former Yugoslavia. The ICTY never overcame its failure to mount a public In the first three years of its existence, the countries outreach effort that had a chance of meeting the of the United Nations Security Council treated daunting challenges the institution faced. Its judges the ICTY as if they assumed that the tribunal’s and administrators were wrong to assume that the existence alone would intimidate the Balkan institution’s judgments would speak for themselves warlords and make them accept the political and that an international court need not bother solutions diplomats had placed before them. But to explain itself to its “constituency.” This is one the warlords paid the institution no heed. reason for the yawning disparity between what the tribunal has achieved and how the region’s people In the initial period, the tribunal enjoyed perceive it. Another reason is the self-interest of the support primarily among the wars’ surviving local political and intellectual elite and the way the victims, raising their hopes that the injustice local media have warped their presentation of the they had suffered would one day be addressed. tribunal and its work. A few independent media outlets and emerging civil society organizations stood up against the If the various constituencies agree on anything, prevailing culture of impunity and also backed then it is their view that the tribunal is good the tribunal. The fact that these protribunal media when it tries “The Other’s” war criminals, and bad and NGOs were supported by the Open Society when it tries “Ours.” They also agree that the length Foundations did not go unnoticed by Slobodan and complexity of the trials were excessive, that

| 24 | building open society in the western balkans the proceedings lacked clarity, and that sentencing innocent, and this is something that no national guidelines were inconsistent. They cannot judiciary can boast. comprehend why tyrants have been allowed to use the courtroom as a political soapbox to Further, the ICTY has stimulated judicial reforms make spurious justifications for acts of bestial and strengthened local courts. This is one of its violence and to make a mockery of both justice greatest achievements. Thanks to this and to the and the victims. activism of local civil society and transitional- justice organizations (many supported by the To paraphrase Churchill’s famous definition of Open Society Foundations), the Balkan countries democracy, one could say that the tribunal is the have drawn close to a point of no return, where worst form of justice for mass atrocities . . . except going back to the culture of unaccountability and for all the others that have been tried. The tribunal impunity will no longer be possible. This process has introduced the principle of accountability, until has moved forward more due to external political now an unfamiliar concept for Balkan warlords and economic pressures than any internal need and warriors. to face the past and accept responsibility for mass crimes. The tribunal issued indictments against 161 persons for crimes within its jurisdiction: grave The ICTY’s lasting legacy in the region rests on breaches of the Geneva Conventions, violations two main pillars: local judiciaries and civil society. of the laws and customs of war, crimes against The ICTY has prosecuted the tip of the iceberg humanity, and genocide. The vast majority of of the war crimes in the Balkans, but its real the accused held high political positions or were legacy will depend on how the courts of these ranking members of the military and police. countries will continue its work in the years and They included heads of state and prime ministers, decades to come. Civil society and transitional generals and colonels, ministers and chiefs of justice initiatives such as RECOM, the regional public security and the secret police, as well commission for establishing the facts about victims as paramilitary leaders. Several accused were of the wars waged on the territory of the former acquitted because of insufficient evidence of their Yugoslavia, face an uphill struggle against denial individual responsibility, but no trial chamber ever in their effort to promote historical reflection and stated that the crimes alleged in the indictment did confront the past. not happen. Some of the acquitted may have been guilty, but the most exemplary national courts face Nearly two decades after the wars in Croatia and the same issue. It is highly unlikely, however, that Bosnia and Herzegovina and more than a decade anyone of those who were found guilty was in fact after the NATO intervention prevented Milošević

building open society in the western balkans | 25 | from carrying out a “final solution” of the Kosovo The tribunal was not created to write the history Albanian question, “tribunal fatigue” is all-pervasive of the Balkans’ decade of bestiality. But the facts in the Balkans. Local politicians complain that the presented at its trials—the millions of documents, tribunal, with its relentless digging into the region’s the forensic evidence, the secretly intercepted bloody past, is in fact preventing their countries and tape-recorded conversations, the spy-plane from reaching the radiant future of European imagery, the witness testimony, especially by integration. Their arguments are hailed by some in perpetrators and their compatriots—and the the West, who question whether the tribunal may facts established “beyond reasonable doubt” in its have caused more harm than good and whether judgments will be invaluable for future historians. the war crimes trials may have kept the interethnic Indeed, this volume of evidence will not only aid tensions going, or even incited them. historians, but also make it almost impossible for populist politicians of the future to deny these Would the Balkans be a happier place had the crimes in an attempt to lead Balkan societies into ICTY never existed? Would it have been better to yet another transition from humanism, through lock the skeletons into the closets? No. This was nationalism, to bestiality. tried at the end of World War II, which for the Balkans also had elements of an interethnic and Mirko Klarin is editor in chief of SENSE News Agency, religious war with all the concomitant atrocities. which specializes in coverage of the ICTY. In the name of a radiant future under the banner of “brotherhood and unity,” the leaders of Yugoslavia left the skeletons of ethnic and religious conflict unburied at the bottom of vertical caves. The country appeared to be stable until the economic crisis of the 1980s and the appearance of political leaders—almost all of them communists converted to nationalists—who rekindled old fears and a thirst for vengeance in order to retain their grip on power. This could happen because there had been no just reckoning after World War II, no established and adjudicated facts about who did what to whom and who was ultimately responsible.

| 26 | building open society in the western balkans Still Waiting: The “Erased” People of Slovenia

Neža Kogovšek Šalamon

n 1969, when Irfan Beširević was one year old, his parents brought him from Bosnia to live in Slovenia. Irfan’s family was one of many Ithat migrated from one federal republic of the former Yugoslavia to another to find work. Irfan, his parents, and most other Yugoslav citizens who moved between the six republics did not bother People who had lived in Slovenia to change their republican citizenship. This would have been of little practical importance, so long as for most of their lives found Yugoslavia existed. Citizens of Yugoslavia had the themselves having to apply for right to live anywhere on the country’s territory. temporary residence permits. After the dissolution of Yugoslavia in 1991, all of The “erasing” of these residents the country’s component republics adopted new left them with no legal rights. citizenship laws and laws governing “aliens.” In Slovenia, citizenship was automatically granted to those persons who were legal citizens of the Republic of Slovenia before it became independent. The government provided an opportunity for other residents of Slovenia—including citizens of other republics of former Yugoslavia who had their permanent residence registered in Slovenia, lived in Slovenia, and did not represent a threat to public order, security, and defense of the state—to apply for citizenship under lenient conditions.

building open society in the western balkans | 27 | About 200,000 people living in Slovenia were including Bosnia, where war broke out in the citizens of other republics of Yugoslavia and had spring of 1992. The “erasing” of these residents their permanent residence registered in Slovenia; of Slovenia left them with no legal rights. They approximately 171,000 of these people obtained were barred from working legally. They could not Slovenian citizenship by applying for it. Among draw upon their old age or disability pensions. these people were six of Irfan’s brothers and sisters. They could not enroll in schools. Some lived in Irfan, however, was one of the 25,670 who did not. precarious housing situations or became homeless and lost their health insurance, which deprived During the six-month period in which his them of access to health services. Many worked application was supposed to have been submitted, under the table. Others relied upon friends and Irfan was in the hospital recovering from a car family members, who let them use their health crash. By the time he was released from the insurance cards or paid for doctors. The “erased” hospital, the deadline had expired. Other people people could not leave Slovenia without the risk also failed to apply for a variety of reasons, of being barred from returning because Slovenia including the belief that they would retain their imposed visa requirements for all citizens of the status as permanent residents. Other people had other successor states of the former Yugoslavia. their applications rejected, but also believed they Some were called to the military drafts in Bosnia would be able to remain in Slovenia as permanent and Serbia. Others were registered as refugees. residents. Based on the new laws, the Ministry of Some were forcibly deported. Persons born in Interior deemed these people to be “undocumented Slovenia between 1968 and 1991 to parents who migrants,” and, on February 26, 1992, “erased” were citizens of other republics became stateless. them from the registry of permanent residents. The ministry did not bother to notify them about the Without fanfare, Slovenia’s Constitutional Court loss of their legal status. ruled in 1999 that the “erasure” was unlawful. In 2003, the court reiterated its decision, and As a consequence, people who had lived in Slovenia ruled that all “erased” people should have retained for most of their lives found themselves having to their permanent residence status. The 2003 ruling apply for temporary residence permits. For this, provoked a political storm during which center- they were required to produce a valid passport, a right parties, members of academe, and, later, birth certificate, and a certificate confirming they members of the general public vented their anger. had no criminal record. Each of these documents In the hysteria, Slovenia’s “erased” were portrayed had to be issued by their countries of origin—a as “disloyal aggressors” and as members of the serious obstacle for people originating from much-maligned Yugoslav National Army, even the war-torn regions of the former Yugoslavia, though 21 percent of all the “erased” were children

| 28 | building open society in the western balkans and more than 42 percent were women. No court In 2010, Slovenia’s parliament passed a law that ever found any of the “erased” guilty of any crime effected the status changes required in the 2003 related to disloyalty. The government, nevertheless, Constitutional Court ruling. In an initial decision refused to comply with the Constitutional Court’s issued in July 2010, the European Court of Human orders. Rights also ruled in the applicants’ favor. By 2011, thousands of the “erased” were able to regain their At this point, the Peace Institute–Institute for permanent resident status. But others still waited to Contemporary Social and Political Studies, become legal again. a nonprofit research institution developing interdisciplinary research activities in the social Neža Kogovšek Šalamon, a researcher at the Peace and human sciences, obtained financial support Institute in Ljubljana, is a legal expert working from the Open Society Foundations to take up the on human rights, asylum and migration policy, cause of Slovenia’s “erased.” The Peace Institute antidiscrimination, racism, and xenophobia in supported research on the issue and published two Slovenia and EU. books of findings. Advocacy projects kept the issue in the public eye and applied pressure on Slovenia’s government to comply with the Constitutional Court ruling. The Peace Institute also participated in a case brought before the European Court of Human Rights on behalf of 11 “erased” people by submitting an amicus curiae brief and assisting the applicants’ attorney.

building open society in the western balkans | 29 | | 30 | building open society in the western balkans Thousands of people celebrated in the main square of Subotica, a town in northern Serbia, October 6, 2000, when Slobodan Milošević quit as president, finally conceding defeat to Vojislav Koštunica, the candidate of the democratic opposition, almost two weeks after the presidential elections. Mass street demonstrations, culminating in the storming of the federal parliament, forced Miloševič out of office. The Open Society foundation in Serbia provided support for tens of thousands of volunteers to monitor the elections. © Associated Press/György Németh

building open society in the western balkans | 31 | 1996–2000 and, inaspeech,openlyattacks treatment intheUnited Croatia receiving after medical minister.prime S in elections capture parliamentary December liberties. power, clampingdown oncivil the fraud, butcontinues to hold acknowledges Milošević parties. led by students andopposition of massstreet demonstrations led coalition tr andtheresulting elections E D inMontenegro,elections andMilo of November vocal cr take over government’s to closeand efforts Croatian history, protest againstthe the biggestdemonstration inrecent October that won in1990. parties for thesamenational victory bring tions inB September 1996 H lection fr lection lov jukanović r jukanović S ocialists winsparliamentar enia, Janez istorical itic ofthe T osnia and R he citizens ofZagr aud in L T adio 101, a popular and adio 101,apopularand T iberal he he first postwar elec he firstpostwar emains prime minister.emains prime iggers four months D T D udjman returns t Y emocratic P rno T ugoslav feder D udjman regime H emocrats všek remains erz egovina S tat S eb, in es es ocialist- arty arty

y y

al al

o o .

OVERVIE the work ofthelocal f fully reint 1997 ( and the between Pristina and Belgrade. begins arranging negotiations May U. in dential election March member oftheU S January 1998 ofMontenegro.dency politics, narrowly winsthepresi- distancing himselffrom Milošević’s Milo October put down theprotest. the University students protest against / September of Croatia. second aspresident five-year term June Franjo fighting anddestruc oundation. KLA lov S enia becomes anonpermanent ) gro erbian regerbian S I brahim . K E E ws from troops 100armed egrated into Croatia. osov astern nv Pristina October T oy udjman elected f udjman elected D o jukanović R ime; police brutally R L ugov S ichard N ibera lavonia ispeace K

S osov ecurity C ecurity tion escalate, O a winspresi- tion pen H W o. , after , after olbrooke A S ociety ociety rm ouncil. or a or a y y T he he - to over 20,000 recruited soldiers. Security Council adopts Resolution June Constitutional changes NATO gives Milošević an ultimatum 1244, establishing Kosovo as an establish Croatia as a parliamentary to stop the destruction of Kosovo. UN-administered territory, de jure country. remaining under the sovereignty June/September Fighting and of Serbia. International troops from July The Constitutional Court of destruction continue to escalate in the NATO-led Kosovo Force are Bosnia and Herzegovina issues a Kosovo; OSCE mission deployed. deployed in five zones correspond- landmark human rights decision ing to their country of origin (France, guaranteeing Bosniaks, Croats, October Coalition “For Change” Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and Serbs equal rights as citizens (VMRO-DPMNE and the Democratic and the United States) under a joint throughout the country. Alternative) wins the third parlia- command. The KLA, having agreed mentary elections in Macedonia. to disarm, is demobilized and October Milošević accused of replaced by the Kosovo Protection rigging the presidential elections to Corps. defeat the candidate of the demo- 1999 cratic opposition coalition, led by March In Bosnia and Herzegovina, November Six Croatian opposition Zoran Djindji´c. Mass street demon- international arbitration on parties form a preelection coalition. strations culminate in the storming the Brcko District confirms an The German mark introduced as of the federal parliament. Milošević independent administration and an an official currency in Montenegro, quits and Vojislav Koštunica of the international supervisor appointed strengthening economic opposition Democratic Party of by the high representative. On independence. Serbia is sworn in as president. the 23rd, the Kosovo delegation signs the Rambouillet Conference December Croatian President Franjo November Macedonia signs the agreement, but the Serbs reject it. Tudjman dies. Boris Trajkovski is Stabilization and Association The same day NATO starts bombing elected president of Macedonia. Agreement with the EU. Serbian military and strategic targets in Serbia and Kosovo. Over 200,000 December Liberal Democrats win people, mainly Serbs and Roma, flee 2000 parliamentary elections in Slovenia, Kosovo to Macedonia, Albania, and January In Croatia, the opposition Janez Drnovšek remains prime Montenegro, creating a large-scale coalition parties win the election and minister. humanitarian disaster for these Ivica Racan (SDP) is elected prime countries. minister. Joint Interim Administration Structures are set up in Kosovo, May Civil society groups in Croatia focusing mostly on reconstruction; organize a campaign for free and fair Ibrahim Rugova’s party LDK wins by a elections, Glas 99. landslide in local elections.

June After 78 days of NATO bomb- February Stjepan Mesic is elected ing, Milošević agrees to withdraw president of Croatia and sworn in for forces from Kosovo. The UN his first five-year term.

building open society in the western balkans | 33 | Foundation Activities

Bosnia press for equal rights and equal Protecting rights, and Herzegovina opportunities. establishing rule The Open Society foundation in Bosnia and Herzegovina helped of law, surviving initiate, develop, and press for Croatia government adoption of the country’s first state The Open Society foundation in law on associations and foundations Croatia supported the establish- attacks, teaching designed to protect basic rights, ment of the Croatian Law Center children critical including freedom of speech and and ZAMIR, Croatia’s first indepen- freedom of association and assem- dent internet service provider; a thinking, helping bly, which NGOs require to function. project examining privatization Roma integrate . . . The foundation established the in Croatia; and independent cul- Soros Center for Contemporary tural organizations. It also assisted Art, which gave exposure to nongovernmental organizations contemporary artists, and the dedicated to defending human Center for Educational Initiatives, rights, protecting the rights of which introduced modern educa- marginalized groups, including the tion theories and trained teachers physically and developmentally to develop critical-thinking and disabled, and promoting sound problem-solving skills. environmental policies. The foundation helped establish the Electronic The Soros Law Center established News Library and the International a postgraduate course in European Center for Education of Journalists. studies, the first in Bosnia and Herzegovina to provide instruc- In 1999, the foundation pro- tion on contemporary politics, vided funding for a voter-turnout economics, and society in the campaign (Glas 99) for the parlia- European Union. At the beginning mentary and first post-Tudjman of 2000, the foundation took on presidential elections; efforts to new priorities, including helping decentralize the country’s public the country’s Roma to organize and administration; a Roma preschool

| 34 | building open society in the western balkans education project; development of free of charge in refugee camps. purchased approximately 20,000 curricula and capacity building for Medical assistance and psychologi- books for 60 public libraries. a public health school’s initiative for cal counseling were made available Support went to a number of improving management of TB; and to children and mothers in the student media organizations a number of programs promoting camps. The foundation supported as well as cultural magazines. entrepreneurship. free legal assistance for refugees, Approximately 100 journalists and the donation of computer received grants to visit media equipment to register refugees organizations abroad, to carry out Macedonia and manage the distribution of projects abroad, or to participate in In Macedonia, the Open Society humanitarian aid. conferences and seminars. The foun- foundation expanded the Step dation also funded more than 500 by Step preschool program to 60 The foundation readjusted its civil society projects concerned with schools and sponsored seminars to priorities in 2000 toward long-term ecology, human rights, volunteer improve school curricula, teaching support for the efforts of the work, ethnic minorities, women’s methods, and management. The government and civil society rights, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and foundation launched an ambitious to meet the requirements for transgender rights, student issues, project, including preschool pro- accession to the European Union. psychiatry, child abuse, violence, grams, English language courses, It began implementing a project and drugs. In 1999, it contributed and computer training, to stimulate to develop NGO support centers to the development of palliative the integration of Roma children for institutional development care in Slovenia with grants to the from Skopje’s poorest area, Šuto in four ethnically diverse towns Slovenian Hospice Society and Orizari, into Macedonia’s broader suffering difficult economic condi- the Palliative Care Development society. tions. The foundation provided Institute. legal assistance to journalists and In 1999, relations between Slavic media organizations in response to The foundation ceased operations Macedonians and Albanians dete- fraud-ridden local elections during in 2000 and transferred its media, riorated with the influx of refugees, which people were shot inside civil society, and East East projects whose numbers amounted to about polling stations and journalists were to the Peace Institute, an indepen- 15 percent of Macedonia’s popula- pressured and threatened. dent research NGO for social and tion. The foundation established political studies, which the Open strategic partnerships to improve Society Foundations continue to interethnic relations in Macedonia. Slovenia support. Albanian and Roma media organiza- The Slovenian Open Society foundations received grants to publish and tion supported the publication broadcast programs for refugees. of around 200 books in the social Yugoslavia Daily newspapers were distributed sciences and the humanities and Five months after a court ruling

building open society in the western balkans | 35 | annulled the Yugoslavia Open teachers. The foundation provided gees to communicate with family Society foundation’s registration, support for the Center for Free members and others, continuation international and domestic pressure Democratic Elections, which of higher education for students prevailed and the foundation was marshaled about 50,000 volunteers and professors of the University reinstated. The foundation sup- to monitor the 2000 presidential of Pristina by organizing summer ported some 200 nongovernmental elections. school programs in Macedonia, and organizations throughout Serbia establishment of preschool centers as well as the student movement In the province of Kosovo, the for refugee children in several in Belgrade, which played a Open Society foundation in Serbia cultural centers in Macedonia. leadership role in the 1996 citizens’ provided a $2 million grant to sup- protest against Milošević’s refusal to port the parallel education system The foundation in 2000 helped recognize the defeat of his party in in Kosovo, including basic computer establish information centers in local elections. Support also went courses, equipment for labs and Kosovo’s national and university to the Center for Free Democratic schools, curricula reforms, teacher library as well as libraries in other Elections, which organized about training, and the introduction of the areas of the country, providing 7,500 volunteers to gather evidence Step by Step preschool program. furniture, information technology proving that the results of some The foundation established the equipment, books, and access local elections were fraudulent. Dodona Culture and Gallery Center to global web-based libraries. and supported 30 exhibitions and The foundation also established In 1999, the foundation worked other activities. the Kosovo Education Center to to mitigate the social, economic, advance education at all levels and political effects of the armed After the withdrawal of the Serbian through policy reforms and imple- conflict in Kosovo, the NATO bomb- police and administrators from mented Step by Step programs ing campaign, and the hundreds most of Kosovo, Soros transformed and literacy and critical-thinking of thousands of refugees who the Pristina branch office into an projects. fled the conflict. It supported the independent foundation. During establishment of Opennet, the the Kosovo conflict and its after- The Open Society foundation in second internet provider in Serbia, math, the foundations in Kosovo Montenegro continued to support which operated as a part of B92, and and Macedonia provided support programs in arts and culture, media, dozens of internet clubs providing for more than 500,000 Kosovo civil society, and education; to free training for thousands of Albanians forced into Macedonia. promote diversity, conflict resolu- people. The foundation’s Third These efforts included facilitating tion, human rights protection, and Millennium Project promoted the the enrollment of Kosovo elemen- efforts to fight discrimination; and use of information technology tary and high school students in to assist minority groups in building for education, equipping schools Macedonian schools, the establish- networks and advocating for the with computer labs and training ment of internet centers for refu- protection of their rights. The foun-

| 36 | building open society in the western balkans dation helped journalists, activists, from Kosovo, helping to develop independent entity in November students, scholars, and independent Montenegro’s first Roma nongov- 1999. The Open Society foundation intellectuals reestablish contacts ernmental organizations. It pro- in Serbia continued to work in with their counterparts in other vided support for the development Vojvodina through its branch office areas of the former Yugoslavia. The of nongovernmental organizations in Novi Sad. foundation supported projects to working to prevent violence against ease the plight of Roma refugees women. The foundation became an

building open society in the western balkans | 37 | Sarajevo Notebooks The Preservation of Bare Life

There are people who, fleeing the famine or the wild bloodthirsty tribes, have left their sudans, algerias, mexicos and bosnias, arrived to the big cities of the West. In order to reach their destination—whose main attraction for them was neither a democratic political system, nor all the wonders of construction; neither freedom of speech, nor the rule of law; much less a glorious culture and civilization which Japanese tourists try to catch with their cameras; but the promise of a full stomach, and the preservation of bare life—some of them had to cross great rivers and crawl through the desert at night, hiding from the border patrols. Others have flown across the oceans, reported to centers for social housing and then got lost in the confusion of a language they will never learn well enough to name that which hurts them or to explain why; so whenever they’re drunk, they cry. They work in slaughterhouses, where animals are killed whose meat would be used to make food for people who work a lot of hours but don’t know much, people who are righteous, ready to help and wish what’s best for both the animals and the immigrants who slaughter those animals, the butchers on the minimum wage in whose homeland the war is raging, on which CNN reported during the dinner hour. Some of these people work on construction sites, on high floors of new buildings into which, despite the fact that the free and developed world offers the same

| 38 | chance of success to everybody, they themselves are never going to move. Sometimes, however, they fall off these buildings, and their bones scatter over the asphalt like dice tossed in a very bad, extremely unfortunate throw in a game of Yahtzee.

Andrej Nikolaidis “They Die in the Snow,” Volume No. 23/24, 2003

Andrej Nikolaidis, a Montenegrin writer, has published three novels.

| 39 | Writer Susan Sontag rehearsed Waiting for Godot by candlelight in besieged Sarajevo, 1993. © Paul Lowe/Panos Pictures

| 40 | building open society in the western balkans Remnants: Documentary Drama

Tea Alagić

he play opens in my home city, Mostar, which in summer is a limestone cauldron in a valley too narrow for a city, its arching Tbridge, and its tales and poetry. I take day trips to the seaside. When my brother and I were little, the four of us slept in one room. My father is Mustafa Alagić, a butcher. My Croat mother has a Russian given name, Olga, one favored by communists. I am 19 years old in 1992, in love for the first time.

“I’m not going to wait here Soldiers from a work of dystopian fiction 30 years. I’m from a mixed family. ME: Do you have a cigarette? Are you allowed to talk? I am already being pointed out. SOLDIERS: Move. Go. I’ve become something I’m not.” ME: What about the Muslims? SOLDERS: We kill them all.

Girlfriend and I, April 1992, a gas tanker explodes beside a barracks ME: My God, what was that? GIRLFRIEND: I think it came from the next street. ME: We should go home. GIRLFRIEND: Let’s go see. ME: You are insane. GIRLFRIEND: I’m going to see.

building open society in the western balkans | 41 | I walk alone to a pastry shop and buy something Border control sweet. AGENT: You can’t go back to Bosnia. ME: I was born there. Next day AGENT: Where are you coming from? ME: My clothes, my books? ME: Munich. MOTHER: Only for 10 days. Here’s the address. AGENT: Go back there. You’ll stay in Croatia. Just 10 days. No one cries. The car tops a hill. I look back. Days alone in a room, Munich VOICE (outside the door): Roll her a joint. Slip it Croatia, with a girlfriend under the door. GIRLFRIEND: Bitch. ME: Pass me a lighter. I’m going to Prague. ME: I’m not going to wait here 30 years. I’m from a VOICE: What are you talking about? mixed family. I am already being pointed out. I’ve become something I’m not. On scholarship, Prague, mother visiting, I listen MOTHER: The Croatian army set up a detention Border control camp to hold Muslims and Serbs. They took my AGENT: You cannot leave the country. Your brother to the frontline to use as a human shield passports are not valid. and dig trenches. ME: What? AGENT: They’re worthless. Words of mother and father MOTHER: Hide in the bathroom? We can block Munich, July 1992, railway station. I am an illegal the door with the wardrobe. alien, crashing on cardboard. FATHER: You can’t move the wardrobe. And I can’t AGENT: Next! breathe in there. ME: I need a place. MOTHER: Under the bed? AGENT: If you have someone in Germany, we can FATHER: I won’t fit. give you money for the train. MOTHER: I have a key to our neighbor’s place. The ME: I have a brother, in Nuremberg. door has a Croat name. AGENT: Sixty marks. Next! FATHER: Good idea.

Dishwashing, sleeping like a sausage on a floor Croat soldiers in the night ME: How did this come to pass? I was at home. I SOLDIERS: Get up! Mustafa Alagić, come with us! was safe. FATHER: Who are you? No! Stop! Where are you taking me?

| 42 | building open society in the western balkans Mostar, amphitheatre, father with prisoners Mother and me, recalling FATHER: Wait. I am a friend of Ante. ME: How did you find me in Prague that time you GUARD: How do you know him? came unannounced? FATHER: We are business partners. I have keys for MOTHER: I went to that coffee shop. They said you him. were shooting a movie outside the city. I headed GUARD: Let me see what I can do. back to the bus station. I was going down into the subway and met you coming up. Mother, hitchhiking after the war ME: That was science fiction. DRIVER: I was commander at the amphitheatre. I remember one man clearly. His name was Mustafa Tea Alagić, an Open Society scholarship recipient, is Alagić. Do you know what became of him? a New York City director with many Off-Broadway MOTHER: I knew him. [later] Thanks for the ride, credits. She has also worked as an actor, writer, and and for saving my husband. director with theater companies around the world.

building open society in the western balkans | 43 | My Decision to Return Home

Ivan Barbalić

e were exchange students at high schools and colleges scattered across the United States. But in so Wmany ways that we would have denied, we were only children, kids adrift, kids far from our parents even before the phone lines to Bosnia and I was fortunate. Failure did punctuate Herzegovina were cut. Nineteen ninety-two was a year of television reports on ethnic cleansing and the years after my return home, sniper and mortar attacks. Back at home, our peers but there was success as well, were in the trenches. We asked ourselves why we and I never regretted returning. were not there, too. To ease the mental dissonance, we told ourselves we were just children. But so were they: the kids in the refugee shelters, the kids carrying automatic rifles, the kids lying in graves.

We were fortunate to have escaped. But we, too, were goaded into adulthood, carrying little life experience in our bags and few expectations about where we might unpack. We wanted to believe that life goes on, that the pattern of our existence might somehow become more regular. This was a defense mechanism against the pain of distance and loneliness. We tapped survival instincts we did not know. Somewhere deep, hidden and suppressed, was a tattered sense of the dignity essential when you are developing as a person.

| 44 | building open society in the western balkans We began networking with one another. I there would be disappointments that might force remember hearing the name “Soros.” Word of me to second-guess my decision to move home. scholarships spread. There were applications, acceptance letters, classrooms, and labs. The I was fortunate. Failure did punctuate the years Open Society Foundations organized a gathering after my return home, but there was success as well, of scholarship recipients in a Philadelphia hotel: and I never regretted returning. The Open Society seminars, friends, affirmation of our existence, Foundations assisted me during my graduate an injection of confidence that we would succeed studies at the University of Sarajevo’s Center for and were not alone. It was a genuine embrace, Interdisciplinary Post-Diploma Studies. When something as warm as a memory of the community my colleagues and I launched a nongovernmental to which we had once belonged, and perhaps still organization that gathered alumni of the center did. It conjured up memories of our homes, our into a think tank to work on European integration, schools, our families . . . the important things so democracy, human rights, governance, and other lacking and far away. issues, the Open Society Foundations provided crucial support. I saw a new generation of people Without scholarships, it would have been more with similar experiences and beliefs emerge in difficult to earn our college degrees. We would have Bosnia and Herzegovina and in other countries stolen more time from our books, washed more of the region. I saw talent and knowledge that cafeteria dishes, pumped more gas, lugged more made me an optimist. I saw the Open Society suitcases, and waited more tables. We were willing, Foundations help build bridges that have of course, to work. We would have survived. But it contributed to normalization of relations between would have been survival without a sense that there divided communities. I saw the organization extend was someone of stature who respected us, who stood a hand to minorities and endangered populations. behind us and strengthened our sense of self-respect. I saw the Open Society Foundations there when new ideas and initiatives were being created and We are settled now, some of us in the United States, acting as a hub for people who believe in open, some in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Our network constructive social interaction and cooperation as still exists. After graduating from college I did my a response to fear and hatred. It is a response that first internship in the Open Society Foundations’ demands dignity. accounting department in New York. I returned to Bosnia toward the end of the 1990s, feeling that my Ivan Barbalić, an Open Society scholarship recipient, country was entering a new phase in its transition. I is the permanent representative of Bosnia and felt that society was regenerating itself. I wanted to Herzegovina to the United Nations. be a part of this process. I knew that improvement would not happen quickly or without effort. I knew

building open society in the western balkans | 45 | Sarajevo Notebooks Story: A Need to Talk to Each Other

Vojka Smiljanić-Djikić

n his poem “A Dialogue,” Jorge Luis Borges writes, “Two men are sitting on the banks of the River Euphrates, and talking; not trying to Iconvince each other about anything: just sitting and talking; and that is a fact of capital importance in our history.”

This was exactly how we felt after the Yugoslav wars. We felt we needed our own Euphrates to sit beside and talk to each other. We had been friends Sarajevo Notebooks, which started before the war started, we used to do similar things, as a magazine, has become a we had studied at the same universities, our books movement that brings together had been published by the same publishers, we had been translating the same authors. Then all of a writers of all generations sudden we found borders in front of us, which we and from all the countries of had to cross holding passports in our hands. We the former Yugoslavia. knew that we must overcome these borders, and in order to cross them we had to build new bridges. But we also felt that it was particularly important to open these bridges to young people, and to encourage the young to cross them boldly. We therefore gathered in Sarajevo, to discuss and see what we could do together. We came from all the countries of former Yugoslavia, firmly convinced that relationships must be restored.

| 46 | building open society in the western balkans And so we agreed to start a magazine and to name Ten years on, it could be said that Sarajevo it Sarajevo Notebooks. It only seemed logical that Notebooks, which started as a magazine, has the message of dialogue and cooperation should become a movement that brings together writers come from Sarajevo, the city which was so damaged of all generations and from all the countries of the during the war. Moreover, Sarajevo was the only city former Yugoslavia, with a special emphasis on the to which everyone was willing to come. writers from the diaspora: Bora Ćosić, Semezdin Mehmedinović, Predrag Matvejević, Mirko Kovač, The first volume of Sarajevo Notebooks was Dubravka Ugrešić, Slavenka Drakulić, Aleksandar launched on September 29, 2002. And from then Hemon, and many others. In this way, connections on, the volumes have been coming out one after have been reinstated within the region but also another, as if breaking some invisible barrier. It was with the writers who left Yugoslavia during the easy to create these volumes, as the response was 1990s and then, through Sarajevo Notebooks, have phenomenal: there has not been a single instance returned to their own language. of refusal by an author we have contacted for a submission. Vojka Smiljanić-Djikić is the executive editor of Sarajevo Notebooks, a magazine of short stories, Volumes have been devoted to a number of topics: poems, and novel excerpts by prominent authors in women’s writing, writers on the border, writers and and from the Western Balkans. nationalist ideologies, war writing, a non-European Europe, national literary canon, contemporary writing and our languages, nomadism, youth, transition and culture, and melancholy and nostalgia, to name just a few.

We have published 30 volumes so far, and they have been promoted in all the major cities of the region, and beyond: Amsterdam, Brussels, Göteborg, Leipzig, and Tirana. Sarajevo Notebooks have become an indispensable source of information for Slavic studies throughout the world.

building open society in the western balkans | 47 | | 48 | building open society in the western balkans A tattered poster of Serbia’s ex-president Slobodan Milošević hung on a wall in the Serbian capital Belgrade in 2001. Throughout the 1990s, as Milošević headed a regime based on corruption, ethnic hatred, and war, the Open Society Foundations supported efforts in Serbia to preserve elements of civil society, democratic opposition, and human decency. By 2000, Milošević’s destructive reign came to an end after he lost the presidential elections and was ousted from power. In March 2001, Serbian authorities arrested Milošević and transferred him to The Hague where he would die in 2006 of natural causes while on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity. © Andrew Testa/Panos Pictures

building open society in the western balkans | 49 | 2001–2005 2000 elec S Croatia signs October the law. H T plotting to destabilize Macedonia. international ofsecretly community L A August r at the appears incourt cleansing andwar crimes. Milošević a Croatian general, for ethnic in H subsequently transfer himto ties arrest March Under institutions. to international organizations and R minister of in tion coalition to victory D ZoranJanuary 2001 July before the U H efuses to recognize itsjurisdiction. jubčo he parliamentofB tabilization and epublic of greemen erz ague onJune28,asymbolicdat emocratic P S erbian historerbian T egovina adopts a new election egovina adoptsanewelection istorica he G T I he eorgiev C tions and becomes prime tions andbecomes prime S t issigned. Prime Minister TY S lobodan Milošević and lobodan Milošević Y O erbia, andtheFedererbia, N ugoslavia isreadmitt indicts indicts arty, leadstheopposi- hrid F hrid D war cr D jindjić, theauthori y, to standtrial ski accuses the ski jindjić, headofthe A ssociation ssociation ramework osnia and osnia and imes tribunal. A nt I C e TY D G and and ecember otovina, T he he al al - e e ed ed L OVERVIEW

Union, mar A in Croatia’s accession to the 2002 Cr union withthename r February Parliament of 2003 S Janez December by localauthorities. law arenew election fullyexecuted ance and with Bosnia First incompliOctober - elections accedes to theCouncil of of the ist candidate to become president April minister.prime and Bajram I with redefinesMontenegro’s relationship March term. a membersta gov brahim atifies charter for newstateatifies charter lov greemen oatia. and Bosnia ernment of enian presidency for enian presidency afive-year S I vo erbia withinajointerbia sta D T emocratic Union( he Belgr R S ugov anader defea t withthe king thefirst step formal king R exhepi isappointed te. a is elected presidenta iselected K ade osov D rno H A E erz S o iscreated; H uropean všek wins greemen erbia and and erbia - ts anextrem Y erz egovina ugoslavia E HD egovina’s urope as E te. Z) in Z) in U. t t T he he

Montenegro. Montenegro granted to solve the status of Slovenia’s October Negotiations between the right to hold a referendum on “erased” citizens fails to pass a the EU and Croatia are officially independence within three years. referendum. opened. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the European Commission opens March Reformist Prime Minister April/May Slovenia becomes a negotiations on the Stabilization Djindjić is assassinated in Belgrade member state of NATO and the EU. and Association Agreement. by a web of organized crime figures closely linked with the old June Croatia gains EU candidate November UN Secretary General Kofi regime, which retains links with status. Annan appoints Martti Ahtisaari as the unreformed security services. chief negotiator on Kosovo’s status. Referendum in Slovenia favors EU August The new UN special rap- and NATO membership. EU, fol- porteur on Kosovo favors the start of December Macedonia obtains EU lowing a new “two track approach,” negotiations on the country’s status. candidate country status. Former starts negotiations separately with Croatian army lieutenant general Serbia and Montenegro. October Parliamentary elections are and war crimes tribunal indictee held in Kosovo. President Rugova Ante Gotovina is apprehended in April Serbia becomes a member creates a coalition with Ramush the Canary Islands and transferred of the Council of Europe. Filip Haradinaj’s party, appointing him directly to The Hague to stand trial. Vujanović becomes the president of prime minister. Montenegro. November The United States November In parliamentary elec- recognizes the Republic of tions in Croatia, Sanader’s HDZ wins Macedonia under its constitutional the most seats and forges a coalition name. Parliamentary elections in government, with Sanader as prime Slovenia are won by the right-wing minister. Democratic Party, Janez Janša becomes prime minister. 2004 February President Trajkovski of 2005 Macedonia dies in a plane crash. January Stjepan Mesić elected president of Croatia in a second March Vojislav Koštunica becomes round victory over the HDZ candi- prime minister of Serbia. date Jadranka Kosor.

June Democratic Party leader Boris March Haradinaj resigns as prime Tadić elected president of Serbia. minister of Kosovo after the ICTY indicts him for war crimes. April Branko Crvenkovski elected president of Macedonia. Legislation

building open society in the western balkans | 51 | Foundation ACTIVITIES

Bosnia A foundation-supported analysis Fighting and Herzegovina of deficiencies in Bosnia and corruption, The Open Society foundation in Herzegovina’s constitution con- Bosnia and Herzegovina supported cluded that it must be harmonized improving Roma work on the Lessons (Not) Learned with the European Convention communities, in Bosnia-Herzegovina report, an at- on Human Rights. The foundation tempt to evaluate the performance embarked on a campaign to working for of international organizations improve juvenile justice, which European working in Bosnia and Herzegovina resulted in a strategy and action after the war; the report called for plan unanimously adopted by the integration, a reorientation and rethinking of Council of Ministers in 2005. The piloting good policies. The foundation also funded foundation launched a three-year a project to restructure educational program to encourage policymak- governance, services, launched a legal clinic ing based upon information and evidence, awarding eight fellow- reforming program to train students and offer legal aid to the indigent, and helped ships for research and advocacy. It the judiciary, establish the Youth Information also piloted its good governance programs in five municipalities in an monitoring Agency to increase the participation of young people in society. In effort to transform local governance politics . . . 2002, the foundation supported structures into modern, transparent an international conference with systems that provide efficient public 300 participants to discuss the services. A foundation-supported establishment of Bosnia and assessment of democracy in the Herzegovina’s state war crimes country encouraged citizens to vote court. The foundation also printed in upcoming general elections using the first issue of Sarajevo Notebooks, “issue-based” instead of “ethnic- a literary magazine that explores based” criteria. political issues facing Bosnia and Herzegovina’s deeply divided society. Croatia The Open Society foundation in

| 52 | building open society in the western balkans Croatia pressed for policy reforms Kosovo provide multiethnic and multicul- by supporting a think tank that The Open Society foundation in tural communities with educational, published a report on the low levels Kosovo provided assistance for cultural, and sports activities, access of entrepreneurial activity in Croatia the establishment of the Kosovo to information technology, and help and designed a training program for Law Center, which helped people establishing small businesses. The small- and medium-sized enterpris- reacquire personal legal documents foundation organized experts to es with high growth potential. The confiscated from them when they support the transition of the justice foundation also addressed reforms were expelled by Serbian police in sector from UN administration to in local government elections, 1999. Support for Roma projects administration by Kosovo’s local social services, and the regulation of facilitated the return of Roma authorities. government employees. from Macedonian camps and the enrollment of their children in In 2004, Forum 2015, now an The foundation launched the Open local schools. The foundation also integral part of the foundation, Society Forum, which conducted supported an educational reform undertook projects evaluating research and evaluated progress in project, media organizations, and Kosovo five years after the introduc- areas such as education, rule of law, women’s shelters. The foundation tion of the UN administration and ethnic minorities, and economic helped to establish the departments analyzing Kosovo’s experience with development—and how they af- of psychology and political science privatization and problems with the fected Croatia’s democratization at the University of Pristina, develop electoral system, ethnic intolerance, and European integration efforts. a project to increase the quality decentralization of ethnic minori- The Open Society Index, developed and transparency of administrative ties, and higher education for the by the foundation, measured services in 20 Kosovo municipalities, Serb minority. the level of openness of Croatian train governmental and nongov- society through criteria in educa- ernmental organizations active in The foundation and the United tion, media, entrepreneurship and arts and culture, and create a wide Nations Development Program economic freedom, transparency of network of debate clubs within joined efforts for major capacity political processes, rule of law, and schools and youth communities. building in the country and estab- marginalized groups and minorities. lished an institute to train 70,000 The foundation launched its opera- local civil servants. The foundation In May 2006, the foundation tional project, Forum 2015, which helped protect minority-group non- closed after 14 years of work, while at first was a joint effort with two governmental organizations, initiate the Open Society Foundations think tanks, addressing the crucial think tanks for the Bosniak, Roma, continued to provide funding to problems affecting consolidation Serb, and Turkish communities, local NGOs working on issues such of democracy and integration into and establish a school to educate as human rights, mental health, and the European Union. The foundation students about the European Union. general and higher education. set up eight community centers to

building open society in the western balkans | 53 | Macedonia The foundation helped gather 110 Macedonia’s economic stability In response to violence between representatives from almost every and business climate, and initiated Albanian insurgents and student and youth organization in public and institutional debates Macedonia’s military and security Macedonia to evaluate the country’s on decentralization, freedom of service, the Open Society founda- institutions of higher education, information, the status of Roma, tion in Macedonia mobilized more and undertook a needs assessment and the status of nongovernmental than 100 nongovernmental to prepare for a capacity-building organizations. organizations in a countrywide program for student organizations. peace campaign, “Enough is Macedonia’s government agreed Enough,” and advocated for free and to cooperate with the foundation Montenegro fair democratic elections and efforts on the National Program for The Open Society foundation to fight corruption and organized Development of Education. The in Montenegro encouraged the crime. These activities made the foundation also carried out research public to become involved in foundation the target of attacks on corruption in higher education, government reform by participating from government institutions and revealing its presence in admissions, in campaigns and advocating for government-controlled media examinations, student services, legislation on issues such as corrup- organizations, which derided the administration, and many other tion, organized crime, and traffick- foundation as a “Fifth Column,” aspects of higher education. ing in human beings. It pursued “Sorosoids,” and “agents of an inter- numerous activities to strengthen national conspiracy.” The foundation The foundation supported efforts freedom of expression, develop joined efforts to establish support to reform Macedonia’s judiciary, to media self-regulation, elaborate centers for nongovernmental advocate for a law on free access to journalistic codes of behavior, and organizations, a creative teaching public information, and to promote change libel from a criminal law to and learning project, and education anticorruption efforts.T he founda- a civil law matter. With other Open and public administration reforms. tion coordinated donor community Society Foundations entities, the In 2002, a foundation-backed, activities to promote and monitor foundation initiated education voter-turnout drive for parliamen- Macedonia’s commitments to the reform, including policymaking, tary elections recruited over 120 Decade of Roma Inclusion, and development of legislation, nongovernmental organizations helped with projects to improve curriculum development, teacher and helped produce a turnout of 73 the school achievement of Roma training, and textbook publishing. percent. The foundation continued children and young adults. In The foundation helped establish its comprehensive work in educa- addition to pressing for progress the Judicial Training Center, legal tion reform, including enhancement on Macedonia’s accession to the clinics, and a strategy for reform of of educational opportunities for European Union, the foundation Montenegro’s judiciary. Following Macedonia’s Roma. undertook projects to improve the official policy to decentralize

| 54 | building open society in the western balkans government, the foundation tion in Serbia, in 2001, worked with strengthen the professional capa- supported the drafting of legislation the new democratic government bilities of the judiciary, particularly relevant to local self-governance. and international donors to judges and prosecutors dealing advance the country’s transition to with organized crime in recently The introduction of a new primary democracy. The foundation sup- established special courts. The education system in 20 pilot schools ported the preparation of new laws foundation also supported training across Montenegro culminated on the judiciary, local government, for members of nongovernmental years of foundation work on educa- freedom of information, and the organizations to monitor court tion reform. The foundation un- police. It joined the Council for the trials. dertook the training of teachers of Reform of the Judiciary to bring the civic education, a new compulsory judicial system up to international The foundation in 2004 began subject in primary schools, and standards and helped Serbia’s law campaigning against the new, supported an evaluation of the enforcement and judicial institu- antireform policies of the Koštunica first year of implementation of tions to cope with organized crime government. It helped organize educational reforms. In the area and war crimes. The foundation an international conference that of legal reform, the foundation supported education reform, contributed to work on a new organized debates on draft laws including curricula changes, a legislative framework for education dealing with witness protection, national education strategy for reforms. The foundation worked court fees, judicial education, and Roma children, and public educa- with the Serbian government to rules of procedure. The foundation tion debates involving over 30,000 draft elements of the National supported the monitoring of a law teachers, parents, and community Strategy for Joining the European on the financing of political parties. members. Union; Serbia’s progress toward join- Support also went to expert coming the European Union remained missions responsible for revising During the state of emergency thwarted by its refusal to cooperate Montenegro’s criminal code and after Prime Minister Zoran Djindjić’s fully with the UN war crimes code of criminal procedure. The assassination, the authorities tribunal. The foundation promoted foundation helped create education restricted key human and civil numerous activities to further co- policies that do not discriminate on rights, including freedom of operation between Serbia and the the basis of gender. expression and information; limited tribunal, and worked to increase the the independence of the judiciary; capacities of the domestic judiciary and restricted defendants’ rights to deal with cases involving serious Serbia in criminal procedures, thereby violations of humanitarian law. After operating in dangerous and violating the principle of a fair trial. difficult conditionsor f almost a The foundation initiated efforts to In 2005, the foundation advocated decade, the Open Society founda- reestablish these rights. It worked to for building a pro–European Union

building open society in the western balkans | 55 | social consensus in Serbia, and sion. The foundation contributed to Stabilization and Association monitored the effectiveness, the development and implementa- Agreement with the European efficiency, and democratic nature of tion of an educational program for Union. the government’s work on EU acces- civil servants negotiating Serbia’s

| 56 | building open society in the western balkans Sarajevo Notebooks Family Across Borders

Because of my Belgrade childhood, my biography is typically Yugoslav. Many of my relatives on my mother’s side dispersed across the width and breadth of Yugoslavia, the result being that I have kin among nearly all the peoples of this region. Two of my cousins, Janez and Stanko Škrabar, still live in Belgrade; they were the ones I looked up to in my youth. My cousin Amiz Hamzić, an excellent fellow, lives in Zagreb; he is Bosnian on his father’s side, Slovenian on his mother’s, has Croatian citizenship, and is an international atomic physicist by profession. The war in the former Yugoslavia forcibly drew borders between kin. My cousins became citizens of countries that were at war with each other. Happily, in the case of my family, these external borders did not affect our relations though they did complicate possibilities for communication and visits.

Boris A. Novak “Words that Flow against the Current of Time,” Volume No. 3, 2003

Boris A. Novak, a Slovenian poet, playwright, translator, and essayist, teaches at the Faculty of Arts, Ljubljana University.

| 57 | Actors performed Macbeth in Belgrade’s Republic Square, January 1997, to protest the Milošević regime and fraudulent election results. © Vesna Pavlovic´

| 58 | building open society in the western balkans Turning the Power of Art against Fear and Hatred

Milena Dragićević-Šešić

mob mentality makes life perilous for free thinkers and nay-sayers when fear and hatred infect an entire society, when Acorruption reaches epidemic proportions and the police and military degenerate into a criminal mafia, when governmental, financial, commercial, social, educational, and cultural institutions Independent cultural centers collapse, and when the mass media lie for political became places where artists and free- leaders bent on mobilizing people against “the thinkers worked in close proximity other.” In extreme cases, like Hitler’s Germany, nay-saying writers and artists have been driven into and strived to collaborate with their exile or killed. In the Soviet bloc, poets and painters counterparts in other republics and were considered social parasites and some were confined to the Gulag or to mental institutions. to nurture vibrant political debate. During the nationalist insanity that gripped the republics of the former Yugoslavia in the 1980s and 1990s, the various republican governments slashed the budgets of cultural institutions. Those artists, writers, painters, and theatre and film directors who dared to challenge the us-or-them mindset of the day were shunned. Others who were less bold censored themselves. Still others produced works that were escapist or blatantly aimed at whipping

building open society in the western balkans | 59 | up nationalist passions. Too many of the best and Confusion lashed out against war, nationalism, the brightest emigrated. and destruction with songs by Bertold Brecht providing the backdrop. During the 1990s, the The atmosphere of hatred that existed in the 1990s Dah Theater expanded its activities to include in the former Yugoslavia—much of it fomented workshops, lectures, seminars, guest performances, by institutions that exercised a near monopoly and festivals aimed at a constant exchange of over cultural life—motivated the Open Society knowledge, experiences, and ideas among artists Foundations to begin funding alternative cultural from a variety of traditions. The institution has activities in Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia, and the old become a significant element of the capital city’s Yugoslavia’s other successor republics. The idea cultural and artistic landscape. was not to underwrite art for art’s sake. The aim was to use targeted funding to encourage artists, The Open Society Foundations contributed to writers, performers, and others, working alone and development of independent cultural centers in collectively and sometimes across ethnic lines, to cities and towns across the successor states of the turn the power of art against hatred and intolerance former Yugoslavia. These cultural centers became and the fear that drives them. places where artists and freethinkers worked in close proximity and, despite war fronts, severed Open Society–backed activism in the arts and other telephone lines, and travel restrictions, strived to cultural institutions in Serbia began with a radio contact and collaborate with their counterparts station: Belgrade’s B92. Its music and information in other republics and to nurture vibrant political programs challenged the state media’s nationalistic debate on current issues. Practically all of these worldview and resonated with thousands of people, centers came under government pressure. In especially young people, and gained growing September 1993, in Ljubljana, Slovenia, the numbers of listeners after the first opposition Metelkova Autonomous Cultural Center squatted demonstrations of March 1991, when Slobodan in seven buildings of an abandoned barracks of the Milošević called on the Yugoslav army to send defunct Yugoslav National Army and transformed tanks onto Belgrade’s streets and, in a meeting with them into an art gallery, studios for artists and local political leaders, set Serbia on a war footing. designers, offices for cultural organizations, and venues for musical performances. In September B92 blazed a path for other artists ready to 1994, Radio B92’s cultural center, Rex, opened challenge xenophobia, patriarchal values, hate in an abandoned building of Belgrade’s Jewish speech, and ethnic stereotypes. Belgrade’s Dah community center and eventually undertook Theater’s performances of This Babylonian programs that included comics, rock music, opera,

| 60 | building open society in the western balkans and sales of fanzines produced independently by of street action–theater performances derived fans of a particular music group or other cultural from the book; a program of documentary films; phenomenon. and feature films, including Charlie Chaplin’s Great Dictator and WR, Dušan Makavejev’s film In September 1994, the first Dibidon caravan with about Reich and his gizmos. Reich wrote that the 30 new generation artists journeyed from Belgrade alienated individual who withdraws into a shell was to Slovenia, some of them for the first time in their responsible for the 20th century’s evils, including lives. During Kontradibidon, Slovenian artists totalitarianism, fascism, and nationalistic hysteria. traveled from Slovenia to Serbia and exhibited and staged their work at various venues. Rex held Drawing on the work of Augusto Boal, who an exhibit of cartoons from Stripburger, a comic argued that conventional theater militates in magazine that publishes foreign as well as local favor of social dominance by a privileged few, artists who work in a mix of styles. The Center for Ana Miljanić, a marquee director at Belgrade’s Cultural Decontamination displayed works by Jurij Center for Cultural Decontamination, undertook Krpan; the Technical Students Club held concerts; a series of site-specific theater “actions” that the Belgrade International Theater Festival demonstrated the power of social interventions organized performances; and the Belgrade Cultural using different artistic forms. In Zagreb, Croatia, center held a photo exhibition and debates. Other ZCCE3000 undertook conferences, art festivals, collaborative events took place, including Living in exhibitions, workshops, lectures, presentations, Sarajevo in May 1995 and Pertej, an exhibition of publications, and media productions. A crucial Kosovo artists, in July 1997. component of the project was to reform the institutional settings of independent culture, “Worried September! Wilhelm Reich in Belgrade increasing its influence and strengthening its – Lust for Life” was a project devoted to the resources. One of its collaborators, What, How and common individual—of Belgrade and the world— For Whom, organized a complex exhibition on the who, in despair, withdraws from life and cedes 152nd anniversary of the Communist Manifesto’s responsibility for his or her being and future. publication, returning Marx to the public sphere in “Lust for Life” had multiple dimensions, including Belgrade for the first time since 1989. publication of a translation of Listen, Little Man!, a book by Wilhelm Reich, a highly controversial Alternative art entered the free space of the psychoanalyst who studied under Freud and World Wide Web long before public cultural later died in prison in the United States after the institutions and art schools. Ljudmila (the government banned and burned his works; a series Ljubljana Digital Media Laboratory), CyberRex

building open society in the western balkans | 61 | in Belgrade, the Soros Center for Contemporary The final phase of the Open Society Foundations’ Art in Skopje, Lamparna in Labin, and MaMa, arts and culture program involved increasing the Multimedia Institute in Zagreb, introduced the capacity of independent arts centers and artists and audiences to the new media culture, institutions to achieve financial sustainability the internet and digital arts, as well as “socially through more effective management, marketing, inflected approaches to new technologies,” such fundraising, and other areas. Advocacy, lobbying, as open sources and free software. A project of and a proactive approach to policymaking became the first generation of new media trainees was the a daily agenda item for cultural organizations, Yugomuseum of Mrdjan Bajić, which displayed which were also expanding their mission to interesting artifacts and examined key moments in include, among other things, social inclusion. the creation and dissolution of socialist Yugoslavia. Efforts by independent arts and culture centers and Begun in 1997, the project was presented at the organizations, with the support of the Open Society Venice Biennale in 2007. In Skopje, within the Foundations, succeeded in developing activists Soros Center for Contemporary Art, Melentije capable of bringing issues crucial to the arts onto Pandilovski organized the Skopje Electronic the public agenda and raising public awareness and Arts Fair and numerous Web database projects, lobbying to achieve constructive results. including internet-based auctions of contemporary Macedonian artists. In Croatia, Teo Celakoski Milena Dragićević-Šešić is a professor of cultural and LABinary organized the international policy and management and the former president of CyberKitchen CyberFem School, which included the Belgrade University of Arts. digital media workshops for 45 women artists and created a space for exploring theoretical issues about media, feminism, alternative economy, and civil politics.

| 62 | building open society in the western balkans Art work, exhibited in Sarajevo in July 2003, incorporated graffiti written by a UN Protection Force soldier in Srebrenica during 1994–1995. © Šejla Kameri ´C

building open society in the western balkans | 63 | Reviving Creativity after the War

Dunja Blažević

he art of defiance that arose and poured forth from Bosnia and Herzegovina—and especially from Sarajevo—during the Twar has been replaced by apathy and exhaustion. Culture and the arts lack sufficient material, institutional, and professional support. The return to “normal” life after the war meant a return of art and culture to their traditional institutional venues: the galleries, the museums, and the academy, which One of the goals was to enable reestablished a hierarchical system of values and new art production by younger evaluation. But the war had gutted the prewar artists who, after four years in physical infrastructure of the institutions of art and culture. Financial support for institutions and the shelters, sought to reoccupy arts is scarce. No new system of funding the arts Sarajevo and reestablish contact has arisen. Statewide cultural policy is nonexistent. Institutions of the old system are not capable of with the outside world. adapting to the new realities. Cultural and artistic initiatives not geared for mass consumption are disappearing. Institutions direct their energies to festival-like events, because it is easier to attract sponsors and sizeable crowds.

The Open Society foundation in Bosnia and Herzegovina founded the Soros Center for Contemporary Art in 1996. The center’s goals were

| 64 | building open society in the western balkans to keep contemporary art alive, to gather dispersed capability to document its own activities. Over creative energy, to enable new art production, the past decade, pro.ba has developed video and especially by the younger generation of artists, noncommercial films, collaborated with public who, after four years in shelters, sought to reoccupy television channels as an independent producer, Sarajevo and to reestablish contact with the outside and engaged in public multimedia campaigns. world. The center developed itself as a production, information, documentation, education, and Since 2000, the center has focused on mid-term distribution point, a generator of new events and and long-term regional projects supported developments in art, an active promoter of a new by international foundations. For example, cultural model. De/construction of the Monument (2004–2007), a multidisciplinary project, organized a series With no gallery space of its own, the center acted of panel discussions, lectures, seminars, artistic as a mobile art institution, placing its actions and presentations, exhibitions, and interventions in interventions on sidewalks, squares, parks, and public spaces. The project held a contest for the other open spaces, thereby making art a component “new monument”; one was installed in Mostar, of everyday life. three in Sarajevo. The participating artists adopted the monument form of art in an antimonument The center developed links between the artistic way, creating monuments that would demystify its community in Bosnia and Herzegovina and common meaning and draw attention to negative artistic communities abroad, promoting work by elements of the past, rather than glorifying it. artists from Bosnia as well as artists who had fled abroad, and developing cooperation with artists Dunja Blažević, an art historian, art critic, and and cultural centers around the region. Despite contemporary art and new media curator and the government’s refusal to provide financial and producer, is the director of the Sarajevo Center for logistical support, the center, as a nongovernmental Contemporary Art in Bosnia and Herzegovina. organization, developed direct collaboration and exchanges with artists and organizations in Banja Luka, the political and cultural center of the Serb entity in Bosnia, Republika Srpska.

The center went on to establish a multimedia production department, pro.ba, which enabled artists to create professional-quality videos, as well as new media works, and gave the center the

building open society in the western balkans | 65 | Red Cross humanitarian aid station in the center of Sarajevo, January 1993. © Associated press/Hansi Krauss

| 66 | building open society in the western balkans The Aid Dilemma: Lessons (Not) Learned in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Žarko Papić he war in Bosnia and Herzegovina ended in late 1995 with the conclusion of the Dayton Peace Agreement, a complex Tarray of diplomatic compromises whose farthest- reaching section, Annex IV, effectively became the country’s postwar constitution. The Dayton Peace Agreement succeeded in its immediate goal. It halted years of senseless violence, including war The most important crimes against civilians. But Annex IV has not been recommendations stressed the kind to the war’s survivors. need for foreign donors to forge The provisions of Annex IV have left Bosnia partnerships with local stakeholders, and Herzegovina’s people hostage to nationalist allow for local ownership of political leaders, many of them corrupt and willing to strengthen their hold on power by whipping the process, and insist upon up popular fear and hysteria just as Radovan sustainability as the ultimate goal. Karadžić and other nationalist leaders did before the war. Annex IV also burdened the country with a government that is structurally ill equipped to produce decisions necessary to deal effectively with pressing challenges. Bosnia and Herzegovina was subdivided territorially between two entities, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republika Srpska, as well as one special exception, the tiny, ethnically mixed Brčko District.

building open society in the western balkans | 67 | The powers of the country’s central government executive, the high representative for Bosnia were intentionally limited. Layers of regional and and Herzegovina, soon came to resemble the local governments became absurdly redundant and governor of an international protectorate. The conflicting. At last count, Bosnia and Herzegovina high representative can issue decrees that carry had 13 constitutions, 14 governments and the force of law and unilaterally oust elected parliaments, more than 200 ministries, a maddening political leaders, even members of Bosnia and battery of laws and regulations, and budgets weighed Herzegovina’s presidency. On the positive side, down by exorbitant administrative costs. the high representative has acted as a credible arbiter and as a kind of deus ex machina capable Annex IV provides for a kind of “equality” that is a of overcoming the stonewalling of nationalist perversion of the Western notion of equality of all leaders. But the high representative is also a part citizens. The equality provided for under Annex IV of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s problem. Instead is ethnically based, the equality of three constituent of acting responsibly, taking calculated political “peoples,” Slavic nations that emerged out of an risks, and forging compromises to resolve pressing ethnic differentiation process that took place problems on their own, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s during the late 19th century. These “constitutional political leaders have too often waited for the high peoples” are the Bosniaks, essentially people who representative to resolve problems for them. are Muslims at least by legacy (meaning a Bosniak can actually be an atheist who happens to have had Implementing the Dayton Peace Agreement and a practicing Muslim father or grandfather); the building peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina have cost Croats, people who are Roman Catholic at least the outside world dearly. During the first five years by legacy; and the Serbs, people who are Eastern after the war, Bosnia and Herzegovina received an Orthodox at least by legacy. Under the constitution, estimated $46–53 billion in financial support. This no Serb living in the Federation of Bosnia and translates into a breathtaking $1.3 million to $1.5 Herzegovina—and this means every Serb living in million per person in a country where GDP per Sarajevo or cities such as Mostar and Tuzla—can capita was less than $3,800 in 1998. This amounted run for Bosnia and Herzegovina’s presidency. Nor to the largest amount of per capita financial support can any Bosniak or Croat living anywhere in the any country had ever received. Needless to say, the Republika Srpska, nor any Jew or Hungarian or immensity of this largesse did not transform Bosnia Roma living anywhere in Bosnia and Herzegovina. and Herzegovina into a new Switzerland. After five years, it was clear that the postwar financial support The Dayton Peace Agreement also established an had failed even to produce its intended effects. international administrative body whose chief Bosnia and Herzegovina’s economic recovery was

| 68 | building open society in the western balkans weak and halting. The same political and social apply in other countries, including those of South divisions that had hamstrung the body politic before Eastern Europe. the war still existed. The analysis found that political leaders in Bosnia Why, given half a decade and massive financial and Herzegovina and decision-makers in the support, did Bosnia and Herzegovina have an international community who directed financial NGO elite rather than an open, civil society? Why support to the country largely ignored the fact did nationalist parties continue to win elections? that Bosnia and Herzegovina was simultaneously Clearly, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s leaders and undergoing three transitions: a transition from its political culture are in large part responsible war to peace, a transition from dependency upon for this outcome. But a significant share of the international financial support to self-sustainability, responsibility lies in the way international support and a transition from a communist near-monopoly was designed and distributed. on political and economic decision-making to a pluralistic, democratic political system and a free During 2000–2001, the Open Society foundation market economy. in Bosnia and Herzegovina commissioned a comprehensive, critical analysis of the international Too much financial support for Bosnia and support policies implemented in the country after Herzegovina’s economic reconstruction was the war. By that time, the failings of local political guided by dogmatic market fundamentalism. No leaders were well documented and well publicized. free market can develop efficiently without the For this reason, the analysis focused upon the introduction and development of institutions and policies of the international community and appropriate regulations. International support foreign and international nongovernmental driven solely by the donors cannot nurture local organizations; it thus became the first analysis ownership and sustainability. Foreign investors, undertaken by experts from Bosnia and who could have taken advantage of Bosnia and Herzegovina working from the point of view of Herzegovina’s relatively low-cost, well-educated the intended beneficiaries rather than that of the workforce and become a force demanding rational donor organizations from abroad. The goal of this local government policies, concluded that the analysis was to produce a fact-based assessment of political risks outweighed potential returns and the situation and recommend ways to improve the sought opportunity elsewhere. international support policies applied in Bosnia and Herzegovina and to inform policies that local After the war, international financial support was leaders and international organizations might channeled through a legion of nongovernmental

building open society in the western balkans | 69 | organizations that had scant experience in the hiring of local people to fill most positions in Bosnia and Herzegovina or with its people. the program staff of international organizations These organizations failed to take advantage of and for the establishment of partnerships between less-costly local capacity, so their administrative donors and local stakeholders in the design and and implementation costs were enormous and implementation of projects. needlessly diminished the support that reached the local population. (The lowest-ranking foreign staff Published under the title Developing New in Bosnia and Herzegovina enjoyed salaries that International Support Policies – Lessons (Not) were several times higher than the official salaries Learned in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the analysis was of government ministers.) Procurements were widely distributed to international organizations, made in donor countries, so aid did not boost local including departments of the United Nations and economic demand to jumpstart local producers. bilateral donors, as well as government bodies and Donor-driven projects in some instances competed other stakeholders in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Some against other donor-driven projects, so some needs international organizations initially reacted to the were ignored while others received a surfeit of analysis with surprise, disapproval, and indignation. attention. The aid effort was also counterproductive The analysis’s recommendations, however, won because it strengthened the dependency syndrome unanimous support at an international conference in in Bosnia and Herzegovina and thereby diminished Sarajevo in February 2002. the accountability of local political leaders, as well as the people, for the situation in which their Subsequently, the support strategies of all donors country found itself. to Bosnia and Herzegovina placed significant emphasis on the establishment of local ownership The most important recommendations stressed and the forging of partnerships with local the need for foreign donors to forge partnerships organizations and designated sustainability as a with local stakeholders, allow for local ownership fundamental goal. UNICEF, for example, developed of the process, and to insist upon sustainability as mechanisms of local management decision-making the ultimate goal. bodies for its projects.

The analysis called for amending Bosnia and A series of amendments to the constitutions Herzegovina’s constitution in a way that would of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Federation of strengthen the powers of Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the Republika as a state and ensure the equality of its citizens Srpska led to an improvement in the equality of regardless of their nationality. It also called for constitutional peoples. Court institutions were

| 70 | building open society in the western balkans formed at the Bosnia and Herzegovina level, the harmonization of donor support with local including the Supreme Court and the Court of priorities. War Crimes and Organized Crime. These moves met significant resistance from local political Žarko Papić is the director of the Independent leaders. The establishment of a coordination Bureau for Humanitarian Issues in Bosnia and board produced significant improvement in the Herzegovina. cooperation between bilateral donors, international organizations, and local governments, including

building open society in the western balkans | 71 | | 72 | building open society in the western balkans Serbian President Boris Tadić in November 2010 paid his respects at a farm near Vukovar where more than 200 Croats were killed by Serb forces in 1991 after being dragged out of a local hospital. Tadić apologized for the crimes committed by Serb forces. Early in 2010, President Josipović of Croatia visited Central Bosnia and apologized for the crimes committed in the name of Croatia in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Open Society Foundations supported efforts at coming to terms with the past across the region. © Associated Press/Darko Bandić

building open society in the western balkans | 73 | 2006–2011 of Mac G perceived as aprovocation by the after plans to name Macedoniaannounces December progress inthecountry’s politicallife. small changesinpower, butno and in Bosnia S K S H ministeras prime ofMontenegro. O auspices. of September N ment is formed inMacedoniawith July/ approve aMay referendum. ofvoters pendence amajority after June Montenegro declares inde of January 2006 tion of the country asthe tion ofthecountry pr H erbia. erbia. erbia’ osov reeks e isreplac ikola Milo Milo ctober ime minister. K K osov osov istorical August A o as an inseparable part of of o asaninseparable part s newconstitution refers to lexander the edonia. , whostillblocktherecogni- G T he second general elec ruevsk o are openedunderU o, diesfrom lungcancer. I brahim ed by Željko T alks onthefuture status N D H ew coalition go S i (VM jukanović r jukanović erz kopje airpor R ugov egovina bring egovina bring G RO rea - a, president Š D t, amove turano PM R esigns esigns epublic epublic t t NE vern- N tions tions ) as ) as vić. -

OVERVIE its currenc with Fatmir result inacoalition government of the majority U the June completed. and May relatively Zoran unknown Milanović. 1980s, diesandisreplaced by the of the - April dence for indepen- his planfor supervised February Martti January 2007 cooperation. December another narrow victory. November S I H E n Croatia, U and chengen N ashim

S A A ecurity C ecurity N R htisaar June ssociation SD egotiations bet ussia blocksendorsement of S T S erbia onthe erbia P inCroa haçi as prime ministerhaçi asprime lovenia adoptstheeuro as K y. A S I S K osov vica anader leads S lov rea c i planfor osov ejdiu aspresident and ouncil. enia joins the enia joinsthe S R o. A A erbs boyerbs ountries for mutual o’s which elections, ačan, president htisaar greemen tia since thelate K S ween the tabilization osov i announces W HD cott, t are o at the o at the Z to . .

November Secessionists found 2008 the Serbian Progressive Party. 2010 January Slovenia becomes the first January Ivo Josipović is elected Parliamentary elections are won by of the new member states to hold president of Croatia. social democrats in Slovenia and the EU presidency. Borut Pahor becomes the head of February Macedonia’s government government. In Macedonia local and February Kosovo declares its inde- increases ethnic tensions by launch- presidential elections confirm the pendence. Željko Šturanović resigns ing the project Skopje 2014, with its power of VMRO-DPMNE and George as prime minister of Montenegro. plans for new antique buildings and Ivanov is elected president. Milo Djukanović becomes prime monuments in Skopje. minister again. Boris Tadić wins December EULEX is created to elections on a pro-European plat- March Serbia’s parliament adopts a monitor and advise police, judiciary, form for Serbia. resolution apologizing for the mas- and customs in Kosovo. sacre of Muslim Slavs at Srebrenica April At the NATO Summit in in 1995 and declares that Serbia Bucharest, Croatia is invited to join, should have done more to prevent but Greece vetoes membership for 2009 the tragedy. In Slovenia, legislation February After extraordinary Macedonia. Filip Vujanović becomes regulating the status of the “erased” parliamentary elections, Djukanović president of Montenegro. is adopted. Slovenia hosts the stays in power in Montenegro. first Balkan summit to discuss the June Bosnia and Herzegovina signs European perspective; all leaders July Ivo Sanader amid rumors of cor- the Stabilization and Association attend except Serbia’s president ruption suddenly resigns as prime Agreement with the EU. Early parlia- because Kosovo’s prime minister was minister of Croatia. His handpicked mentary elections in Macedonia are also invited. successor, Jadranka Kosor, becomes accompanied by incidents but the the new prime minister. government of VMRO-DPMNE and April Croatian President Josipović DUI wins an absolute majority in the visits Central Bosnia and apologizes November Prime Minister Kosor of parliament. to Bosnian Muslims for the crimes Croatia and Prime Minister Pahor of committed in the name of Croatia in Slovenia sign an arbitration agree- July Former Bosnian Serb political Bosnia and Herzegovina. ment to resolve a maritime border leader Radovan Karadžić is arrested dispute that was blocking Croatia’s in Belgrade and transferred to the June EU and Western Balkan leaders progress toward EU membership. UN war crimes tribunal for genocide in Sarajevo reaffirm commitment to and other war crimes. European future for the region. December Serbia applies for membership in the European Union. October Montenegro recognizes July The International Court of Montenegro is accepted into NATO’s Kosovo. The UN adopts Serbia’s Justice upholds Kosovo’s right to Membership Action Plan for possible request to review the legitimacy of independence. admission into NATO. Kosovo’s declaration of independence and refers the case to the International Court of Justice.

building open society in the western balkans | 75 | October General elections in June Macedonia holds parliamen- Bosnia and Herzegovina produce 2011 tary elections and the VMRO-DPMNE January Hashim Thaçi continues as mixed results, disappointing some party, led by the incumbent prime prime minister of Kosovo despite reformers. minister, Nikola Gruevski, wins. allegations of involvement in organized crime activities. November Serbian President Tadić July Sanader is transferred from visits Vukovar and apologizes for the Austria to a jail in Zagreb. The last March Serbia and Kosovo begin talks crimes committed by Serb forces. remaining war crimes fugitive, Goran in Brussels on regional cooperation, He is accompanied by President Hadžić, is captured in Serbia and freedom of movement, and rule of Josipović of Croatia. transferred to The Hague. law, the first talks between the two countries since Kosovo declared December Milo Djukanović, after independence. 20 years in power, resigns as prime minister of Montenegro. Igor May Former Bosnian Serb army Luksić becomes prime minister. chief Ratko Mladić is arrested in Montenegro receives EU candidate Serbia after 17 years on the run and country status. Sanader, the former is extradited to The Hague to stand prime minister of Croatia, is arrested trial for war crimes. on corruption charges in Austria. Kosovo holds parliamentary elections.

| 76 | building open society in the western balkans Foundation ACTIVITIES

Bosnia and equal opportunity in school Ending violence and Herzegovina programs. A curriculum and text- against women, Surveys conducted by the Open book review and a public opinion Society foundation in Bosnia and survey found that schools in Bosnia integrating Herzegovina revealed that the and Herzegovina discriminated minorities, country’s schools continue to on the basis of ethnic, religious, use separate Bosnian, Croatian, and political affiliation as well as championing and Serbian curricula and that economic status. transparency, some rural schools are also physically separating children of In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the outlawing different ethnic groups. Surveys Open Society Foundations, which are committed to ending violence discrimination, also revealed, however, that the students themselves are ready for against women, supported an strengthening change, saying that their schools are organization providing psychosocial and medical treatment and legal civil society, not fostering critical thinking and ethnic pluralism. The foundation counseling to women victims aiding people with supported civil society efforts to of wartime sexual violence and domestic violence. disabilities . . . encourage reforms to curricula that would promote tolerance and multiculturalism. The foundation’s Campaign for Justice in Education alerted the Citizens Committees for Democracy public to discrimination against monitored the performance of the children in the educational newly elected government, evaluat- system on the basis of their ethnic, ing the extent to which preelection religious, and political affiliation, as promises were kept. The Youth Get well as their health and economic Out to Vote project helped young status. The campaign advocated for people to understand the role of equal access to education, higher voting in a democracy. The founda- quality of educational services, tion monitored education reforms safety in schools, learning about that would promote human rights diversity, and harmonized financing of education.

building open society in the western balkans | 77 | Widespread discrimination against Croatia continued to suffer from Turkish populations. Forum 2015 various groups is one of the most political corruption and economic published a study of government serious generators of human mismanagement. In 2010, civil plans to construct a power plant rights violations in Bosnia and society representatives and experts that would cause numerous Herzegovina. The foundation supported a strengthening of the ecological, social, and economic established an antidiscrimination Open Society Foundations engage- problems, undertook projects team to bring strategic litigation ment in Croatia. In September, an examining the country’s European cases before the country’s courts. In Open Society Foundations advisor identity and policies toward migra- July 2010, the first antidiscrimina- for Croatia was hired to serve as the tion, and launched a study on the tion ruling found that the govern- liaison for Foundations programs in international presence in Kosovo. ment violated the right to education the country. The foundation established six com- of a minor with special needs by munity centers in areas where Roma not providing assistance in a regular comprise a majority population to class to enable the child’s inclusion. Kosovo advance education, culture, and The foundation helped establish Forum 2015’s Status vs. Status Quo health, and engage youth. the Public Interest Advocacy initiative mobilized civil society Center to mount public pressure to support negotiations between The foundation in 2009 initiated a on the government to provide Kosovo and Serbia. The foundation two-year project, Communicating information on its fiscal decision agreed with the government of with Europe, which sought to making and to encourage citizens to Kosovo to draft the Kosovo Strategy broaden and strengthen com- participate and hold public officials for Integration of Roma, Ashkali, munication channels between accountable. and Egyptian communities, which civil society organizations and the was completed after two years of intellectual elite in Kosovo with their public debate and adopted by the counterparts in countries that have Croatia parliament in 2008. Soros pledged not recognized Kosovo’s indepen- In 2007, a year after the closing 500,000 euros to the integration dence (Bosnia and Herzegovina, of the foundation in Croatia, the effort, and the European Union gave Cyprus, Greece, Romania, Serbia, Open Society Foundations formed 1 million euros. The foundation was Slovakia, and Spain). Forum 2015 a three-member advisory board to mandated to oversee the strategy’s initiated a project to enhance help with the work the Foundations implementation. communication between Serbia continued to support in the and Kosovo. The foundation country. It quickly became clear, The Open Society foundation in provided support to the Ministry of however, that a local presence was Kosovo supported multiethnic European Integration to advance needed. Despite its steady progress centers in communities with large Kosovo’s progress in developing toward European integration, Serb, Slavic Muslim, Roma, and closer cooperation with relevant

| 78 | building open society in the western balkans EU institutions in Brussels and decentralize public administration promoting the integration of Roma, Pristina and also supported media and develop local democracy. The the foundation joined the Center efforts to inform the public about foundation advocated for bringing for Democracy and Reconciliation the European Union’s policies on national education policies into in Southeast Europe in its project energy, visas, agriculture, and other harmony with the goals of the to end ethnocentric teaching of areas. European Union’s overarching history by avoiding stereotypes, education policy framework. identifying attitudes that encourage The foundation supported televi- conflict, and promoting the idea of sion documentaries on fighting The foundation mobilized public multiple interpretations of events. corruption and on reforming the support, exerted pressure upon The foundation undertook a project electoral system. George Soros’s government and political leaders, aimed at introducing the rehabilita- emergency fund helped 25 Kosovo and organized discussions with EU tion and resocialization of former organizations to withstand the officials to celerateac Macedonia’s drug users, including visits of social impact of the global financial accession to the European Union. It workers and civil servants to Bosnia recession. The foundation funded monitored spending by the central and Herzegovina, Poland, and the efforts to prepare Kosovo’s minority government and the process of Czech Republic to study similar communities to support the crucial decentralization in order to enhance centers and a conference on best countrywide census in 2011. public debate on government practices. transparency and accountability. The foundation in 2010 continued Macedonia The Open Society Foundations in to press for change to advance The Open Society foundation in 2008 provided support to the first Macedonia’s progress toward Macedonia worked to strengthen organization in the country offering membership in the European Union. the country’s internal integration to community-based housing services Some of the foundation’s activities meet the prerequisites for European as an alternative to institutionaliza- were seen as threatening by various Union integration. These efforts tion for people with intellectual political interests in Macedonia, and included projects to study and disabilities. The effort in Macedonia the country’s ruling party attacked analyze Macedonia’s state institu- was part of an Open Society the foundation, several of its tions and improve governance; Foundations campaign throughout spin-off organizations, the initiators to integrate the Roma through the region to improve the lives of of Citizens for European Macedonia, reforming the education system, people with intellectual disabilities. and other nongovernmental improving health care, strengthen- organizations as national traitors ing Roma nongovernmental In addition to supporting education and conspirators against the state. organizations, and expanding and legal reforms, strengthening economic opportunities; and to civil society organizations, and In Macedonia, the Open Society

building open society in the western balkans | 79 | Foundations also operated the study trips; funded an analysis of With Montenegro officially a can- Roma Mentor Project, which brings human and minority rights and didate for entry into the European successful Roma into public school public debate on the issue of Union, the foundation in 2010 classrooms and after-school learn- Montenegro’s accession to NATO; supported efforts to update the ing programs to inspire and help and promoted compliance with European Reporter portal with Roma students achieve in school pledges to improve the situation of relevant information about the and life. the country’s Roma. European Union and Montenegro’s progress toward integration. The The foundation supported foundation continued its efforts Montenegro programs to strengthen both to promote the rule of law and In the weeks before the referendum public administration and local build the capacity of organiza- on independence, the Open government institutions, including tions working with women, the Society foundation in Montenegro providing staff members with skills Roma, and other groups who face focused on explaining the vote’s to implement reforms crucial to discrimination. importance to the public. Of the the European integration process. persons casting ballots, 55.5 percent The foundation also undertook voted for independence, surpassing development of Montenegro’s first Serbia by half a percentage point the shadow report on implementation The Open Society foundation in amount needed to clear a EU- of the United Nations Convention Serbia’s report on the country’s law established threshold for validation. on the Elimination of All Forms of on access to information called for Subsequently, parliament declared Discrimination against Women. the constitution to guarantee access Montenegro to be an independent to information as a human right state; Serbia, Russia, the European Projects run by parent groups, teacher and a constitutional commissioner Union’s member states, the United associations, and organizations to oversee its implementation. The States, the United Kingdom, of young people with disabilities report also called for the adoption and other countries recognized received funding to further imple- of a new law on protection of Montenegro’s independence. The mentation of teaching methods and personal data. Another foundation foundation supported efforts to to assess student achievement upon study, on the right to information prepare Montenegro for accession completion of primary school. The in Serbia’s minority languages, to the European Union and to foundation worked on improving civil stimulated extensive public improve Montenegrin attitudes monitoring of human and minor- debate and provided a resource toward European integration. The ity rights, the financing of political for policymakers and stakeholders. foundation collaborated with mass parties, the promotion of free access The foundation continued to media organizations on training to information, and efforts to fight advocate for the development of seminars, courses, workshops, and corruption. pro-European public policies, rule of

| 80 | building open society in the western balkans law, good governance and account- ency and improve mechanisms to for citizens of these countries, an ability, and respect for individual monitor the spending of aid money important step in their EU accession human rights and the rights of the from abroad. Foundation-supported process. Serbia applied for member- Roma and other minority groups. professional associations of judges ship in the European Union in and prosecutors questioned the December. The foundation contin- In the wake of Kosovo’s recognition general reelection of judges and ued to work in a coalition of civil as an independent state by most EU prosecutors and played a large role society groups to educate the public countries and the ensuing backlash in preventing an effort to bring the on the vast benefits of entering the in Serbia, the foundation sought judiciary under the control of the European Union. The foundation to combat resurgent nationalism government and political parties. also led efforts to fight corruption, and renewed calls for isolationism. increase budget transparency, and The foundation led a coalition of In 2009, a collaborative campaign improve the country’s mechanisms civil society groups that worked to by foundation-backed civil society for spending foreign aid funds, as inform the public on the benefits of organizations in Serbia, Macedonia, well as to improve access to quality EU integration, helping keep nation- Montenegro, Bosnia and education for the country’s Roma. alists from regaining control of the Herzegovina, and Albania helped government. The foundation also lead to a liberalization of the worked to increase budget transpar- European Union’s visa requirements

building open society in the western balkans | 81 |

| 82 | building open society in the western balkans

NEWS UPDATE: Media Support Still Needed

Brankica Petković

he democratization of the media sector after the breakdown of socialism has been a great challenge for all postsocialist Tcountries. It has meant adopting new rules and values, new institutions, and a new professional culture. But it has also meant living up to expectations that freedom of the media will finally protect society from the dominance of one center of power, enabling a variety of political, social, and cultural interests to compete for public attention. It was erroneous to assume that strong foreign support for In the case of the former Yugoslavia, the the independent media in the transformation of the traditional media system was dramatically influenced by the violent breakup of early stages of transition would the federal state in the early 1990s and the process inevitably lead to reforms being of (re)building of national identities and nation easily concluded in later stages. states on its territory, associated with the rise of nationalism, wars, and new dictatorships. In many instances, the governments that emerged after the first democratic elections exercised control over the newspapers, magazines, and broadcast outlets that survived from the former regime. Some, notably Slobodan Milošević in Serbia and Franjo Tudjman in Croatia, used the media outlets they controlled for fuelling ethnic hatred and war propaganda.

building open society in the western balkans | 83 | From the early 1990s, the Open Society threatening, circumstances. The journalists were Foundations played a key role in supporting the in many instances branded as enemies of the establishment and development of independent nation and labeled “foreign mercenaries,” exposing newspapers, radio and television stations, and them to pressure, threats, and violence. Some of other media outlets in Serbia (including Kosovo these media didn’t survive later developments; and Vojvodina), Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, others survived by compromising their political Macedonia, Montenegro, and Slovenia. Many independence in the hope of achieving commercial foreign donors, public and private, provided help success, but they rarely managed to keep their to these emerging independent media. Unlike reputations as independent, free media. other foreign donors, however, the Open Society Foundations made it a policy to empower local The Open Society Foundations provided funds experts and activists—rather than experts from for training and improving the professional abroad—to undertake assessments, analyses, and qualifications of journalists, including visits to recommendations for strategic work in directing the Institute for War and Peace Reporting and the development of the new independent media. other British media outlets in London as well as establishment of local media centers in Sarajevo, During the 1990s, the independent media Belgrade, Podgorica, and elsewhere. These centers provided critical, analytical journalism and a became important hubs and education outlets in public platform for voices calling for protection their respective countries and worked on regional of human and minority rights and an end to cooperation. To foster collaboration, for instance, the violence. These independent media also in Ljubljana, the Open Society Foundations promoted liberal and progressive political ideas supported more than 60 events, including monthly and civic initiatives. Among the most influential, “journalism evenings” where Slovenian, regional, and trusted, of these independent media outlets and international media professionals and scholars at that time were Feral Tribune and Radio 101 engaged in vigorous debates that contributed to in Croatia; Radio B92, Vreme, and Radio 021 in the opening of Slovenian society and its media Serbia; BH Dani and Slobodna Bosna in Bosnia and community to the rest of the region. Herzegovina; Kanal 77, TV station A1 and Art TV in Macedonia, Monitor in Montenegro, Mladina From 2000, the Open Society Foundations began and Radio Študent in Slovenia, and Koha Ditore a significant shift in support for the media in and Zeri in Kosovo. The staff and contributors the countries of the former Yugoslavia. The to these and other media outlets earned a Foundations replaced direct financial support reputation for providing accurate reporting and for media outlets with low-interest loans and sound commentary in difficult, sometimes life- investments through the Media Development

| 84 | building open society in the western balkans Loan Fund, a nonprofit investment fund which freedom and pluralism in South East Europe, the Foundations helped found and support. One which was supported by the Open Society Media exception to this trend was continued direct Program as well as the government of Denmark support for Roma media outlets, because they and the Guardian Foundation, was the first have the potential to play a crucial role in helping such assessment of the newly established media the Roma to win recognition of equal rights and markets in the region. It revealed many defects opportunities. and contributed to disillusion about a free market paradigm in postsocialist media systems. Since 2000, the Open Society Media Program, together with Danish institutions funded by the Recent alerts, sent by media freedom organizations government of Denmark, have supported the almost on a daily basis—as well as publications establishment and operation of media training and such as the Chronicle of the Threats and Attacks research centers as well as a regional network of on Journalists 1990–2011, a white paper published these centers, the South East European Network for in Zagreb by the Association of Investigative Professionalization of the Media, which connects Journalists in Croatia with the support of the Open training and research centers in the countries of the Society Foundations, documenting large-scale former Yugoslavia as well as in Albania, Hungary, violations of media freedom in the region—prove Romania, Bulgaria, and Moldova. that it was erroneous to assume that strong foreign support for the independent media in the early After the replacement of overtly nationalist stages of the transition would inevitably lead to governments with governments run by parties reforms being easily concluded in later stages— that were once a part of the so-called “democratic” without foreign support. Others have decided opposition, some analysts predicted that that something more needs to be done. In May independent media and professional journalism 2011, for example, the European Commission, would be protected by the rule of law, the after organizing a conference on media freedom development of a free market, and efforts by these in countries of the former Yugoslavia as well as in governments to abide by European democratic Albania and Turkey, announced that it recognized standards as they sought membership in the the urgent need for its intervention in protection of European Union. This prediction proved to be naïve. media freedom and pluralism in the region.

During the past decade, the network and the Brankica Petković is the editor in chief of the Media individual media centers carried out assessments Watch book series and bulletin, and the head of the of the region’s media. The 2004 mapping of media Center for Media Policy at the Peace Institute in ownership patterns and their impact on media Ljubljana.

building open society in the western balkans | 85 | Children in 2009 studied in a Kosovo learning center run by the NGO Balkan Sunflowers. © Andrew Testa/Panos Pictures

| 86 | building open society in the western balkans Education Efforts— and Our Impact—in the Former Yugoslavia

Terrice Bassler t seems natural to use the first person plural to describe these efforts in which I felt part of a whole. As with most attempts to capture Ielements of life in the Balkans, however, this is too simple. There is the “we” of citizens acculturated and educated in Yugoslavia who almost overnight had to reckon with a new or uncertain collective identity. There is the “we” of outsiders like me who had grown up and been schooled in another world, imported our good intentions to the region, and worked there for many years.

I cannot tell you how many times The Open Society Foundations’ strength is that I heard people refer in terms of our efforts embody this reality—the we and the us, rather than the I and me—and the tensions “breathing” to their opportunities inherent in everyone working together for a to receive scholarships and attend common good. In education in the Balkans, answers even to a question like “what is good conferences. Such crucial respites quality learning?” have resonated with politics, enabled them to overcome despair. ideology, inequity, ethnic pride, nationalism, and dramatic moments when resuming any teaching and learning at all seemed an accomplishment.

In the early 1990s, new successor states to the old Yugoslavia came into existence. Heady with

building open society in the western balkans | 87 | freedom, Croatia, Macedonia, and Slovenia moved higher learning alive in Serbia. The Kosova quickly to increase university autonomy and revive Educational Enrichment Program assisted the a proud, precommunist tradition in secondary Albanian Kosovars’ underground school system education—the traditional gymnasium. Elsewhere in the most basic, practical ways. I cannot forget the situation was bleaker. The education system for my visit in 1995 to a makeshift school in a Pristina ethnic Albanians in Kosovo was declared illegal. apartment where the principal lifted a shabby UN sanctions became a vise on intellectual vitality sofa cushion to show me, with proud defiance, in Serbia and Montenegro. Refugees fled helter- the handwritten registration cards and records skelter within and from the region, hemorrhaging of student marks he kept hidden underneath. hundreds of thousands of students and many of Across the region, the Tito-era Yugoslav culture their teachers from classrooms, thus devastating of summer camps was reinterpreted as a strategic day-to-day life and learning for many families over play space for activities that modeled open society the next few years. In Bosnia and Herzegovina values and could help make up for broken school- alone, 60 percent of school buildings were damaged year learning, especially in Serbia and Montenegro or destroyed. where the foundation’s summer programs were entitled simply “Let’s Live Together.” The Open Society network of local foundations, as well as the offices in New York and later Budapest, On the best of days, we believed we had gained responded to these different realities. There was some ground in these battles for positive human homegrown work at the edges of barebones resistance; in reality, the region’s kids and young survival and sanity. For example, the Open Society adults were bigger wartime losers with every day City Sarajevo Project supported teachers and urban they were deprived of so-called “normal” learning schools with whatever they told us they needed, and daily life. from stationery to winter boots to wall and roof repair monies that would show the world that I cannot tell you how many times I heard people school reconstruction was possible mid-war too, in the region refer in terms of “breathing” to their not just afterwards. Local radio in Sarajevo was opportunities to receive scholarships and attend used to encourage teachers to bring forward ideas conferences and training courses through the for their own “mini-projects,” simple schemes Open Society Foundations. This was especially designed to keep their students learning and the true during the years of conflict and sanctions, teachers’ own psyches from cracking under the when communications and travel were restricted. pressure of the siege. As one scholar put it, “Getting out of this craziness for a few weeks at the meetings in Western Europe The Belgrade Open School was started to keep was the oxygen I needed.” Such crucial respites

| 88 | building open society in the western balkans enabled the region’s visionary leaders to overcome The Open Society Foundations were well positioned despair and, later, to realize higher aspirations for to influence this new dynamic, for leveraging education in their countries. resources into their countries, and for building partnerships (as was UNICEF, the other longstanding In the latter half of the 1990s, the Foundations’ supporter of education relief and modernization programs in debate, early childhood education, in the region). The Open Society foundations in and reading and writing for critical thinking the region and the education nongovernmental spread across the region. These living local models organizations they helped establish and then spun of progressive ways to teach and learn with off became resources for education ministries and community involvement gained appeal even within incoming donors and their implementers, helping to the most obdurate school systems. Many directors keep the planning of investments locally transparent, and senior staff members of these programs in the genuine, and inclusive. Balkans went on to establish independent NGOs, as well as mentor a second generation of the Open New opportunities opened up everywhere. In Society Foundations’ teacher trainers and program Macedonia, the Open Society Foundations’ Higher leaders in other parts of the world. Education Support Program was instrumental in brokering the establishment in 2001 of the South The Kosovo crisis in 1999 was a game changer. East Europe University at Tetovo, Macedonia’s first After the NATO bombing and Serbia’s withdrawal multilingual university providing instruction in from the contested region, the lands of the Albanian, Macedonian, and English. former Yugoslavia were absorbed into a loose “neighborhood” (simply called South East Europe). I recall the World Bank staffers who joked about The Open Society Foundations allied with the the “Soros Ministry of Education in Serbia.” In Organization for Economic Cooperation and Belgrade, they had discovered that the newly Development, the government of Austria, and other appointed leaders and policymakers of the Djindjić partners to advocate for education to be included government, with whom they were negotiating in the multilateral South East Europe Stability an education loan, had all spent formative years Pact. Under the pact’s framework, development during the 1990s in Open Society–funded resources flowed into the region from the World programs like the Alternative Academic Education Bank, the European Union, the European Agency Network, the Petnica Science Center, and the for Reconstruction and Development, the Education Support Program in Budapest. Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and United Nations development agencies The Open Society foundation in Montenegro as well as bilateral agencies. worked to help the government to craft an open

building open society in the western balkans | 89 | society vision for its new education system that production of educational materials, facilitating would attract attention and funding in this new public dialogue about education, and monitoring environment. Across the border, in Pristina, the reform implementation. In many ways, this array of Kosova Education Center, founded in 2000 by the civil society organizations specializing in education foundation, was fast becoming a darling of many has proven to be more stable than the governments donors and central to the research, policymaking, of some of the region’s new democracies and and piloting of reforms in school management continues to provide a safe haven for education and financing. ministers and technocrats. Ensuring minority rights in the registration of pupils and students in Slovenia, with its 10-year track record of appropriate schools, in the language of instruction, systematically reforming the education system in providing textbooks, in exams, in offering of a former Yugoslav republic, rose to new special needs education, and in monitoring the prominence during the Stability Pact era while it progress in key indicators of educational equality also approached entry into the European Union. through evidence-based advocacy have all been Slovenia’s experience and professionals—who central features in the activities of the Open Society shared a common language with their neighbors— Foundations and their partners. became a unique resource for the rest of the region and for arriving donors. The Open Society Terrice Bassler oversaw education programs Foundations tapped into this reality in 2000 by throughout South East Europe for the Open Society envisioning and cocreating the South East Europe Foundations. She lived in Kosovo 1999–2000 and Education Cooperation Network with a base in Slovenia 2001–2005. Ljubljana and “nodes” throughout the region.

After a decade of work, the Open Society Foundations had registered marked success in helping establish an array of local nongovernmental organizations active in teacher training, the

| 90 | building open society in the western balkans Sarajevo Notebooks Coming Back Without Returning

I don’t have a city I call my own. I can see now that I’ve never had a city I could call my own. I do not know if this is good or bad. There are cities that lie on my skin like tattoos, they are indelible. But these tattoos tend to pale, they are superficial scars on the body which shrinks.I do not know any intimate histories of any of the cities where I stayed for a longer period of time. I do not remember names of my neighbors, or their family trees. I do not remember other people’s stories. Boris (Biletić) has written a book about his city of Pula. In this book there are many photographs of Boris with his friends, in some cultural missions, events, important for his life. (My photos with friends have been misplaced, I have mislaid them.) In this book, entitled My Pula, there are stories about the lives of locals in Pula, about teachers, about writers, about Italians, about demolished houses, about fortresses; Boris knows all those things. He remembers them. All that lies within him, so he can pull his Pula with him when he goes somewhere. But Boris never goes anywhere for good, he always comes back.

I am flat. Memories slip away from me, they just drain. Into nothing. I wander and I don’t come back. There’s no city I come back to forever, I only come back briefly, but that is not coming back.T hat is coming again.

Daša Drndić “From a Villa on the Wannsee,’’ Volume No. 21/22, 2008

Daša Drndić, a Croatian novelist, essayist, playwright, and translator, is also a professor of English language and literature at the University of Rijeka.

| 91 | The Open Society Foundations, active in the Western Balkans for more than two decades, now work in more than 70 countries around the world with the goal of building vibrant and tolerant democracies whose governments are accountable to their citizens.

The Open Society Foundations seek to shape public policies that assure greater fairness in political, legal, and economic systems and safeguard fundamental rights. They implement a range of initiatives to advance justice, education, public health, and independent media, and build alliances across borders and continents on issues such as corruption and freedom of information. The Foundations place a high priority on protecting and improving the lives of people in marginalized communities.

| 92 | building open society in the western balkans

Building Open S Building Open Society in the Western Balkans o ciety in the Western Balkans Western 19 91 – 2 0 11