Not My Turn to Die

Not My Turn to Die
Author: Savo Heleta
Publisher: AMACOM/American Management Association
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2008
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN:

In 1992, Savo Heleta was a young Serbian boy enjoying an idyllic, peaceful childhood in Gorazde, a primarily Muslim city in Bosnia. At the age of just thirteen, Savo's life was turned upside down as war broke out. When Bosnian Serbs attacked the city, Savo and his family became objects of suspicion overnight. Through the next two years, they endured treatment that no human being should ever be subjected to. Their lives were threatened, they were shot at, terrorized, put in a detention camp, starved, and eventually stripped of everything they owned. But after two long years, Savo and his family managed to escape. And then the real transformation took place. From his childhood before the war to his internment and eventual freedom, we follow Savo's emotional journey from a young teenager seeking retribution to a peace-seeking diplomat seeking healing and reconciliation. As the war unfolds, we meet the incredible people who helped shape Savo's life, from his brave younger sister Sanja to Meho, the family friend who would become the family's ultimate betrayer. Through it all, we begin to understand this young man's arduous struggle to forgive the very people he could no longer trust. At once powerful and elegiac, Not My Turn to Die offers a unique look at a conflict that continues to fascinate and enlighten us.

Dubious Mandate

Dubious Mandate
Author: Phillip Corwin
Publisher: Duke University Press
Total Pages: 324
Release: 1999
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780822321262

A senior UN official's account of the war in Bosnia as he experienced it on duty in Sarajevo.

Quest for Identity

Quest for Identity
Author: Ziyah Gafic
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2012-02-23
Genre: Yugoslav War, 1991-1995
ISBN: 9780982590836

A photographic collection of personal effects unearthed from the mass graves in the aftermath of the Bosnian war. Renowned Bosnian photojournalist Ziyah Gafic has dedicated himself to cataloguing the thousands of items left behind by the murdered victims of war. Familiar objects at first mask the inexcusable loss of their owners: a well-worn watch, a rosary, wallet photos. Each item is presented with the hope that someone might recognise the remnants of their disappeared loved ones.

The Bosnia List

The Bosnia List
Author: Kenan Trebincevic
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2014-02-25
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1101631805

A young survivor of the Bosnian War returns to his homeland to confront the people who betrayed his family. The story behind the YA novel World in Between: Based on a True Refugee Story. At age eleven, Kenan Trebincevic was a happy, karate-loving kid living with his family in the quiet Eastern European town of Brcko. Then, in the spring of 1992, war broke out and his friends, neighbors and teammates all turned on him. Pero - Kenan's beloved karate coach - showed up at his door with an AK-47 - screaming: "You have one hour to leave or be killed!" Kenan’s only crime: he was Muslim. This poignant, searing memoir chronicles Kenan’s miraculous escape from the brutal ethnic cleansing campaign that swept the former Yugoslavia. After two decades in the United States, Kenan honors his father’s wish to visit their homeland, making a list of what he wants to do there. Kenan decides to confront the former next door neighbor who stole from his mother, see the concentration camp where his Dad and brother were imprisoned and stand on the grave of his first betrayer to make sure he’s really dead. Back in the land of his birth, Kenan finds something more powerful—and shocking—than revenge.

One Currency for Bosnia

One Currency for Bosnia
Author: Warren L. Coats
Publisher: Jameson Books (IL)
Total Pages: 376
Release: 2007
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN:

This is both a fascinating personal narrative of the often colorful warriors rebuilding a part of war-torn Yugoslavia, and a detailed inside look at how experts can stabilize a nation's currency and banking system. Written by an American who has led International Monetary Fund advisory missions to the central banks of more than twenty countries, this book, crafted in layman's language - but of immense value to specialists in monetary and foreign policy initiatives - is an account of the behind-the-headlines work American and other economists do to bring peace and prosperity to former failed states.Coats was involved in the creation of the Central Bank of Bosnia from before the Dayton Peace Accords. His "currency board" rules for monetary policy, and the creation of the bank, have resulted in the most successful state institution in the country.Marking the tenth anniversary of the bank, the technical world of economics comes alive as the book unfolds like a mystery novel full of colorful and determined people determined to escape the disaster of a bloody civil war.

To End a War

To End a War
Author: Richard Holbrooke
Publisher: Modern Library
Total Pages: 457
Release: 1999-05-25
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0375753605

When President Clinton sent Richard Holbrooke to Bosnia as America's chief negotiator in late 1995, he took a gamble that would eventually redefine his presidency. But there was no saying then, at the height of the war, that Holbrooke's mission would succeed. The odds were strongly against it. As passionate as he was controversial, Holbrooke believed that the only way to bring peace to the Balkans was through a complex blend of American leadership, aggressive and creative diplomacy, and a willingness to use force, if necessary, in the cause for peace. This was not a universally popular view. Resistance was fierce within the United Nations and the chronically divided Contact Group, and in Washington, where many argued that the United States should not get more deeply involved. This book is Holbrooke's gripping inside account of his mission, of the decisive months when, belatedly and reluctantly but ultimately decisively, the United States reasserted its moral authority and leadership and ended Europe's worst war in over half a century. To End a War reveals many important new details of how America made this historic decision. What George F. Kennan has called Holbrooke's "heroic efforts" were shaped by the enormous tragedy with which the mission began, when three of his four team members were killed during their first attempt to reach Sarajevo. In Belgrade, Sarajevo, Zagreb, Paris, Athens, and Ankara, and throughout the dramatic roller-coaster ride at Dayton, he tirelessly imposed, cajoled, and threatened in the quest to stop the killing and forge a peace agreement. Holbrooke's portraits of the key actors, from officials in the White House and the Élysée Palace to the leaders in the Balkans, are sharp and unforgiving. His explanation of how the United States was finally forced to intervene breaks important new ground, as does his discussion of the near disaster in the early period of the implementation of the Dayton agreement. To End a War is a brilliant portrayal of high-wire, high-stakes diplomacy in one of the toughest negotiations of modern times. A classic account of the uses and misuses of American power, its lessons go far beyond the boundaries of the Balkans and provide a powerful argument for continued American leadership in the modern world.

Reparations for Victims of Genocide, War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity

Reparations for Victims of Genocide, War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity
Author: Carla Ferstman
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 585
Release: 2009
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9004174494

This book provides detailed analyses of systems that have been established to provide reparations to victims of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, and the way in which these systems have worked and are working in practice. Many of these systems are described and assessed for the first time in an academic publication. The publication draws upon a groundbreaking Conference organised by the Clemens Nathan Research Centre (CNRC) and REDRESS at the Peace Palace in The Hague, with the support of the Dutch Carnegie Foundation. Both CNRC and REDRESS had become very concerned about the extreme difficulty encountered by most victims of serious international crimes in attempting to access effective and enforceable remedies and reparation for harm suffered. In discussions between the Conference organisers and Judges and officials of the International Criminal Court, it became ever more apparent that there was a great need for frank and open exchanges on the question of effective reparation, between the representatives of victims, of NGOs and IGOs, and other experts. It was clear to all that the many current initiatives of governments and regional and international institutions to afford reparations to victims of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes could benefit greatly by taking into full account the wide and varied practice that had been built up over several decades. In particular, the Hague Conference sought to consider in detail the long experience of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims against Germany (the Claims Conference) in respect of Holocaust restitution programmes, as well as the practice of truth commissions, arbitral proceedings and a variety of national processes to identify common trends, best practices and lessons. This book thus explores the actions of governments, as well as of national and international courts and commissions in applying, processing, implementing and enforcing a variety of reparations schemes and awards. Crucially, it considers the entire complex of issues from the perspective of the beneficiaries - survivors and their communities - and from the perspective of the policy-makers and implementers tasked with resolving technical and procedural challenges in bringing to fruition adequate, effective and meaningful reparations in the context of mass victimisation.

Struggles for Home

Struggles for Home
Author: Stef Jansen
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Total Pages: 208
Release: 2009
Genre: House & Home
ISBN: 9781845455231

"Based on anthropological studies across the globe, this book explores the experiences and contested meanings of home for people whose lives are characterized by migration related to varying forms of violence. Taking seriously the political implications and exploitation of discourses of home in the transnational processes that connect, yet differently affect, the movement of people and capital, it challenges the sedentarist assumption that territoriality and nation are necessarily the primary determinants of identification. However, it does not replace this sedentarism with a free floating, placeless approach. Instead, through the detailed ethnography of actual experiences of displacement and emplacement, it investigates the power sedentarist discourses may have to provide or prohibit hope. In Struggles for Home the focus is turned onto hope, aspiration and a sense of worth as necessary building blocks in the reconstruction of the social, amidst the violence of political and economic transformation. Research conducted in Sri Lanka, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Zambia, Cyprus, the Palestinian West Bank, Guatemala, and amongst Romanians and Moroccans in Spain articulates a novel theoretical framework for the development of a critical political anthropology of one of the most controversial and fascinating issues of our time - the remaking of home in migration."--Jacket.

The War and War-games in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995

The War and War-games in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995
Author: Magnus Bjarnason
Publisher: Mimir
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2001
Genre: Yugoslav War, 1991-1995
ISBN: 9789979606697

This book describes the build-up to the Bosnian War, which took place from 1992-95, and the relation it had with the war in Croatia between 1991-95. The Bosnian war is viewed from two different angles. The first one is the perspective from inside the conflict area, describing the war in the field and its effects. The second one is the perspective of international high politics, where former Yugoslavia is just an object in the world power-game. It describes the Bosnian War's four phases (author's definition), the first phase being the Serbs' struggle to keep as much as possible of the disintegrating state, the second phase being the uncontrolled ethnic war, the third phase being that of corruption and stagnation where the war had a life of its own without much real fighting, and the last phase when the dividing lines were redrawn and formal fighting ended, almost like a pre-planned game of chess. The book concludes by a reflection on future developments and problems in the region.

Miracle in Mostar

Miracle in Mostar
Author: Gerard Kelly
Publisher: Lion Books
Total Pages: 157
Release: 1995
Genre: Christianity and politics
ISBN: 9780745933023

Once a symbol of peaceful co-existence, in 1993 Mostar had become a hell of ethnic conflict. This book tells the story of life in war-torn Bosnia and of a young couple's heroic efforts to rebuild the shattered community of Mostar.