A report on recent actions against violence and government corruption in Sarajevo, Bosnia.
Produced for the CKUT community news collective by Aaron Lakoff and Amy Miller.
Please email us if you re-broadcast this: aaron (at) resist.ca amyinmontreal (at) gmail.com
On Saturday, March 8, residents of Sarajevo, Bosnia, gathered in the center of the city in an interesting show of popular democratic pariticpation. For weeks, Sarajevo residents have been outraged at increasing violence on their city's streets, but more so on the lack of action on the part of the canton government to rectify the situation. Tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets in recent weeks in demonstrations calling for the resignation of Semiha Borovac, the Mayor of Sarajevo, as well as Samir Silajdzic, Sarajevo Canton Prime Minister.
In January, a 72-year-old woman was killed after she was set on fire. Three teenagers have been charged in that killing. Then, on Feb. 5, police say three teens attacked and killed a 17-year-old student on a tram in downtown Sarajevo. One of the three stabbed him to death.
In response to these brutal killings, the Sarajevo Canton Assembly imposed a curfew on February 28 which forbids children and teenagers from being on the city streets after 11pm. If they are found outside after curfew, their parents can be charged with fines.
But beneath the situation of violence lies another story, one that points to ongoing tensions stemming from the brutal war in Bosnia in the early 1990's, as well as many Bosnians frustrations with the international community. They see international organizations like the European Union and CIDA, the Canadian International Development Agency, pouring millions of dollars into development programs, but few results.
We visited Sarajevo to attend one of the demonstrations, and we spoke with members of Dosta, an organization which strives to combat militarism in the Balkans by empowering local residents.
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