Bosnian mom buries 2 sons 19 years after massacre

July 11, 2014

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — After 19 years, Hajrija Selimovic will finally have a place to mourn her family on Friday.

Selimovic was reburying her husband and two sons under white tombstones in a cemetery for victims of the Europe's worst massacre since World War II. The three were among the 8,000 Muslim men and boys killed when Serb forces overran the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica on July 11, 1995. Samir was 23 and Nermin was 19 when the execution squad shot them.

The remains of Srebrenica victims are still being found in mass graves and identified using DNA technology. Every July 11, more are buried at a memorial center near the town. This year, Selimovic's two sons will be among the 175 newly identified victims laid to rest, joining 6,066 others including their father Hasan, who was found in 2001 but buried only last year.

"I didn't want to bury him because they found only his head and a few little bones," Selimovic said. "I waited, thinking the rest will be found and then everything can be buried at once ... but there was nothing else and we buried what we had."

The eastern, Muslim-majority town of Srebrenica was a U.N.-protected area besieged by Serb forces throughout Bosnia's 1992-95 war. But U.N. troops offered no resistance when the Serbs overran the town, rounding up the Muslims and killing the males. An international court later labeled the slayings as genocide.

After the massacre, then-U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright waved satellite photos of mass graves at the U.N. Security Council. Washington knew where the mass graves were, she told them. That's when Serb troops rushed to the sites with bulldozers and moved the remains to other locations. As the machines ploughed up bodies they ripped them apart, and now fragments of the same person can be scattered among several different sites.

"The perpetrators had every hope that these people would be wiped out and never found again," said Kathryne Bomberger, head of the International Commission for Missing Persons, a Bosnia-based DNA identification project.

The commission, established in 1996, has collected almost 100,000 blood samples from relatives of the missing in the Yugoslav wars. It has analyzed their DNA profiles and is now matching them with profiles extracted from the estimated 50,000 bone samples that have been exhumed.

The group grew into the world's largest DNA-assisted identification program. It has identified 14,600 sets of remains in Bosnia, including those of some 7,000 Srebrenica victims. The commission, which also helped identify victims of Hurricane Katrina and the 2004 Asian tsunami, is now identifying missing people in Libya, Iraq, Colombia, Kuwait, Philippines and South Africa.

Bosnia remains its biggest operation. "Without DNA, we would have never been able to identify anyone," Bomberger said Thursday. "However, this means that the families have to make the difficult decision on when to bury a person. And many of the women from Srebrenica want to bury their sons, their family members, the way they remember them when they were alive."

So thousands of mothers and widows are faced with a dilemma — whether to either bury just a fragment, or wait until more bones are found. This year, the families of some 500 identified victims have decided not to accept just two or three bones. Those will remain stored in a mortuary in the northern city of Tuzla until more remains are found — or the families get tired of waiting.

"We calculate that there are still about 1,000 persons missing. ... In addition there are probably thousands of pieces of bodies" still to find, Bomberger said. "This is an extremely complex process that has taken a long time, just simply because of the efforts the perpetrators went to to hide the bodies."

Selimovic, who made a hard decision last year regarding her husband, said this year's decision was easier. "Now I am burying two sons," she said. "They are complete. Just the younger one is missing a few fingers."

Almir Alic reported from Srebrenica.

Bosnians pay respect to 175 Srebrenica victims

July 09, 2014

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Hundreds of people turned out in Sarajevo's main street on Wednesday to pay respect to 175 victims of the Srebrenica massacre — Europe's worst since World War II — as a truck carried their coffins to a final resting place.

The remains of the men and boys, found in mass graves and identified through DNA analysis, will be buried in Srebrenica on Friday, the 19th anniversary of the massacre, next to 6,066 previously found victims.

As the coffins passed by, shielded by a canvas cloth, some tucked flowers in or caressed the canvas. Others silently prayed as the truck stopped briefly in front of Bosnia's presidency. The eastern town of Srebrenica was a United Nations-protected area that was besieged by Serb forces throughout the 1992-95 war for Serb domination in Bosnia. But U.N. troops offered no resistance when the Serbs overran the majority Muslim town on July 11, 1995, rounding up Srebrenica's Muslims and killing over 8,000 men and boys. An international court later labeled the killings as genocide.

Workers are still excavating the victims' bodies from hidden mass graves, and their job is made harder because those responsible often retrieved the bodies and relocated them elsewhere to hide the crimes. Many of the remains were torn apart or mixed up by bulldozers, and experts have had to use DNA analysis to put a body together from bones found in locations miles from each other.

Dzevada Halilovic, 45, came from Australia to bury her father's remains, which were found in three different mass graves. The day Srebrenica fell, she ran with her baby in her arms but the soldiers caught up with her family and separated men from women.

"I screamed. They pushed me with rifles into a bus. Then I became quiet because I remembered I was carrying my baby and it was a boy," Halilovic remembers. She never again saw her father, brother and five uncles. Fortunately, her husband was taken to a prison and was released after six months.

"Since then we were wandering the world for years and finally settled in Australia," she said.

Bosnia marks end of Europe's violent century

June 29, 2014

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Artists and diplomats declared a new century of peace and unity in Europe on Saturday in the city where the first two shots of World War I were fired exactly 100 years ago.

On June 28, 1914, the Austro-Hungarian crown prince Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo, where he had come to inspect his occupying troops in the empire's eastern province. The shots fired by Serb teenager Gavrilo Princip sparked the Great War, which was followed decades later by a second world conflict. Together the two wars cost some 80 million European their lives, ended four empires — including the Austro-Hungarian — and changed the world forever.

Visiting the assassination site Saturday, Sarajevan Davud Bajramovic, 67, said that in order to hold a second of silence for every person killed just during WWI in Europe, "we would have to stand silently for two years."

A century later, Sarajevans again crowded the same street along the river where Princip fired his shots. And the Austrians were also back, but this time with music instead of military: The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra was scheduled to perform works of European composers reflecting the century's catastrophic events and conclude with a symbol of unity in Europe — the joint European hymn, Beethoven's "Ode of Joy."

The orchestra wanted to pay tribute to the history of Sarajevo, a place where religions meet, said the first violinist, Clemens Hellberg. Austrian President Heinz Fischer said Europeans "have learnt that no problem can be solved by war."

The continent's violent century started in Sarajevo and ended in Sarajevo with the 1992-95 war that took 100,000 Bosnian lives. "If anything good can be found in this repeating evil, it's more wisdom and readiness to build peace and achieve peace after a century of wars," said Bosnia's president, Bakir Izetbegovic.

The splurge of centennial concerts, speeches, lectures and exhibitions on Saturday were mostly focused on creating lasting peace and promoting unity in a country that is still struggling with similar divisions as it did 100 years ago. The rift was manifested by the Serbs marking the centennial by themselves in the part of Bosnia they control, where a performance re-enacted the assassination.

As Austrian conductor Franz Welser-Moest raised his baton in Sarajevo, an actor playing Gavrilo Princip descending from heaven on angel's wings, raised his pistol in the eastern town of Visegrad, at the border to Serbia, to kill Franz Ferdinand again in a spectacular performance designed for the occasion.

For the Serbs, Princip was a hero who saw Bosnia as part of the Serb national territory at a time when the country was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His shots were a chance for them to include Bosnia into the neighboring Serbian kingdom — the same idea that inspired the Serbs in 1992 to fight the decision by Muslim Bosnians and Catholic Croats to declare the former republic of Bosnia independent when Serb-dominated Yugoslavia fell apart. Their desire is still to include the part of Bosnia they control into neighboring Serbia. Serbia itself flirts with both — the EU opposed unification with the Bosnian Serbs and its own EU membership candidacy.

Serbian crown prince Aleksandar Karadjordjevic, Serbian prime minister Aleksandar Vucic, President Tomislav Nikolic and the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Irinej attended the ceremony in Visegrad where Serbian flags flew and the Serbian anthem was played although the town is in Bosnia.

Vucic said he was proud because in Visegrad "the Serbs are protecting their good reputation." In Sarajevo, French philosopher and writer Bernard-Henry Levy said Europe owes Bosnia because it "stood idly by" as Serb nationalists bombed besieged multiethnic Sarajevo for 3.5 years. Levy started a petition Saturday among European intellectuals requesting the EU to "pay Bosnia back" by promptly giving it full membership in the European Union because it defended European values by itself 20 years ago.

"What Europe will gain from Bosnia is part of its spirit, part of its soul," he said, referring to efforts of some Bosnians to preserve the multiethnic character of the country and resist national division.

Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic, a former hard-line nationalist-turned pro-EU reformer, previously said he considered going to Sarajevo for the centennial but gave up after realizing he would have to stand beside a plaque depicting Serbs as criminals.

Indeed, a plaque at the entrance of the recently reconstructed Sarajevo National Library building where the concert was taking place states "Serb criminals" had set the library ablaze in 1992 along with its two million books, magazines and manuscripts.

Karl von Habsburg, the grandson of the last Austrian emperor Charles I, was also attending the ceremonies. "We need united Europe and one thing is for sure: Europe will never be complete without Bosnia," he stated.

Sarajevo: The slaying that set off World War I

June 19, 2014

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — A century after Gavrilo Princip ignited World War I with a shot from his handgun, the baby-faced Serb teenager who assassinated the Austro-Hungarian crown prince in Sarajevo in 1914 still provokes controversy.

His legacy has been molded time and again to meet political agendas in the Balkans, which remains a smoldering patchwork of ethnic and religious rivalries. Nikola Princip crossed himself and stood silently recently in front of a Sarajevo chapel plaque that read "The Heroes of St. Vitus Day." The list starts with Gavrilo Princip's name for the assassination he carried out on that sacred Serb holiday of June 28.

"He lived and died for his ideas to liberate and unite the southern Slavs. May he rest in peace," the 81-year-old man said, lighting a candle. A few blocks away, another plaque marks the spot where Princip killed Crown Prince Franz Ferdinand. There, Halida Basic, a 72 year-old Bosnian Muslim, has a different view.

"He was a killer, a terrorist. He did it because he wanted Bosnia to be part of Greater Serbia," she said. Barely a month after the 19-year-old fired his shots, Europe, and eventually the world, was at war.

Austria accused Serbia of masterminding the assassination. Backed by Germany, Austria attacked Serbia, whose allies, Russia and France, were quickly drawn in. Britain, its sprawling Commonwealth empire and the United States also joined the fighting.

When the mass slaughter known as the Great War ended in 1918, it had claimed some 14 million lives — 5 million civilians and 9 million soldiers, sailors and airmen — and left another 7 million troops permanently disabled.

For his part, Princip was immediately arrested and died in captivity months before the war ended. With the centenary remembrance of the assassination approaching in the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo, the old entrenched positions are resurfacing.

"Gavrilo Princip will, just like the past 100 years, remain a hero for some and a terrorist to others," said the head of the Sarajevo History Institute, Husnija Kamberovic. "It is a matter of feelings toward what he did, and not a matter of serious historical arguments."

The split follows Bosnia's ethnic divisions. Christian Orthodox Serbs celebrate Princip as someone who saw Bosnia as part of the Serb national territory. The same idea inspired the Serbs in 1992 to fight the decision by Muslim Bosnians and Catholic Croats to declare the former republic of Bosnia independent when Serb-dominated Yugoslavia fell apart.

In Serb history books, the "great liberation act" of Princip and his comrades is described for over 20 pages. "They were heroes who were ready to sacrifice their own lives for freedom and liberation," said Jovan Medosevic, a primary school history teacher in the Bosnian Serb town of Pale, near Sarajevo.

That's exactly what makes Princip unpopular among Muslim Bosnians and Catholic Croats. In their official textbooks, Princip is mentioned in just one sentence as a member of a secret terrorist organization who "did not assassinate Franz Ferdinand to liberate Bosnia from the occupier, but wanted Bosnia to become a part of Kingdom of Serbia," high school student Ermin Lazovic said.

A century ago, Muslim Bosnians and Catholic Croats preferred to stay in the big Austrian empire that had brought progress, law and order. Serbia was already in the process of destroying all mosques on its territory after it had liberated itself from the Ottoman Empire.

Accordingly, authorities in the Serb part of Bosnia plan to erect a monument to Princip and refuse to take part in the planned commemorations in Muslim Bosnian-dominated Sarajevo. For the Serbs, it is beyond doubt that Austria and Germany were the instigators of World War I, not Princip or the Serbs.

The Sarajevo commemoration includes a performance of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and an international historical conference at which no Serb academics will attend. "We have no new facts and we can only reinterpret old documents," Bosnian Serb historian Draga Mastilovic said. "So are we now supposed to accept the Austro-Hungarian position that Serbia caused that war?"

He said he understood why Germans and Austrians want to promote their version of events. "It is not easy to carry the burden of having caused two world-wide bloodbaths in the 20th century," he said. For Kamberovic, the professor organizing the conference in Sarajevo, everything is open for academic review.

"People who accuse us of trying to revise history before the conference has even started are aware that we do intend to open discussions they do not really like," he said. "We will talk about how much the expansionist policy of the German monarchy has contributed — but also how much the expansionist policy of Serbia toward Bosnia has contributed to the outbreak of that war," he said.

A Bosnian rock group has even written a song about the sunny morning in 1914 when, according to their lyrics, Princip became a "hero to some, a criminal to others, while probably his own soul is still wandering, somewhere in between."

Fixing the flower arrangement he laid in front of the little chapel in Sarajevo, Nikola Princip admitted he had a personal stake in the debate. "Gavrilo Princip was my uncle," he said.

Bosnia floods reveal remains, probably war dead

May 27, 2014

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Last week's record flooding in Bosnia has uncovered human remains experts believe belong to people who went missing during the country's 1992-95 war.

Lejla Cengic of Bosnia's Institute for Missing Persons said Tuesday that teams fixing power lines damaged by the floods discovered the remains near the northern town of Doboj after water receded. She says the institute is hoping the remains belong to some of the dozens of people who have been missing since the war from the town of Maglaj — a few kilometers up the river Bosna from Doboj.

Nearly 30,000 people went missing during the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s. One third of them have been found in mass graves, mostly in Bosnia. Authorities continue to search for thousands still believed hidden in mass graves.

Visiting Sarajevo, where World War I was sparked

May 27, 2014

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — If you find yourself on Ferhadija street behind the old synagogue at noon, close your eyes and listen to the bells from the Catholic cathedral and the Serb-Orthodox church mixing with the Muslim call for prayer. They call this the sound of Sarajevo.

And yet, Sarajevo is also known for the sound of a gunshot that led to World War I a century ago. It was June 28, 1914, when the Austro-Hungarian Empire's crown prince Franz Ferdinand was assassinated here by Gavrilo Princip.

The Great War left millions dead and made four empires disappear. A memorial plaque and video displays of photos from the assassination decorate a museum building at the downtown corner where Princip changed the world. The war's centennial will be marked this summer with conferences, exhibits and concerts.

But World War I is just one era in the history of this multicultural city of 390,000, with its legacies of Islamic Ottoman, Jewish, Christian Orthodox and Roman Catholic religions. The city is fondly known for hosting the 1984 Winter Olympics. And it is infamously remembered as a key battleground of the Bosnian War in the 1990s.

Despite the dark chapters of the past, today the city is defined by what locals call "the Sarajevo spirit," an interesting and mostly harmonious mix of religions and cultures. And any visit must include a look at how that blend came to be.

Start with the old town called Bascarsija. Ottoman Turks founded Sarajevo here in the 15th century as a center of commerce with three malls, colonies of Venetian and Dalmatian traders and hundreds of shops. The tolerant empire filled the town's skyline with minarets and church towers, attracting anyone who fled Europe's Catholic inquisition.

When Queen Isabella of Spain expelled Sephardic Jews in 1492, thousands found refuge in "Yerushalaim chico," or Little Jerusalem, which is how they nicknamed the city. Sarajevo's soul resides in this Oriental quarter and residents believe that time runs slower in its water pipe bars, mosques and crafts shops.

Tourists usually stop at the Sebilj fountain on the central square for selfies and to refresh themselves from one of its pipes — as locals sometimes whisper the first part of an old Sarajevo saying: "Whoever drinks water from Bascarsija..." The travel advisory ends by saying the water is cursed and will make you return to Sarajevo over and over till you die.

Perhaps better to turn to coffee — a gastronomic cult served in small copper pots and little cups with a sugar cube and glass of water aside. Here is how it goes: Dip cube into coffee. Bite off the soaked part. Let melt on tongue. Sip coffee and let it flow over the sugar. Enjoy for a moment before you wash it down with water. Why? Because it makes every next sip of coffee taste like the first one.

Often there is an extra cup for whoever accidentally comes by. A refusal to share is an insult. Locals spend hours drinking if only because it is a good excuse for prolonged conversation. Real-time begins again where Bascarsija ends — and a new chapter in history opens.

In 1878, Bosnia turned from a western Ottoman province into a southeastern Austro-Hungarian province. The transition is visible at Ferhadija street near number 30. Look west, and the secessionist-style four-story buildings and churches tell you: Central Europe. Perhaps Austria. Look east: perhaps some old part of Istanbul with the low, stone structures with oriental shops, minarets and water fountains.

In the chaotic century that followed Sarajevo was part of four different countries and in two wars, proving accurate Winston Churchill's description of the Balkans: "Too much history for little geography."

After it recovered from World War II and staged the 1984 Winter Games, Sarajevo was devastated by the Serb siege during the 1992-95 Bosnian war that left its residents hiding from 330 shells a day that smashed into the city.

People dug an 800-meter (half-mile) tunnel underneath the airport for supplies and the Tunnel Museum proves how dangerous passing through the narrow 1.6 meters (5 feet) high passageway was, bent through ankle-deep water while holding on to an electric cable.

Graves of some of the 11,541 victims of the siege fill the Lion Park. They are proof that the multi-religious "sound of Sarajevo" has a starkly visible dark side: white obelisks marking Muslim graves mix with Christian crosses and simple atheist headstones.

Record Balkan floods lead to Bosnia landslides

May 18, 2014

SARAJEVO, Bosnia (AP) — Landslides triggered by unprecedented rains in Bosnia have left hundreds of people homeless, officials said Sunday, while thousands more have fled their homes in neighboring Croatia and Serbia as Balkan countries battle the region's worst flooding since modern records began.

Throughout hilly Bosnia, floods are triggering landslides covering roads, homes and whole villages. About 300 landslides have been reported, and stranded villagers often are being rescued by helicopter.

"The situation is catastrophic," said Bosnia's refugee minister, Adil Osmanovic. Three months' worth of rain fell on the region in a three-day burst, creating the worst floods since rainfall measurements began 120 years ago.

Observed from the air, almost a third of Bosnia chiefly in the northeast resembles a huge muddy lake, with houses, roads and rail lines submerged. Officials say about a million people — more than a quarter of the country's population — live in the worst-affected areas.

The hillside village of Horozovina, close to the northeastern town of Tuzla, was practically split in two by a landslide that swallowed eight houses. More than 100 other houses were under threat from the restless earth. Residents told stories of narrow escapes from injury or death.

"I am homeless. I have nothing left, not even a toothpick," said one resident, Mesan Ikanovic. "I ran out of the house barefoot, carrying children in my arms." Ikanovic said 10 minutes separated him and his family from likely death. He carried his 7-year-old daughter and 4-year-old son to safety.

Ikanovic said he secured a mortgage and moved in only last year. "Now I have nothing," he said, adding, "Where will I go now? Where will we live?" Semid Ivilic's house in the lower part of the village was still standing. But as he looked upward at the mass of earth and rubble that engulfed his neighbors' homes, Ivelic said he was worried.

"Nobody is coming to help us," he said. Ivilic described the moment when, sitting inside his home, the terrain outside begun to slide. "It sounded like a huge explosion. People started running out of houses, screaming," he said.

While water levels are receding in some parts of Bosnia, land flanking the Sava River remains submerged, and water levels there are still rising in many areas. Hundreds of people have been plucked by rescue helicopters from flooded towns and villages.

The mayor of Orasje made a special appeal for help. The town is caught between the Sava on one side and another flooding river, the Bosna, on the other. More than 10,000 already have been rescued from the town of Bijeljina, in northeast Bosnia. Trucks, buses and private cars were heading north with volunteers and tons of aid collected by people in cities outside the disaster zone.

In Sarajevo, volunteers went from door to door collecting whatever people would donate. The Bosnian Army said it was evacuating people with helicopters and has 1,500 troops helping on the ground. But many roads remain closed by floods and hundreds of landslides. Bridges have been washed away and this has left many towns and villages completely depending on air lifts.

Helicopters from the European Union, Slovenia and Croatia also are aiding rescue efforts. They are deployed in areas around five cities in central and northeastern Bosnia where the situation is considered the most dangerous.

In the eastern sections of neighboring Croatia, two people are missing and hundreds have fled their homes as the Sava River also breached flood barriers there. The overflowing river rolled over villages and farm land in the relatively flat terrain.

In Serbia, more than 20,000 people have been forced from their homes. Officials there fear more flooding later Sunday as floodwaters travel down the Sava and reach the country. Serbian officials said that the flood wave might be lower than initially expected, because the river broke barriers upstream in Croatia and Bosnia. Experts said they expect Sava floodwaters to rise for two more days, then subside.

"What happened to us happens not once in 100 years, but once in 1,000 years," Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said at a government meeting broadcast live on Serbian television. "But it should be over by Wednesday."

At least 25 people have died in the Balkan floods.

Associated Press reporter Jovana Gec in Belgrade contributed to this report.

Bosnians see victims excavated from mass grave

April 16, 2014

SEJKOVACA, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Denisa Hegic pulled her scarf around her nose to guard against the stench and drew back the plastic shroud. Shaking, she reached down to touch her mother's skull and caressed it.

The last time she touched her mother she was bleeding on the floor of the family home, slain by Bosnian Serb soldiers storming their tiny village in northwestern Bosnia. On Wednesday, mother and daughter were reunited in a cavernous building used to house the remains of victims newly excavated from the mass grave in Tomasica, 200 kilometers (125 miles) northwest of Sarajevo.

"I found her body," said Hegic, who is now 30. Hegic's experience is being repeated by many survivors of Bosnia's 1992-1995 war this week, as experts begin allowing families to view the remains meticulously pulled from the earth and identified through DNA analysis. Hundreds of families are expected to make the sad pilgrimage to see the dead.

So far, 430 victims have been found in the Tomasica grave, a vast pit 10 meters (about 30 feet) deep and covering 5,000 square meters (54,000 square feet). The mass grave contains victims of Bosnian Serb military units who killed Muslim Bosniaks and Roman Catholic Croats in hopes of creating an ethnically pure region.

Many believe more people were originally buried there. Diaries confiscated from former Bosnian Serb Gen. Ratko Mladic suggest that some of the bodies in the Tomasica pit were dug up and moved, which now complicates efforts to identify the dead.

But some progress has been made. Family members coming to view remains are also offering statements to local prosecutors to assist in efforts to prosecute Mladic, who is being tried on war crimes charges at the U.N. tribunal in the Netherlands. The tribunal has sentenced 16 Bosnian Serbs to a total of 230 years for the crimes committed in the closest town, Prijedor, but no one has yet been held responsible for the killings in Hegic's village of Biscani, which is nearby.

On July 20, 1992, when Hegic was 8, people in Biscani heard the Bosnian Serbs were coming. Her parents hid their only child in the basement. When the soldiers came, they shot her mother, her father, her grandparents, her three uncles and her three cousins.

An aunt pulled her away from mother's bloody body. "My aunt was there with my mother, but she managed to escape and took me with her," Hegic said, her green eyes misty and red as she recalled the day.

They ran, but were caught. Eventually the two survivors were sent to a Nazi-style camp with thousands of others. But international journalists working in Bosnia at the time embarrassed Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic with images of starving people at the gates of the camp, and he was forced to shut it down and free those inside.

Hegic and her aunt, survived. She eventually settled in Germany and married a boy from her village that she knew as a child. They both gave DNA samples to identify relatives who died in the attack. They were called Tuesday and drove back to Bosnia as soon as they heard. They found themselves early Wednesday, waiting with others, looking for corpses, as they have been for 22 years.

Here, at the Sejkovaca Identification Center, they bring the families in one at a time, where they are faced with bodies placed on shelves, preserved in salt and covered in plastic. Some of the corpses are only partially decomposed, a result of soil heavy in lime.

The stench makes the viewings difficult. Most people spend only a short amount of time with the dead. They will wait to mourn, gathering for a mass funeral in July. Hegic was no exception. She could bear only a few minutes and buried her face in a tissue after she said goodbye to her mother, for a second time.

Reconstruction of Sarajevo Library nearing end

April 11, 2014

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Workers are rushing to finish the reconstruction of the Sarajevo Library — a landmark destroyed during the Bosnian war — in time for the June ceremonies marking the centenary of the assassination that ignited World War I.

The reconstruction has taken 18 years — nine times longer than the building's original construction 120 years ago by the Austro-Hungarian Empire that ruled over Bosnia then and built it to be the City Hall. Later it was turned into the National Library.

Architects said it took them time to find documents and photos of the details of the building in order to copy the 19th century pseudo-Moorish construction to put the building back exactly the way it was before Serb shelling destroyed it in 1992, along with its almost 2 million books and manuscripts.

The building had no military significance and the library ruin turned into a symbol of what Sarajevans called "urbicide" — a term they used to describe primitive attackers destroying urban cultural achievements.

World leaders who dared to visit Sarajevo during the war had their pictures taken at the library, and in 1994 Zubin Mehta conducted Sarajevo's orchestra and chorus performance of Mozart's Requiem in the remains of the roofless Library's central hall.

The European Union contributed more than half of the project's cost of over 16 million euros, EU Mission spokesman Andy McGuffie said Friday. "Protecting and preserving the cultural heritage of Bosnia-Herzegovina is extremely important for the European Union," he said.

The re-painting of 2,000 square meters of arabesques on walls and ceilings took a whole year. City authorities plan to have the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra perform at the library on June 28, marking 100 years since Austro-Hungarian crown prince Franz Ferdinand von Habsburg walked out of the building and was shot dead by young Serb Gavrilo Princip.

Srebrenica massacre survivors sue Dutch government

Tue Apr 8, 2014

Survivors of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia have opened a civil suit against the Dutch government, saying the country’s UN peacekeepers failed to protect them.

A group of grieving widows and mothers calling themselves, The Mothers of Srebrenica, brought the suit before a court in The Hague on Monday.

The group alleges that Dutch peacekeepers serving under the UN failed to prevent the killings, which left thousands of Muslims dead.

“They did not prevent the murder of thousands of civilians,” Marco Gerritsen, the group’s lawyer, told the court.

The Netherlands, however, argues that it had no direct control over the Dutchbat troops during the peacekeeping operation with Dutch government lawyer Bert-Jan Houtzagers telling the court that “Dutchbat did what it could with a handful of men.”

“They tried to protect as many refugees as possible,” he added.

The Muslim enclave of Srebrenica in the east of Bosnia and Herzegovina was under UN protection when it was overrun by Bosnian Serb forces under the command of General Ratko Mladic in July 1995.

Over 8,000 Muslims were slaughtered over the subsequent days and their bodies dumped in mass graves in Europe’s worst massacre since the Second World War.

A case against the UN at the European Court for Human Rights last year brought by the Mothers of Srebrenica was unsuccessful after it ruled the UN have immunity from prosecution.

The families of victims and Srebrenica genocide survivors say granting immunity to the UN was disappointing to them.

The proceedings against the Dutch government, heard on Monday, had been put on hold pending the outcome of the case against the UN.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/04/08/357659/dutch-govt-sued-over-bosnia-massacre/.

Turkish PM Davutoglu: We oppose ISIL and Assad

10 October 2014 Friday

"Turkey opposes the ISIL as much as the Assad regime in Syria," Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Friday.

But Davutoglu rejected as "funny" a motion from the main opposition party to put Turkish 'boots on the ground' at Kobani, also known as Ayn al-Arab, the Syrian border town under attack by ISIL.  

Opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu made the motion in parliament on Thursday. The motion proposes ground troop operations by the Turkish army against ISIL that would be limited to the Kobani region. The opposition has, however, rejected a separate motion that would allow foreign troops to operate on Turkish territory.

Davutoglu spoke to reporters after visiting the Police Chief Atalay Urker of the eastern Bingol province, who was wounded in an attack on Thursday.

The Turkish parliament accepted a government motion on October 2 authorizing military action in Syria and Iraq against any terrorist group, including ISIL.

US senators back Turkey

Meanwhile, U.S. Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham have voiced support for Turkey over Ankara's policy towards the besieged town of Kobani.

Their comments, released on their official website on Thursday, came after 31 people died in a series of illegal pro-Kurdish protests across Turkey, amid accusations the government was failing to act against the ISIL to save the mainly Kurdish-populated Syrian town on the border with Turkey.

The two US senators released a statement saying they backed Turkey’s Kobani strategy and its policy towards Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

They said: "The growing criticism of Turkey for not acting to save Kobani does not reflect the reality on the ground that both ISIS and Bashar al-Assad must be defeated."

"We certainly believe Turkey should play a greater role in the fight against ISIS, and we have disagreed in recent years with some of Turkey’s policies and actions in the Middle East, especially on Israel and the management of its border with Syria."

They went on: "In this instance, however, President Erdogan has said that we need an international strategy not just to destroy ISIS, but also to force Assad to leave power and end the conflict in Syria – for the former objective cannot succeed without the latter."

"This strategy, Erdogan has said, must include the establishment of safe zones in Syria for civilians and opposition forces, protected by no-fly zones – a strategy we have long advocated and continue to believe is vital to success in both Syria and Iraq."

The US senators also stressed that many other friends and allies in the Middle East shared their view.

"We are confident that, if President Obama adopted a strategy which took the steps that Turkish leaders are advocating to deal with Assad as well as ISIS, he would have significant support from our regional partners, including Turkish military involvement, which can be so important to success," they said.

Source: World Bulletin.
Link: http://www.worldbulletin.net/news/145929/turkish-pm-davutoglu-we-oppose-isil-and-assad.

Construction of Turkey's first nuclear plant to begin in spring

10 October 2014 Friday

The construction of Turkey's nuclear power plant in Akkuyu will start next spring, said the Turkish energy minister in a press conference on Friday.

"We want to break ground for the Akkuyu nuclear plant in March or April," said Taner Yildiz during a meeting where he hosted Turkish students who will be headed to Russia for nuclear engineering training.

Turkey's first nuclear power plant will be used for peaceful purposes and not for nuclear enrichment,  Yildiz said at the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources held for 83 Turkish nuclear engineering students heading for training in Russia, who will later staff Turkey's first nuclear power plant.

Yildiz said: "We aim to build a nuclear research reactor, but for peaceful purposes. Turkey does not have an aim of building an atom bomb, nor nuclear enrichment.

"Developing Turkey must not have an undeveloped energy sector - we aim to form a team to build a nuclear power plant by domestic production and Turkish engineers."

The students, selected out of 5,000 applicants, were being sent to the Russian Federation for seven years of training in nuclear power plants, nuclear theory and language skills.

"We want to build our nuclear power plants in the future with domestic resources - Turkish engineers and trained students," Yildiz said, adding that the Turkish energy sector was worth $14 billion in 2013.

Safe plant

The country's first plant, to be located in Akkuyu in Mersin province, southern Turkey, will require $22 billion with construction beginning in 2016 and it becoming operational in 2020, with a life cycle of 60 years.

The project is expected to produce about 35 billion kilowatt-hours per year, and scheduled to become fully operational in 2023, the 100-year anniversary of the Turkish Republic.

An environmental impact statement for the project will be completed next month, Yildiz said, adding it was imperative for Turkey to build a safe nuclear plant after Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster had created new concepts for nuclear security.

Rosatom, the state atomic energy corporation of Russia, signed an agreement with Turkey in 2011 to build and operate the nuclear power plant, which is a sister project to Russia's Novovoronezh plant in Voronezh Oblast, central Russia.

Source: World Bulletin.
Link: http://www.worldbulletin.net/news/145930/construction-of-turkeys-first-nuclear-plant-to-begin-in-spring.