Fears of new ethnic conflict in Bosnia

[Adsos Letter]

Source: International Herald Tribune

SARAJEVO, Bosnia and Herzegovina — Thirteen years after the United States brokered the Dayton peace agreement to end the ferocious ethnic war in the former Yugoslavia, fears are mounting that Bosnia, poor and divided, is again teetering toward crisis.

On the surface, this haunted capital, its ancient mosques and Orthodox churches still pocked by mortar fire, appears to be enjoying a renaissance. Young professionals throng to stylish cafes and gleaming new shopping malls while the muezzin heralds the morning prayer. The ghosts of Srebrenica linger — recalling the worst massacre in Europe since World War II — but Sarajevans prefer to talk about President-elect Barack Obama or the global financial crisis.

Yet for the first time in years, talk of the prospect of another war is creeping into conversations across the ethnic divide in Bosnia, a former Yugoslav republic that the Dayton agreement divided into two entities, a Muslim-Croat Federation and a Serbian Republic.

The power-sharing agreement between former foes has always been tense. Now, however, the uneasy peace has been complicated by Kosovo's declaration of independence from Serbia in February, which many here worry could prompt the Serbian Republic to follow suit, tipping the region into a conflict that could fast turn deadly.



Read more: http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/12/14/europe/14bosnia.php

[pfitz59]

1. I went there once

beautiful city in a lush mountain valley. I hope the violence does not flare again.

[stlsaxman]

2. oh, dear god, no...

i had the honor of playing for NATO troops from all 19 nations in the Summer of '99 in Sarajevo.






afterward touring the war-torn city, beautiful even then, the Luge Track built for the Olympics...



and the Newspaper Plant which was the first to go.



i pray they don't do this ever again.

:cry:

[coffeenap]

3. We spent our honeymoon there and all over the former

Yugoslavia in 1984. It was a most beautiful and welcoming place. Just after the massacres, Women for Women in Bosnia was created and brave women hand carried shoebox sized containers of supplies in to the refugees. I still have the remarkable letters I shared with a woman who weekly described the hell they suffered. Oh please, powers that be, do NOT let this happen to these people again!

[niceypoo]

4. On the brighter side...

...we have a Democratic president and a Clinton in the sec of state position. Hey, a Clinton ended one Bosnia war.

Finally sanity in the whitehouse and in our foriegn policy.

[stlsaxman]

5. Not to forget a VP that is aces on foriegn policy...

Just look at your avatar!
:hi: