The North

I spent the past five days in Northern Uganda. War raged until only a few years ago, but now the main town of Gulu is rapidly recovering and overrun with NGOs. There is even a wine shop advertising “Italian Wine – All Varieties Available,” for the foreign aid workers. People there I spoke to talk about the war as if it were already over. Gulu seems little like the bombed-out villages of Bosnia, given that Uganda’s war was more about “low-tech” atrocities than snipers and mortars. It is at least quiet, clean and a welcome escape from the overcrowded, dusty streets of Kampala. The residents are Acholi – they speak a different, more guttural language, and have much darker skin than their countrymen in the South.

I quizzed a few locals about the ICC. While those who know better maintain that the ICC is almost unanimously reviled for having delayed peace, the handful I spoke to gave a different perspective. In their minds, Kony is not a rational actor who can be negotiated with. He has ordered his rebel troops to cut off the right leg of anyone caught riding a bicycle, prescribed immediate execution for owning a white chicken, and said that anyone owning a dog should be cut up such that their dog eventually attacks and eats them alive. The only way to bring him down is to kill or capture – and at least the ICC makes the latter a bit more likely. To them, any peace negotiations are just a ruse. Indeed, most recently the LRA negotiated for over a year and arrived at the final wording for an agreement with the government, only to have Kony simply not show up at the final signing.

We also visited a school for war-affected children – a euphemism for former abductees of the LRA. According to the artist who took us there, over 90% have been forced to kill. Many of the girls, barely into their teenage years, were raped or “assigned” to LRA commanders and now have small children. Many were forced to murder their own parents, relatives or friends. They were controlled by a steady stream of horror. The excellent book “Aboke Girls” by a Dutch journalist – about 109 girls from a posh boarding school abducted by the LRA – relates one incident of a girl forced to gnaw off the leg of another man. (I ended up giving away the book to some local politicians we met who lived very near the Aboke school, but who had never even heard of it – it’s even available in Canada!)

I stood a bit stunned in the middle of the brightly coloured campus, with inspirational slogans on little signs all along its pathways. Boys and girls, some looking as young as 7 or 8, milled about. I smiled at their seeming normalcy from afar, but when I tried to chat a couple of the boys up – showing them how you can see photos on the back of my camera, which usually elicits giggles and makes instant friends – they remained sullen and unenthused. They seemed suspicious of me, rarely smiling or waving back. I admit it felt a bit spooky, but mostly very sad. At least, unlike many, they have already escaped and have a shot at a “normal” life.

In non-war related observations, we also visited a very cool project called BOSCO (Battery Operated Systems for Community Outreach) which provides solar-powered computers with long-range wireless internet to the internally displaced persons camps. I thought it sounded a bit absurd at first to be providing computers to starving refugees who lack even clean drinking water, but apparently some have already been able to use the internet access to win grant proposals, to contact relatives abroad and have money sent back, to look up information about health and diseases, start up personal blogs, read the news, etc. My skepticism was overcome by the clear enthusiasm of the locals themselves, who saw the computer as their first and only outlet to a wide world of opportunities. If the internet can cause such excitement amongst desperately poor Africans living in crowded mud huts, perhaps it will indeed save us all from ourselves in the end. Except the innumerable stupid cat videos on YouTube, which help no one except my sister (and me, on a rainy day). Thankfully, the internet here is too slow for such abuse.

Reconciliation, corruption... and truth?

The NGO I work for hosted a private conference this past weekend on national reconciliation: “Building Consensus on a Sustainable Peace for Uganda.” We invited a couple dozen parliamentary MPs to attend a workshop on transitional justice, to get them thinking about moving past Uganda’s legacy of conflict.

There was some fascinating discussion. It looks like Uganda may be moving towards a South African-style Truth and Reconciliation Commission. If it does, I may be able to say I was in the room when it was first discussed.

Although, believe it or not, there was a lot of discussion about whether to include the word “truth.” Like Jack Nicholson, they fear many won’t be able to handle it, particularly with regards to the government’s abuses in the North. Internationally, the war with the Lord’s Resistance Army is seen only through the lens of the atrocities of mad, mad Joseph Kony with his 40 wives, thousands of kidnapped and brainwashed children and his quest to install a government guided only by the Ten Commandments. But in fact the Ugandan army is also guilty of atrocities, as Human Rights Watch has recently pointed out. One friend told me that at one point the sodomizing of civilians by government soldiers became so widespread that a whole subgroup of male Acholi society received a nickname meaning “Those who find it hard to bend at the knees.”

So, the LRA is sometimes explained (though not justified) as somewhat of a response to government brutality and a North-South imbalance in political power. In turn, Museveni is seen to have used the LRA’s horrors as a pretext to maintain militarized political power, holding an entire population at ransom. Some believe that President Museveni has deliberately kept the LRA alive and kicking – indeed it is a bit puzzling that the army has been unable to subdue a few thousand rag-tag rebels.

All of this is why many eyebrows were raised when the ICC indicted LRA commanders and the Chief Prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, appeared at a triumphant press conference hand-in-hand with a smiling President Museveni. One-sided justice, to be sure. The ICC also comes under fire for interfering in a peace process that may have lured Kony out of the bush. Now he certainly has no incentive, with an international arrest warrant hanging over his head. And so the war continues.

As for me, I’m still trying to figure out what I think of the ICC’s involvement, but the local consensus is hard to ignore: the ICC is widely seen as a huge impediment to peace. They say it doesn’t fully grasp the willingness of Ugandans to forgive, reconcile and move on. Indeed, one wonders where South Africa would be today if, just as Mandela was negotiating reconciliation, the ICC swooped in and indicted F.W. De Klerk. It’s all a bit of a shock to a Western law student bombarded with talk of the moral righteousness of the ICC.

But perhaps one of the most telling lessons of the weekend had nothing to do with reconciliation, and more to do with the reason nothing ever seems to get done by African governments. First, the conference had to be moved from a more modest location to the glitzy Imperial Botanical Beach Hotel after the MPs threatened not to show up. Then they demanded “motivation” in order to attend, amounting to a $75 “travel allowance.” Of the 30 or so invited, at least 5 simply didn’t bother to show up (and a couple left early). And when we were there, they complained about all manner of petty things, particularly the fact that at coffee break they were forced to pour their own tea. At the workshop itself, they seemed more interested in hearing their own voices than on having any genuine discussion. I even saw one MP browsing the local movie reviews as the RLP presenters discussed mundane issues like war crimes and how to achieve sustainable peace. I also got an interesting souvenir that pretty much sums it all up – an MP’s business card with standard government info/look on the front, and on the back an advertisement asking me to invest in his “Rise & Shine Projects & Investments”

Happy Radovan Day

The Butcher of Bosnia is caught, at long last. Back when I was in Sarajevo, I was sitting in my friend Sanjin’s small apartment when the newscaster breathlessly announced that General Ratko Mladic – the second most wanted after Radovan Karadzic – had been captured. Sanjin immediately poured large shots of plum brandy and jubilantly wished me a “Happy Ratko Day.” Of course, that news report later turned out to be false, but I experienced a bit of the joy that is undoubtedly being felt in Sarajevo today. So, Happy Radovan Day, old friends.

In an odd coincidence, a friend a few days ago also sent me a report speculating that Karadzic may have been around Foca, a small town in Eastern Bosnia, in April 2006 (this also makes a good read). It just so happens we were there visiting at the same time. It was an odd little town, one where you suspect that everyone you see on the street is a closet mass murderer, hiding some sinister past as they sip coffee. Probably a bit like it feels to live in Rwanda today. I wouldn’t be surprised if Karadzic was at one time being sheltered by the residents there, just as I wouldn’t be surprised if elements of the Serbian government have known for a long time that he’s been practicing medicine just outside Belgrade under a false name. Something deep inside the establishment must have shifted.

"His Excellency, Barack Hussein Obama"

How a workmate just referred to him, adding "Coming soon."

Lost in translation, Part I

Most Ugandans never learn how to swim. Even some of the fisherman. So "swimming" means something different - basically getting wet up to your waist.

Before I figured this out, I asked Rosebell whether it was possible to swim in Lake Bunyoni, wanting to know about parasites and the like.

Her response: "No no no, it's too deep."

Uganda Headlines

RAPE: THE MEDICINE THAT COULD SAVE YOU FROM HIV
- The New Vision (ostensibly trying to refer to a new drug that can prevent contracting HIV if taken shortly after sex)

NORTH LEADS IN POLYGAMY
- The New Vision, August 17, 2007

I DID NOT EAT DRC PYGMIES
- The Daily Monitor, June 1, 2008

WHY UGANDA IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN MANCHESTER UNITED
- The Daily Monitor, June 2008 (an argument that actually needs to be made)

Thanks to my roomates for collecting some of these.

UGANDA ISLAMIC INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF EVIL SPIRITS
- prestigious academic establishment just outside Kampala

AFRICA CHRISTIAN INSTITUTE FOR DEVELOPMENT (Trust ACID)
- sign in Hoima

"SUFFER NOW, ENJOY TOMORROW"
- motto of Kitana Primary School, near Murchison

"GAIN BUMS QUICKLY (No side effects)!"
- ubiquitous advertisement in Kampala

Bunabumali

There is not much to say about this past weekend that Siena hasn’t already said better, but I’ll prattle on anyway.

A 7-hour bus/taxi journey with multiple transfers, detours and delays (the usual), then a hike through the hills until we reach Bunabumali. Norman’s orphanage is perched halfway up the hillside, surrounded by green mountains, every inch of them cultivated. The kids sing for us, most dressed in little yellow uniforms. We hand out a ball we’re donating, and play for hours. We sleep in a dusty hut, listening to Norman’s brothers rustle around in their hammocks through the mud walls in the room over. Woke up to an insistent rooster at 4:30am. Not even bloody dawn yet! So much for that theory. Climbed the mountain, finding houses all the way to the summit. At the top truly feels like the middle of nowhere, even though I’m sort of standing on someone’s front lawn. On the way down, we meet Norman's excitable and energetic grandmother who nurses her shin splints as she asks me to marry her and take her back to Canada (awkward). Then I get acquainted with the village bathroom, having been handed two sheets of crumpled looseleaf paper to use as TP.

Just before dinner, Norman suddenly brings up the topic of circumcision as I’m biting into a mango. His tribe is the only one in Uganda that does it, but not until the boy turns 19! He was covered in yeast, and not allowed to sleep or bathe for 3 days. Apparently the idea is to make you so pissed off you don’t even care if your tip gets snipped. Then the entire village gathers around (Norman says 30,000 attended his), perform some ceremonies, and do the deed. The boy musn’t move or make a sound. And then you’re a man, except you have to wait a few months to heal. Norman said the only truly difficult part of the whole process was “After, when you see a very nice girl and you get happy down there, it hurts sooo much.”


Apparently our stay was only the 3rd time white folk had ever slept in the village. The usual curious looks everywhere we go. Norman’s family is exceedingly gracious and thank us profusely for coming, but they reluctantly admit that our presence might make the neighbours jealous. When we leave, Norman’s sister does her hair, puts on her best dress, polishes her shoes and walks us to the bus stop. She talks to Siena about her dream of attending Columbia University.

Refugees

More photos from the camp here.

Kyangwali in photos

The settlement

The 56-year old woman – ancient, by African standards – sits cross-legged on the grass in front of me, under the shade of a mango tree. She is a refugee from Sudan. She holds her palms up to show me her thick calluses, to prove that she must do all the farming now that her husband is too sick and elderly to work. Every day she has to bathe him. There are also 7 children to care for. Her face is creased, her skin dusty. A series of triangular scars on her forehead. The interpreter tells me they are characteristic of the Dinka tribe, a kind of identifying badge.

I ask her why she has come to talk to me. She says she has no problem a lawyer can solve. Inside I sigh – today I’ve had too many people with problems I can’t solve. Over the past two weeks of 12 hour days I feel I’ve started to become too hard, a bit too inhuman. I am the only white person in a camp of 20,000 and refugees follow me everywhere, expecting perhaps that I have a couple of flight tickets to Canada tucked in my back pocket. We are staying in the camp church, and every morning I come out with a towel around my waist to find refugees camped outside my door. At one point I even gather around a crowd and tell them I’m not a lawyer, that they should go talk to one of the other team members (all Africans) who are in fact my bosses, that just because I’m a mzungu it doesn’t mean I have “magic powers.” They all laugh at this – at least I got a few smiles – but no one goes anywhere.

It’s not the horrific stories that wear you down so much, but having to tell so many people each day that there is nothing I can do for them. We’ve come to report on the human rights situation in the camp, as well as help some refugees who have tangible legal problems we can solve. Criminal accusations, land disputes, problems with the authorities – things like that. I’m tasked with doing intake of individual refugees, identifying potential cases. My everyday makeshift “office” is a patch of shade under a mango tree next to a primary school. Nearby, giggling girls in pink-uniforms play some kind of handball at recess – after staring at me for a bit.

The “camp” is not in fact a camp, but a “settlement,” I am told more than once. Each refugee is issued a small plot with a field to cultivate crops. The government has a “self-sustaining” refugee policy in which the 300,000 refugees in Uganda are expected to provide for themselves (after being given land and some initial assistance). The result is actually quite an idyllic-looking village with lots of space and greenery, dotted with mud huts with reedy rooves. Not the tightly-packed rows of tents I was expecting. Some have been living in such settlements for decades. But grave problems persist, not the least of which is that every last inhabitant seems to suffer from PTSD. All live in absolute poverty.

I issue those who come to sit around my tree little slips with numbers on them and my signature. The first few days when I didn’t, it was chaos. A few times someone comes up with a fake slip, and I rip it up and call them a liar. They slink away, and then later I feel bad for snapping at someone who is more desperate for help than I ever will be.

90% of those I talk to essentially want “resettlement,” the buzzword for being sent to what is seen as paradise: Canada, the US, Europe or Australia. Typically this can only be done if the refugee cannot live a secure life in the country of asylum – perhaps they are still being pursued by their persecuters there. But the demand is overwhelming and it is usually impossible to tell which claims are genuine. Sadly, humanitarian agencies are overwhelmed by exagerrations and fabrications, real solvable problems getting lost in this mass of desperation. A general mistrust of refugees pervades the NGO community. A UNHCR representative I meet calls resettlement a “poison” in the system. My colleagues warn me to fight this creeping suspicion, but every night we all chuckle at some of the more outlandish stories.

So whenever what looks like a resettlement request comes up I tell them my organization can’t help them, that we are mandated to improve the lives of refugees in Uganda, not to try and ship them out. Crushing so many hopes takes a toll. Every day a few cry. I start to get annoyed, exasperated. Occasionally I yell at refugees following me, the ones who try to thrust letters in my lap as I eat lunch.

At least this old lady before me has warned me that I won’t be able to help her. She doesn’t ask for resettlement. She only says that she wants to tell me her story so that when she dies someone will remember it.

Debora lived in Mading Bor. She was a Dinka, a tribe of cattle herdsman inhabiting the vast savannah of southern Sudan. When she was young they carved the angular scars on her forehead, forever indicating her clan affiliation.

As a young woman she wanted to marry another man of the same generation. But her father didn’t allow it – the man was poor and wouldn’t be able to pay the required bride price in cattle. So she was promised to a much older man, the one she bathes every day now.

The younger man felt his honour impugned, which is everything. One day he arrived at Debora’s house. He held the old man on the ground and cut out one of his eyes with a knife. Then he turned on her, beating her viciously. He promised the old man that he would come back to claim the other eye – and to kill Debora.

Together Debora and her husband fled the town. The coming tide of cyclical Sudanese wars pushed her ever southward until she reached Uganda. Now she lives in Kyangwali refugee settlement. Relatives have warned her that if she returns to Sudan, her former husband-to-be is waiting to murder her. In the camp her life is unbearable. There is not enough food to feed her 7 children and the husband is incapacitated. She says she will die soon and asks me to remember her, to carry on her story.

I promise I will, but as I say it I wonder if I actually will. She shouts out something, and grabs my arm, smiling. She begins to tear up as she speaks rapidly. The interpreter whispers in my ear: “She is blessing you, thanking you. She is glad her story will survive outside of... here” He motions to the landscape, to the settlement, to Africa.

Other stories stick with me too. The 10-year old boy in primary school who wanted to be a professional footballer and talked about his alcoholic father – in a free-association art exercise he drew a picture of two people having sex. The children who had been taken away from their parents, had been living outside until they stopped to ask for water at a pastor’s home, filthy and confused. The sad-eyed guy cradling his broken arm, injured in a fight with Ugandans around the camp who dislike their foreign, resource-sucking presence. The Sudanese lady who I thought was motioning for me to take her picture, but was in fact asking for money, and whose photo I kept taking as everyone around laughed. Seeing Congo in the distance across misty Lake Albert. Betty, 18, who was raped by the lakeshore and has a 2-year old baby as a result – her foster family has since tried to sell her to another man. The raft of young widows with families to raise who complain about drunken men knocking at their doors late at night. The woman who told me her father had arranged to have her husband killed – the father had offered him up as repayment in blood for a murder the father himself had committed – and now she is being fought over by several brothers, each of whom promise to kill her should she marry one of the other brothers. The earnest, soft-spoken Congolese pastor, caught up in Lendu-Hema tribal conflict at the camp, who grabs my hand and says just wants to live in “peace,” repeating that last word like a mantra. Jean Bosco, who was enslaved by the SPLA at home, forced to carry manure, tortured and accused of being a spy. The pretty Acholi woman who breastfed in front me and answered my questions with the oddly appealing, melodic “Aaayyy” in place of “Yes”. Mark, who seemed to find me wherever I was in the camp, grabbing my arm and pleading with me to save him because his father had killed someone and the victim’s family was out to get him, an all-too-common story of Sudanese blood feud. The local refugee leader with a leopard-skinned cowboy hat who told me people were out to poison him because they were jealous he had spent 9 months in Japan. Coming upon a man bleeding from his ear after a fight between government soldiers and refugees – a disputed goal in a football game led to a soldier striking him with a baton. The dead-drunk Congolese mathematics teacher whose wife and daughter had been executed and who tells me he simply can’t live much longer – he shows me his blistered hands, explaining that he won’t survive as a farmer. The mother with a 2-year old girl on her back – the infant had been raped by a 10-year old boy the week before. Jane, 17, who had been lured back to Sudan by her uncle only to find that he wanted to force her into marriage – she only wanted to finish school. Susan, the 15-year old rape victim in a torn grey dress, who spoke so softly I had to put my ear to her face to hear her (I got one of the lawyers to take her case). The Sudanese refugees boarding buses returning to Sudan, seemingly gleeful to be going home, but leaving behind those too scared to depart, those stuck in this torturous limbo.

Really, there is too much to say about the visit, which is why I’ve been too shy to even start blogging it. But there is my stream-of-consciousness for now.

To Kyangwali refugee settlement

Tomorrow I head off to Kyangwali refugee camp in western Uganda, near the town of Hoima. I’ll be there for two weeks, helping to provide legal services and surveying conditions in the camp. Most of the refugees come from the Congo, and so I will also serve as unofficial French interpreter, though any hint of a Quebecois accent seems to confuse them.

I suppose I haven’t even mentioned where I work yet: a local NGO called the Refugee Law Project. I work in the Legal Aid Clinic, where I mostly pretend to be a lawyer, helping our clients either gain refugee status or deal with other problems, like medical, employment or security issues.

Every person who walks in our doors carries a long history of harrowing, gut-wrenching tales. I have been conflicted about whether to write about some of them here, due to confidentiality issues. In any case, I imagine I will have much to report from my own eyes when I return. Until then.

Murchison Falls

I headed up to Murchison Falls National Park this past weekend. My first safari. It was beautiful, and I finally got to see the legendary African animals in the wild (not to mention the legendary Nile River), but the whole experience was a tad too sterile for my liking. Everything was guided and organized, you can’t step out of the car, and you can’t get away from all the other safari cars with armies of tourists poking their cameras out the window, gratuitously snapping away. The animals even seem to have become accustomed to the vehicles. I suppose I’m more into wandering around on one’s own, interacting personally with nature or people.

That said, it was worth it. My favourite was seeing a giraffe run – so graceful and deliberate, it actually looks like you are watching it in slow-motion. Second was hearing a hippo outside my tent in the middle of the night munching grass and flapping his ears. They trek far from the water to find soft, short grass, and are frequent visitors at the campground. But their rotund, jolly appearance belies the fact that they are vicious and territorial, known to charge tourists (and can run faster than any man). So I had to desperately hold it in until the hippo lumbered away.

Wildlife roll-call: baboons, guinea fowl, colobus monkeys, water bucks, buffalo (and their ubiquitous bird-on-the-shoulder sidekicks), all manner of antelopes (obiri, kop, etc. and a tiny, dog-sized one that is apparently the rarest animal in the park), a pride of lions with 9 cubs play-wrestling, giraffes, elephants, hippos, crocodiles, birds galore, warthogs, and a couple insane Australian girls who talked about drinking the whole trip up, drank the whole time, and complained about their hangover the whole way back.

Photos (though not of the Aussies – also very territorial):

“OBAMA VICTORY EXCITES UGANDA”

The bold, capitalized headline taking up half of the front page of today’s New Vision.

Last week I was at a bar and ran into a World Bank employee. We got into some deep stuff – the kind of world-shattering discussion that tends to happen after a few beers amongst idealists. “How do we stop all this war and suffering, man?”

Anyway, for someone reason I mentioned the phrase “Since colonialism in Africa ended...” Ronny, the off-duty club DJ, overheard me and leapt into the conversation, a little irritated.

“But what about neo-colonialism? That’s still here. You know, all this money you give us is great, but you tie us down. You still control us.”

“So how come you can’t deal with your problems on your own?” said World Bank.

“Well, we are so poor, we are suffering. What can we do?”

“So you need the money. But if we give it to you, you’ll accuse us of controlling you, of being colonialists. How can we win? How can we fix this?”

Ronny, only 10% joking: “Elect Obama, man!”

The Jam

Above: the “taxi park” in Kampala where the matatu minivan-taxi-buses congregate to pick up passengers before dispersing in all directions, following some incomprehensible (to me) series of unmarked routes, stopping at unmarked places.

Roughly speaking, I live in the northeastern part of the center of Kampala and work in the southwestern part. It’s about a 45 minute walk. By moped, it’s about 10 minutes. But by matatu during rush hour, it takes at least an hour.

Kampala traffic is unbearable (the locals just call it “the jam”). Why is anybody’s guess. Some local friends tell me it’s simply plain old bad urban planning from the 1950s. The lack of traffic lights can’t help – there are only 2 functioning ones in the entire city.

All that idling of diesel engines and old cars means that on a hot, still day you can chew the air. When you blow your nose, sometimes it comes out with specks of black. Yum.

Democracy shmocracy (cont'd)

Just after I painted a slightly rosy picture of press freedom in Uganda, news comes out that the government is setting up a special “Media crackdown” taskforce. And insiders from the Independent and the Daily Monitor have told me that despite their critical tone, much is often left unsaid.

I also somewhat misguidedly mentioned that Museveni had brought “stability” to Uganda. Relatively speaking – compared to the pre-Museveni era – this is undoubtedly true (as it is with all dictators). But I forgot, of course, to mention the conflict in the North. Technically there is still an ongoing “war” in Uganda, although it has calmed significantly in the past few years. But strangely, if you talk to locals in Kampala, the troubles in the North are rarely even mentioned. It’s as if it isn’t even part of the country. News about the momentous ongoing peacetalks – which have recently stalled, perhaps permanently – make page 4 and beyond of the local newspapers, while the same story might be featured on the BBC homepage. More on the North later, particularly after I visit in a month or so.

From the glass-half-full department, however, comes a report that the Constitutional Court has boldly struck down a law requiring that public protests be pre-authorized by the government. The language of the judgment seems awfully, well, Canadian. Should be interesting to see how this plays out.

Ssese Islands

I set out on Friday for the secluded Ssese islands in Lake Victoria for a little R&R. I took a 3-hour ferry ride from Entebbe, sitting by the rails, with the spray tempering the equator sun.

By Saturday night, I was dancing to traditional German music with an elderly German lady. “Mama,” I only knew her as. I was the only guest at the Hornbill Camp, sleeping in a leaky tent on a private beach. The owners were a crazy middle-aged German couple who took beer with breakfast. Mama had come to visit her son and the owners threw a 30-person pig roast in her honour, attended by an assortment of locals from this tiny island, including a rather sharply dressed reverend. The food was delicious – cassava, plantains, bean salad, fried beans, beans-beans, assorted local vegetables, and of course the pig, whose squealing slaughter I had woken up to that morning. But there wasn’t enough pork, as Mama had broken into tears at the thought of killing the second pig. She had named him “Fritz.” The owner privately assured me Fritz would meet his maker after Mama left.

I had made the mistake of telling Mama I spoke a little German, having taken a couple years of long-forgotten classes in high school. Mama didn’t speak English, and I suppose was feeling a bit lonely, so throughout Saturday she sought me out on the beach for long conversations of which I didn’t understand a bloody word. The only things I really understood were when she approached me at the pig-roast and complained that there was too much African music on the stereo. Out came the German folk tunes. And Mama insisted I have the second dance with her (the reverend was first). A giggling crowd of Ugandans cheered us on. The next thing I understood was Mama telling me that the reverend had been a better dancer.

The night before I had sat on the beach to watch a quiet sunset, as the local fishermen (none of whom, I was told, can swim) paddled home in their rickety boats. And then the noisy Ugandan night came alive. Croaking bullfrogs, chirping grasshoppers, a cicada-like buzzing, angry ducks roused from their slumber, and mostly an assortment of very loud unidentifiable sounds, including a high-pitched, reverberating plinking that sounded a bit like a steel-drum band. Overhead was an unfamiliar sky, only recognizing an upside-down Big Dipper emptying into the horizon. Across the lake a lightning storm fizzled, dark clouds slowly rolling across the water towards me. A stray dog (there are no other kind in Uganda – as my friend put it, Africans find it very strange that we North Americans take “beasts” into our home and sometimes even sleep with them) came by to keep me company. Screw the fleas, I gave him a good rub down, glad to have a new friend. But this meager show of affection meant that he followed me around all weekend (all the way to when I boarded the ferry back), and even attacked my tent at 3am, bolting me awake with andrenaline pumping to see the outline of a jaw through the tent wall (I suppose he thought the tent had eaten me). When the inverted Big Dipper slowly disappeared behind the coming storm, I decided to turn in.

Other wildlife encounters included some mischievous monkeys eyeing my plantain chips and, especially, all manner of birds: the African Screaming Fish Eagle; brownish hawks circling above; the Grey East African Plantain Eater (apparently); a huge toucan-esque bird whose enormous wingflaps could be heard from far away and whose un-aerodynamic, grotesque beak made the air buzz as it passed (I thought I’d heard a small plane, at first), fleets of little yellow chirpers, and small fisher birds who hovered over the lake and then plunged in like missiles. A bird-watcher’s paradise.

Also – a 8-yearoldish local girl named Tina who spoke only Luganda. She found me on the beach. Tina squealed with delight when I showed her how to skip rocks. And then later she brought her friends to chase around the “mzungu” (‘white man’) and climbed all over me as I tried to read. At least I took the opportunity to get Tina to pose for a picture with The Fate of Africa, an enormous tome I finally polished off this weekend:



So while I didn’t get the absolute peace and quiet I was looking for, I will miss all my new friends. Auf wiedersehen, Mama!

Manchester United's secret fanbase (continued)

Last week Manchester United won the Champions League title. I witnessed a delirious fan rip off his shirt and pour an entire beer over his head.

But this report from yesterday’s New Vision takes the cake:

Fans of Champions League winners Manchester United based in Masaka held a two-day bull roasting to celebrate the club’s success. The fans under the Nakayiba-Nume Manchester United Development Association later had a transnight disco.

Sipi kids

To Sipi Falls and back again

At one point on the way to Sipi I counted 25 people (including small children stuffed into gaps here and there) and 2 live chickens in the matatu, a small minivan that by law would only carry 12 back home. Squeezed against the window, somehow I even fell asleep. There is something oddly comforting about the total lack of personal space in Uganda, as if you are somehow less alone.

Along the way any momentary pause in a town resulted in masses of hucksters thrusting meats, fruits, newspapers, and grilled corn (delicious) through the windows. In some sections of road there were more potholes than asphalt. All the while the poetry of the Ugandan landscape rolled by. I leaned out the window, feeling a bit like I had finally arrived. Lush greenery against red dirt, thick jungle and then stretching plains, interrupted by small villages with brightly coloured buildings, mud huts and locals cooking, selling and loitering.

When we finally got to Sipi, I pointed out to Zou, my Morrocan traveling mate, that we had only traveled 250km in 8 hours. Zou shrugged his shoulders. “T.I.A.” TIA? Putting on his best Leonardo DiCaprio from Blood Diamond impression, he intoned “This Is Africa, mate.”

The next day, on the way back from Sipi, upon reaching the outskirts of Kampala we found out that the bridge we intended to cross was shutdown. We took a detour through a small village, only to get stuck in some thick mud and had to backtrack. We tried another way, but gridlock dictated otherwise. So we took another 2-hour detour, the sun fell, and the impatient matatu driver roared through the African night.

When I finally got home to Kampala, the power in our house was out. TIA!

Yellowed wigs

I went to visit the Supreme Court of Uganda with some of the local law clerks at my NGO. We were supposed to be watching a murder case, but due to some scheduling mishap we ended up in a mind-numbing session on electoral laws. Here are the notes I took, before I started to nod off:

Sitting in the Uganda SC. Smallish, non-descript courtroom. Nothing remarkable about it except the faded country crest. Rickety ceiling fans spin. Water stains. Waiting for trial to begin.

The judges enter! Ha, they’re all very old men with the white wigs from colonial times. Lavish (but slightly dirty) red robes with gold embroidery. “My lords” says the lawyer. His client hasn’t even shown up and he awkwardly and vainly scans the audience behind him. A couple wigs are yellowed. You can tell who’s been here longest.

Judge begins drawling away, reading judgment about some electoral issue. At one point he motions sternly for a clerk to come pour a glass of water for him, from an already pre-opened bottle right in front of him. Some roosters are crowing outside.

Rain break

When it rains, Kampala grinds to a halt. Bodas scurry off, and denizens huddle under awnings. During the dry season, the weather usually clears soon enough. So they wait, betraying nary a hint of impatience, keeping to “Africa time,” until the skies open and then the hustle and bustle suddenly springs back to life.

I woke up the other morning to a downpour. My roommate urged me to wait it out – no one would be at work yet. I puttered about the house for a bit, but, being naturally impatient, I decided to set out. As I got on the boda, the rain suddenly picked up and I arrived completely soaked, 2 hours late for work. Barely anyone was there, just the lucky few with cars. They had a good laugh at my expense – the silly, over-ambitious Westerner who would have to sit in damp pants all day.

Manchester United's secret fanbase

As far as sports go, English Premiership soccer dominates local fandom. Last week I went to a local hole in the wall with Norman to watch Manchester United’s last league game. The “bar” was packed tightly with plastic chairs and rowdy spectators. I was definitely the only white man in the joint. One guy asked me, incredulous: “What are you doing here when you can be back in Britain watching the game there?”

When ManU won, the celebrations were so loud I could barely hear myself. The speakers starting pumping out a song in Luganda (one of the many local languages) – “Manchester fans, stand up!” And so they all stood and waved their arms, with me awkwardly joining in for fear of standing out even more.

With most Ugandans being ManU fans, tomorrow’s Chelsea-Manchester Champions League final is bound to have a World Cup atmosphere.

Democracy shmocracy

“[This is to] make sure good leaders like Brother Museveni do not leave power simply because of elections” – Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, describing a recent trip to Libya of some pro-Museveni activists for training in “revolutionary” tactics. (The Daily Monitor, May 13, Kampala)

Uganda is what you might call democratish. The President, Yoweri Museveni has been in power for over twenty years since he staged an armed coup. Recently he had the Constitution amended to abolish term limits, and won another 5-year mandate to rule until 2011.

Despite this, there seems to be a healthy quasi-free press. There is the government-owned rag, the New Vision, that pumps out sunny headlines about Uganda’s bright future. But other papers, like the Daily Monitor or the Independent, offer up often scathing criticism. Then again, many journalists, like the editor of the Independent Andrew Mwenda, get rung up on manufactured sedition charges.

While Museveni is widely considered to condone rampant corruption, it seems to be assumed that even if the 2006 elections were rigged, he would have won anyway. He has, in the end, brought 20 years of stability to a country that before his ascension in 1986 had been torn asunder by decades of war.

Shakedown

I was taking a rather lame picture of the old Kampala railway station when a man tapped me on the shoulder. “Excuse me sir, do you have permission to take that photograph?” What do you mean, I protested, this is a public place and I had just taken photos of the Parliament and other surely more sensitive buildings. “How would you feel if I came into your home and started taking photos everywhere without your permission?” he responded sternly. We argued for a while, and then he produced an ID claiming that he was a “POLICE OFFICER.” His ID reminded me of a 19-year old trying to get into an American bar. He was dressed in plain clothes.

He insisted that I come with him to “chat” with his superior. I decided to call his bluff and abruptly turned around and walked away. He did not follow, and only plaintively yelled out “Er, ok, ask permission next time!”

I was left a little angry and discouraged after so many friendly encounters with locals. But when I told my roommates, who have been here for a year, and even some locals, they only said “Get used to it. Welcome to Uganda!”

Quaint crimes under the Ugandan Penal Code

s. 40 – sedition

Sedition is often used to prosecute uppity journalists. Dozens are currently on trial, including the editor of the Independent – one of the few publications often critical of the government – for merely publishing a quotation from a former government soldier claiming he had been ordered to masquerade as a Lord’s Resistance Army rebel and commit massacres to discredit the movement.

s. 53 – Defamation of foreign princes
s. 118 – Writing or uttering words with intent to wound religious feelings
s. 165 – Chain letters
s. 168 – Rogues and vagabonds.
s. 266 – Cattle rustling

Boda boda

Warning to my mother: do not read this.

In the first 15 minutes I saw Africa in daylight, I feared for my life. I went to work with my roommate on a boda boda, a motorcycle taxi, the most common mode of transport in Kampala. I hopped on the back and before I could even figure out how to stay on the narrow seat, we were roaring off. The driver winded through rush hour traffic at high speed, sometimes right down the dividing lane as cars zipped past on both sides. I arrived with dust in my eyes and adrenaline pumping, and a little excited, as if having taken a rickety rollercoaster that only cost $1.

“Road safety” is an unknown phrase in Uganda. There are maybe two traffic lights in the entire city, but they are never on. I like to imagine they were the result of some colonial imposition, long since abandoned as impeding the natural chaos of urban Africa. Traffic accidents are said to kill more people on the continent than any disease or war.

I have started taking the bus to work.

Planet Obama

On the drive from the airport, Norman fired through conversation topics at high speed: Ugandan corruption, landslides, the war in the North, the orphanage he had founded. Sometime just after I realized that there were no seatbelts and Ugandans actually do drive on the left side of the road, Norman wanted to talk US politics: “It is getting hot there, no? So very hot!”

Norman is an Obama supporter, along with, by his estimation, 85% of Africans. No surprise there. What did surprise me, though, was his knowledge and clear interest in the Democratic primary. His take on the race – Hillary’s policies are good, but she is only in it to win power. Obama has a vision for the world and has the ability to speak to the globe. Right on the mark, if you ask me.

Clearly far more than just “bitter” working class whites in Pennsylvania have a stake in Election 2008.

A New World

Africa! My first time on the continent.

In a Nairobi airport bathroom, a booming voice from behind startled me as I zipped up my pants: “Hello sir! How are you today?” The janitor smiled broadly, and went back to cleaning.

At the Entebbe airport, Norman – a contact of Siena’s who neither of us had met before – greeted me with a big hug. He had invited three of us his other friends to make the 1-hour drive from Kampala, just to say hello and welcome little old me.

My Lonely Planet travel guide tells me that Ugandans are “smiling and friendly, with an openness absent in other places – truly some of the finest folk in Africa.” I guess they did their homework.

Goodbye Sarajevo... for now

I leave Sarajevo on Wednesday morning after 6 months in Bosnia. I am certainly sad to go, but thankful for everything I have experienced and learned here. Life goes on.

In the chaos of trying to wrap up my Bosnian life, I haven't had the time to sit down and provide some final thoughts. I will do that when I get back home next week, as well as put up some new pictures.

At the risk of sounding sentimental (which never stopped me before), I would like to quote from a classic Bosnian folk song that invariably induces groups of drunken Sarajevans to fling their arms around each other and belt out the words. It goes:

Sa Sa Sarajevo,
It has a magic power,
Anyone who comes here once,
Must come back again,
Oooh Sa Sa Sarajevo...

I have a feeling this will not be the last time I see Sarajevo.

Mostar, 6 months later

Bruce Lee statue in November 2005; what's left of it in April 2006.

Yesterday I returned to Mostar, Bosnia's UNESCO heritage town, for one last look before I leave the country. My heart broke when I saw that Bruce Lee had disappeared, ostensibly taken down for repairs. Apparently the kung fu hero's likeness had been so vandalized that someone concluded that the only thing more embarassing than a shiny gold Bruce Lee in your main park is a vandalized shiny gold Bruce Lee statue in your main park. Is this a sad sign of Bosnia's decay? Or just a casualty in an underground ninja war? Or does it mean anything at all? Who knows...

I do know that although Bruce is missing, and Mostar itself has much more visible war damage than Sarajevo, the drive there revealed that Bosnia is indeed very much a country on the move. I was with Selma and Armin, who hadn't driven to Mostar in over 6 months, and for the entire trip they marvelled at the new patches of road, new lights in the tunnels, new houses under construction, new tourist signs, new rest stops, and even a big new shopping mall. It was comforting to see concrete, indisputable signs that the country is indeed improving, and, more importantly, the rare excitement of my local friends at these positive changes.

I wonder what it will be like to visit Bosnia five years from now, and whether I will even recognize it. While I have immense affection for the way it is now, despite its warts (and maybe because of them), I hope that when I do come back it will be like entering a brand new country, and Bruce, in all his nunchuck-wielding glory, will have returned to his rightful place.

Selma 1

I was walking with Selma and suddenly she stopped.

“Here it is. Remember, I was telling you about it. This is where I got this.” She pulled back her sleeve and showed me the long scar she earned when she was a 9-year old girl living in a city under siege.

"My mother and sister were in front of me, and suddenly a sniper started shooting from over there.” She pointed to a distant high-rise. “They ran around the corner, and I don’t know what happened, but suddenly bullets were shooting up dust around me.” She started to re-enact the scene, but laughing the whole time as if it were on the same level as her telling some funny story about the time she got drunk and threw up on her friend’s face. “They were yelling at me to run and I sprinted, starting here.” She started jogging in slow-motion, exaggerating her movements, giggling. “I ran as fast as I could, but I slipped on some broken glass right here,” she pointed again, “and that’s how I got cut. The sniper was still firing, but somehow I got up and got away. I don’t know how. It was craaazzzy!” she exclaimed, laughing harder now. Then she sighed. “This kind of close call happened to me so many times. My family thinks I am their lucky charm,” she beamed proudly. I chose to laugh along with her, which seemed to be the right reaction, and we went on walking.

Selma 2

I was on a lunch break downtown with my colleague Selma (a different one), and she pointed to an apartment building. “That’s where my father died,” she said. “He was upstairs on the top floor and a bomb hit the roof. The explosion didn’t kill him directly, but his mouth was open and the blast of air exploded his lungs.” I didn't know what to say, but she didn't seem bothered, telling me as if it was just another story.

“Did people try and keep their mouths closed all the time?” I asked. Selma laughed at me: “Yeah right.” I should have known better by then – life went on in Sarajevo, as it always had, despite the bombs.

Bosnian Superstar

I was on TV! Here's the picture to prove it. My rise to Bosnian superstardom begins. Unfortunately I only have a week to cash in on the groupies and wild parties.

The interview was for a news special about youth in Bosnia. Almost 70% say they would leave the country if they could, and so they asked me and a few other foreign interns why on earth we would actually go out of our way to come here for work. I have been told by my honest friends that I did not say anything overly stupid, but was too serious. Jealous plebeians!

Too much history

I neglected to mention last Thursday that April 6 was commemorated in Sarajevo as the "Day of the City." April 6 is the day that:

* ... the Nazis first bombed the city in 1941;
* ... the city was liberated in 1945 ;
* ... the first bombs fell on Sarajevo, and the first victims were killed, in 1992;
* ... and the UN recognized Bosnia-Herzegovina as an independent country, in 1992.

Now you know why they say the Balkans has too much history for its own good.

Second sentence for war crimes at the Court of BiH: a small step forward

The Court of BiH; High Security Courtroom 6 (where the sentencing took place).

Today the Court of BiH handed down its second ever conviction for war crimes, and its first for direct responsibility for crimes against humanity. Nedjo Samardzic was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment for 4 counts of crimes against humanity perpetrated in the town of Foca (which I visited a few weeks ago). Among them were 2 counts for forcible imprisonment and physical abuse of civilians, and 2 counts of rape. Within the latter charges, Samardzic was found guilty of taking a 15-year girl into sexual slavery, and repeatedly raping her over a period of several months. Because of insufficient evidence, he was also acquitted on 6 counts, amongst them several rapes and one of participating in the mass murder of 30 civilians.

I just came back from the courtroom, where the entire procedure lasted about 15 minutes. The presiding judge, a diminutive Bosnian woman, seemed nervous. It is the second ever war crimes trial concluded at this Court, based on laws that were drafted only a few years ago, so I suppose I can't blame her. But her concluding statements, where she offered that "I think we have done the best job we could," and "Both sides are entitled to appeal, and they probably will do so," were, I think, probably gratuitous.

In front of me sat three creepy-looking goons, who I was told by a colleague were friends of Samardzic. They betrayed no emotion and left the building as soon as it was over. But not everyone was emotionless. Outside on the Court steps, the prosecutor was accosted by the head of a society called Women War Victims. In front of the TV cameras, presumably enraged by the charges Samardzic had been acquitted for, and the 12-year sentence, she told him in no uncertain terms that he should be ashamed for the job he had done. "You were more concerned with your salary than on paying for witnesses to come here to testify," she said. Another woman quietly cried, as she laid a wreath of flowers by the Court entrance.

The one question that is on my mind right now is: why was Nedjo Samardzic smiling? Indeed, as he was led away in handcuffs, a small grin crept across his face. Was he happy that, as a middle-aged man, he would again see the light of day and be able to hold his wife and children? Or was it simply a last, desperate grasp for a shred of dignity, after it had just been announced to the country that he was a monster who, among other egregious crimes, had repeatedly raped a 15-year old girl?

It is hard for me to say right now what I think of all this. On the one hand, Samardzic got off on many counts -- perhaps justifiably, although there are also mumblings that the prosecutor botched the case. Above all, Samardzic will only be in prison for 12 years. This, unfortunately, is the paradox of many war crimes cases. For complicated and sometimes mystifying reasons, often mass crimes during war result in lesser sentences than a single, similar crime in peacetime.

But on the other hand, the Court, and Bosnia, took a small, historic step forward. It has shown that it is capable of putting justice back in the hands of the people of Bosnia, by trying local war criminals fairly and efficiently. The people who work here feel that, despite the often inevitable shortcomings of justice, something tangible has been accomplished.

The case is not closed, as there will most likely be appeals from both sides. Nevertheless, Bosnia has today opened a new chapter in reckoning with the decade-old atrocities that clearly still haunt its people.

The Great Bosnian Pyramid

I took this picture from the plane just after taking off from Sarajevo. Coincidentally, I somehow captured the great Bosnian pyramid. Pyramid? In Bosnia? If "What the hell?" was your reaction, then you are no different than most Bosnians, who reacted the same when it was recently reported that what was once assumed to be just another hill near the town of Visoko was in fact an ancient pyramid, situated only 30km outside Sarajevo. If you answered, "I knew it! The aliens are coming!" then it's time to drink the kool aid.

Some say that it may be the oldest pyramid in the world. This would make Bosnia home to the first-ever pyramid, first-ever Bruce Lee statue, and first-ever use of the word "ethnic cleansing." If you ask me, this is an unbeatable 1-2-3 tourism punch.

Some more info on the pyramid here and here.

Another picture: Bosnia from the sky.

Brussels: the outside world

There's me, pretending to be importantFor the past two weeks I have been submerged in a torrent of work, which explains the recent dearth of posts. I had been helping to prepare an enormous presentation for the Court's donors' conference at the European Commission in Brussels. The downside was, well, the work, but the upside was that I got to travel to Brussels last week with the Court's management and most of the bigwigs in the Bosnian government.

The trip was enlightening in a several ways. It was my first "business trip" and thus first taste of the bountiful glory of all-expenses-paid. It also gave me a behind the scenes glimpse at diplomacy, revealing how much of it really involves trying to find a dignified way to beg for money. Incidentally, in the end, we received only about 30% of the funds we asked for. There was some initial disappointment, and I got the feeling that the international community is often willing to invest in a project in order to get it off the ground (and on CNN), but unwilling to follow through with the long-term commitment the country needs. But, I think, in the end, the money will come. There will just have to be a good deal more begging (probably less dignified).

In general, the trip was also my very first time outside of the ex-Yugoslavia in almost 6 months. I hadn't realized that in that relatively short time span, already I had become accustomed to the absence of things that are routine in Western Europe. Tall buildings, and with no bullet holes! Traffic! Brand name clothing! Oh my! Another surprise was ethnic diversity. Somehow it had slipped my mind that I had been living in a city that is almost 99% white.

The traveling itself revealed more of my naivete. For the average Bosnian, venturing outside the Balkans is a huge ordeal. One must first obtain a visa, a very difficult process in and of itself, and, along the way, continually assure border officials that you are not trying to illegally immigrate, nor are you a Muslim terrorist. I had completely taken for granted the freedom of travel that I enjoy as a Canadian, when for most Bosnians taking a simple trip to western Europe is nearly impossible. I overheard more than one nostalgic comment about the old days of the widely-respected Yugoslav passport. As one official at the conference put it, "Many Bosnians today feel as if they're living in a glorified minimum-security prison."

Finally, the most noteable part of the trip was the fact that little old me, a 23-year old Canadian in Sarajevo for only 6 months, somehow ended up wearing a nametag identifying myself as a representative of Bosnia at the European Commission! I also spent a lot of time with the higher-ups in the Bosnian government -- the Prime Minister, the Minister of Justice, the Minister of Finance were all there, to name a few. To be more accurate, I spent a lot of time in close proximity to them, since none of them spoke much English and my Bosnian still barely extends beyond ordering another beer. But they seemed a jolly lot. I noticed that they had basically none of the trappings that we expect of Western governmental officals -- almost no security personnel, no enormous entourage, no diplomatic passports, no first-class tickets.


Minister of Finance & Prime Minister of Bosnia

The oddest moment of the entire trip has to have been the post-conference dinner, where I found myself at a table with the Minister of Finance, the Chief Prosecutor, the Bosnian Ambassador to the Europe Union and some others -- and not a single native English speaker amongst them. I learned a lot of new words that night by osmosis, such as "More booze!" I also got the impression that the Minister of Finance, a gregarious old lady who was constantly telling the Prime Minister to shut up, was winking at me. I admit to being mildly terrified.

All in all, a great and fascinating trip. Now I'm back in Sarajevo for a few more weeks, with my final departure scheduled for April 19. I am already sad to leave after such an amazing and diverse experience, but at the same time looking forward to new horizons. There's still a couple weeks left though, so it's too early to get sentimental.

You can see some more pics from the trip here.

Dragan

I’ve been working with Dragan, an AV technician here at the Court, on putting together a promotional DVD for the Court. We huddle around his computer screen in the AV office, sorting through old footage of the war, the Court’s construction, trials and other relevant bits.

Often this involves me asking dumb questions and Dragan and the tech guys making fun of me. Going through some grainy video of long-bearded soldiers, I asked: “Who’s this? Are these Serbs?” Ady, another technician sitting across the room who spent the war in Toronto, jolted me out of my seat when he screamed and leapt to his feet. “Serbs!! What?! Run!” We all cracked up, including Dragan, a Bosnian Serb whose first loyalty, like thousands of other locals, had always been to Sarajevo, not to his contrived ethnicity.

Dragan rolled his eyes. “Serbs, Sem (roughly how my name usually gets pronounced). Serbs? Ha! Look at them. What do those look like?”

“Uh—"

“See the beards - they’re mujahadeen. You know Bin Laden and them, da da da. Ha! Serbs! Ha!”

“Hehe, sorry, I’m just a dumb Canadian, you know. We don’t have these mujahadeen or this Bin Laden, whoever he is.”

Dragan, quick off the mark as always: “Sure, yeah right! They are there. You just don’t know it yet! Ha!”

Once, after many dry-eyed hours of editing, Dragan announced a cigarette break. The snow had at last melted, and I went out to stand with him on the Court steps.

"So, you like it here in my town, Sem?” Dragan asked, gesturing to the minaret-dotted hillside across the street.

"Yeah, I love it here. It’s a special place.”

Dragan looked down and took a long pull on his cigarette. As sometimes happens here in hyper-emotional Sarajevo, it seems I’d unexpectedly struck a chord.

"You know… this is my city, my home... I got married to Muslim woman during war. But special… before war was special. So many different people here from so many places. You wouldn’t believe. The old Sarajevo, maybe it is hiding in smokey café somewhere. I don’t know… Everything is so different now… Still, yes... you are right, it is special place. It is…” Dragan is a true poet of broken English. He took a last puff and stamped out his cigarette. “Ok,” he announced. “Let’s go, Sem. Back to work.”

Dubrovnik, Take 2

With the drama of trials ratcheting up, accompanied by their daily litany of horror, everyone at work has been feeling a bit phased. So, a group of us decided to take off to Dubrovnik in Croatia (I was there in October too) for the weekend and escape the pesky, neverending Sarajevo winter. I drove for 5 hours from snowy mountains to sunny coast, took a dip in the Adriatic, climbed around the city walls, took a boat to a remote island, saw peacocks, killed several million brain cells and saw a few posters cheering on an indicted war criminal. All in a day’s work in the Balkans.





Clockwise from top left: 1. The definition of a happy man; 2. This Croatian fisherman is probably pretty happy too; 3. Poster for indicted war criminal General Ante Gotovina; 4. Peacock on the island.

A few more pics.

Milosevic's Shadow: From the Balkans to Iraq

Slobo's funeral happened Saturday with little controversy or fanfare. Although a throng of 80,000 showed up to honour the former tyrant, there were signs that times have changed. His wife was unable to attend, having been indicted for corruption by Serbian officials. More symbolically, the floppy-eared hero of a Greater Serbia was buried in his little backyard in the town of Pozaravec, having been refused a resting place in Belgrade's main cemetary.

But nevertheless, Milosevic's shadow remains long and dark. His death has brought to the fore the ugly undercurrent of hardline nationalism in the ex-Yugoslavia, a disease that no international idealism has been able to stamp out, one so persistent that it begs the question whether democracy imposed at international gunpoint can ever really succeed. It is not, as some journalists seem to imply, that Milosevic's croaking has plucked Serb nationalism from the grave -- anyone who has read this blog knows that I have often commented on the continuing influence of radicalism in the region. It is only that Slobo's death has given the utlra-nationalists a new soapbox, and while that is scary in itself, the effect will likely be temporary. The truly terrifying fact is this: 45% of Serbia voted for the Serbian Radical Party in 2004 (see post below).

It is unfair to point the finger solely at Serbia. For example, when the ruthless Croatian General Ante Gotovina was arrested in December on war crimes charges, tens of thousands of Croatians took to the streets in protest. More generally, the people of the Balkans are still haunted by despairing poverty, an infestation of crime and corruption, and in many places, a thirst for vengeance. Without a doubt, the wounds from 1992-1996 are still fresh. In Sarajevo and towns around Bosnia, the scars are tangible. Nary a Bosnian can spend a single day without walking by a bomb crater or a neighbour's demolished house. 10 years is but a scrap of breath in the scope of Balkan history.

I do not seriously believe that the region is close to war, even if the ultra-nationalists were to gain power. As long as there is a sustained international presence here, peace-building can continue to hobble along. But every day I spend here makes me realize how long, arduous and often seemingly impossible a task nation-building really is. The Balkans, referred to as one of the most succesful post-conflict stabilization programs ever, is often contrasted with the miserable failure of Iraq. There is much to be thankful for in post-war Yugoslavia, but it is far from recovered or being a fully stable region. One ugly, big-eared, 64 year-old man's heart attack has brought back all the old fears and reminded us of how fragile the peace really is. Potential conflicts still loom in Kosovo and Macedonia.

Given how long the road ahead is for the Balkans a decade after war, I would not be surprised if Iraq is still in utter chaos 10 years from now. Indeed, Iraq bears some scary resemblances to pre-war Yugoslavia. Namely, it is a geographically diverse nation inhabited by three distinct ethnic & religious groups who have for many decades had their identities supressed by secular dictators. Both collapsed into chaos and internecine warfare after the rigid authority structures that had held them together for so long suddenly crumbled away. With no sense of security, Iraqis, just like ex-Yugoslavs, are turning to the most base of comforts: their sense of ethnic belonging.

If only Bush had drawn a few lessons from the Balkans before eagerly strapping on his pistols and galloping away into the Persian Gulf. But it is too late now. After my experience here, I am not one who believes in a rapid withdrawal from Iraq. The bed has been made, and now we must lie in it. In a bout of refreshing honesty, a Canadian general recently estimated that Canadian troops should be in Afghanistan for at least a decade. If you ask me, America and Britain had better brace themselves for a very, very long commitment in old Mess-opotamia.

A Bosnian Joke

Two Bosnian peasants, Mujo and Sujo (the protagonists of just about every joke) are walking along a narrow road in the countryside during the war. Both have had far too much to drink. It's night time and they are almost home, when suddenly Mujo spots a human head lying by the side of the road.

He gasps and shouts, "Hey Sujo, there's someone's head!"
Sujo: "What? Really?!"
Mujo: "Yes, it's a human head! Wait... hold on... it's our neighbor Dino!!"
Mujo holds the head up to the moonlight, and says, "See, it's Dino. Poor Dino..."
Sujo furrows his eyebrows in disagreement. "Nah, what are you talking about? It can't be him. He was much taller!"

The new Milosevic

The handsome Vojislav Seselj, radical nationalist and potty-mouth extraordinaire.This BBC article echoes something I wrote about several weeks ago after my trip to Belgrade:

If Kosovo does, indeed, become independent, the resulting nationalist backlash could well bring the Radicals and their hardline allies back to power.

A host of Western diplomats have already assured Kosovo's independence -- some even say by the end of the year. This means you should keep your eye on one man: Vojislav Seselj, head of the Serbian Radical Party referred to in the quote (if you want to know what this party is all about, read their name). Seselj is currently behind bars for crimes against humanity in the same prison where Milosevic recently keeled over. He has shown the same penchant for using the ICTY as a forum for frenzied rants, albeit with a little extra flair. In preliminary hearings, Seselj declared:

To all you members of The Hague tribunal you can only accept to suck my cock.(...) And you can just go on hampering my Defence, go ahead, but ultimately you are going to have to eat all the shit you excreted. Fuck you all, beginning with Hans Holthius, and so on, including that motherfucker.

Good one, Vojislav. Thankfully (or maybe not, for humour's sake), Seselj has been deprived of further outbursts -- he is still awaiting trial, in custody for almost 2 and a half years now. With Serbian anti-West, anti-world paranoia jolted by Milosevic's death, Seselj's supporters are already warning that he might succumb to the same Hague conspirators who "poisoned" Slobo.

Imagine, if you will, that you are good old Vojislav, enjoying a glass of brandy and a lollipop as you watch the news in your comfortable Scheveningen prison cell. Would it not occur to you that your death, in suspicious circumstances, might just be the jolt that ultra-nationalists need to overcome the fragile democratic movement in Serbia? Your party won 45% of the votes in the 2004 presidential election -- victory is only a martyr away. Thankfully, I think, we can count on Seselj's selfish opportunism to keep him breathing.

But the people of the Balkans have had no shortage of bad luck -- what if Seselj chokes on a twinkie, or trips over his teddy bear and breaks his neck? It is strange to pray for the good health of mass murderers, but such are these delicate times.