You might have noticed that our June newsletter was left out, and we are really sorry for that. However, this should not be taken as a sign of idleness, but quite the opposite: Unexpectedly, MM is not slowing down during the awfully hot summer in Mostar. All projects have been and are busy with ongoing projects. Consequently there should be something to write and for you to read …

Yesterday, like no other day in the past 8 years, can be seen as an indicator of the situation In Mostar:

• It all started of with the traditional annual jumping from "The Old Bridge", that is, its remnants. Taking place for the 434th. time, loads of Mostarians assembled to see the brave ones doing the dangerous dives from the height of 17 m. This event was strongly supported financially by large western sponsors, but most of all in the political way: Orucevic (mayor of the town) and Wolfgang Petritsch (High Representative to BiH, OHR) held speeches, calling the ritual a ‘symbol for the unity of Mostar’ and ‘including all different sides and people in BiH’. A graphic illustration of these wishes was an installation on the river – a raft carrying a table and two chairs, just waiting for people to sit down and talk ...
• However, these official events and wishes for a better situation were drastically counter-weighted by the historic soccer match between the football clubs "Zrinski" (West Mostar) against "Velez" (East Mostar). Taking place on the "West" side of Mostar, the fans from the Eastern side were by far outnumbered by their "Western" counterparts. Since the beginning, tensions were high and escalated during the game: Stones were thrown onto the playing ground, players were wounded, the game was interrupted and riot police were assembling in front of the fans. Both sides of the stadium were yelling nationalist paroles and singing hymns, a lot standing with their arms erected to the Nazi gesture. After the game, the fans from the East were taken back by buses and escorted by police. But, on their way they got into a hailstorm of stones from "Croatian" fans, smashing bus windows and injuring people. All through the night, tensions could be felt, people were nervous. At one point, police were shooting in the air when enraged Velez fans (meanwhile in the Eastern part) were demolishing a car believed to be owned by a "catholic".

In short, yesterday proved that there is will to fight for the re-unification of the town and to continue its best traditions. Nevertheless, emotions and reservations are deeply engraved and it will take a long time for them to overcome....

Subsequently the condensed news of the past two months regarding the political situation of Mostar and BiH:

• Croatian Premier Ivica Racan visited Muslim and Croatian communities in Mostar on 28 July. His visit is aimed at underscoring the change in Croatia's Bosnian policy. He pledged that Croatia will work with the World Bank to help restore the historical Mostar bridge, which Croatian gunners destroyed in 1993. Racan also pledged help in cleaning up the Neretva River, which flows through Herzegovina into Croatia and the Adriatic.

• Bosnia's joint Constitutional Court has ruled that Serbs, Croats, and Muslims must enjoy full legal equality everywhere on Bosnian territory. At present, Serbs have a special legal status in the Republika Srpska, as do Muslims and Croats in the federation. Observers note that the effects of the ruling could be highly significant, provided that it is enforced.

• Foreign Minister Jadranko Prlic made it clear that he and the Bosnian branch of the Croatian Democratic Community (HDZ) have broken with their Croatian-oriented nationalist past. "There's no turning back," he stressed. He said that the party's greatest mistake was to be too close to Croatia's HDZ and to have a bad personnel policy, but he did not elaborate. Prlic argued that the HDZ's greatest contribution was to propose dividing Bosnia into ethnically based cantons as the most practical form of organization. He called for transforming ethnically divided Mostar, which the Croats of Herzegovina regard as their center, into a model community and suggested that Mostar could become the capital of the Muslim-Croatian federation. Prlic noted that his fellow Croats rejected the proposal when he made it in 1998, but he said the majority have since changed their view. Prlic said that the only future for the republic is as a single state integrated into Europe. He added that European integration will help encourage Bosnian Serbs to identify with Bosnia rather than with Serbia.

• Meeting in Sarajevo on 15 July, the Croatian Democratic Community (HDZ) of Bosnia-Herzegovina party congress re-elected hard-line chairman Ante Jelavic. The party's leading reformer, Foreign Minister Jadranko Prlic, has not been elected to one of the five deputy positions. Prlic responded that the HDZ "has closed the door to democratic change."

• Leaders of several non-nationalist parties and coalitions are expected soon to agree on forming an "alternative bloc" to fight the nationalist parties in the November general elections. It is not clear, however, whether such an electoral pact between the non-nationalists will materialize. Differences in personalities and political programs have often prevented such cooperation in the past.

• Some 2,000 Muslim survivors of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre attended a memorial prayer gathering in the town on 11 July to remember the up to 8,000 men believed killed by Serbian forces after the fall of the former UN-declared "safe area." The massacre is widely regarded as the worst single such atrocity in Europe since the end of World War II. Local Serbs regard the prayer meeting as a "provocation" and succeeded in limiting the size of the gathering to 2,000, instead of the 5,000 requested by the Muslims. U.S. ground and air patrols provided security for the prayer meeting.

• Return process and evictions of "squatters": Bosnian Muslim police, assisted by UN police and SFOR, began evicting Muslim squatters from Serbian homes in the Maglaj area on 24 July. Foreign Islamic fighters will be last of the squatters to be evicted.

• Suspected war criminal seized: SFOR troops captured Dusko Sikirica on June, 25^th and sent him to The Hague. The war crimes tribunal had indicted Sikirica and 12 other Bosnian Serb officials and guards on charges of responsibility for war crimes at the Keraterm concentration camp near Prijedor, where Sikirica was camp commander in 1992. Some 27 publicly indicted suspects and an undisclosed number of suspects wanted under sealed indictments remain at large. Approximately 40 suspects are in The Hague, including some who surrendered voluntarily.

Source: RFE/RL newsline reports

It is Summer time in Mostar, and it is soooooooo hot here!!!!!!!!

Most of the Students from the Photography project are on holiday escaping the heat. Hopefully, they are using their vacation to shoot as many photos as they can of new and exciting landscapes and people as possible. Summer getaways can be very inspirational for the photographic eye and the results tend to be of better quality as well.

Uli Loskot, the previous co-ordinator of the photo project, finished her work in MM and is going back to Austria. After four years being in our region, it is certainly a new challenge to reintegrate into the new surrounding. We wish Uli all the best for her future and we are already now looking forward her visiting us again! And, as it has been planned, Dzemal – the previous assistant to Uli – is now taking over the responsibilities of the co-ordinator. The photo group is still looking for a professional photographer, who will work on the artistic development of the group and help Dzemal in leading the project and program.

The project coordinator is focusing on the groundwork to begin the YPMN (Young Photographers Media Network), which was planned to start in March but the funding is just now coming through. The first seminar is being prepared and hopefully will take place in early September, with one of the world’s best photojournalist leading the workshops, Paul Lowe. The coordinator also has his hands completely full with Uli leaving and all the bureaucratic paper work involved in implementing such a large-scale project

Frank Klein, the Ninpo project leader organized independent and well as joint exhibitions (Crucible of War) for the MM Photo Group while on his vacation in the USA. Now he is back and is helping the project with some of the more difficult bureaucratic accounting and consulting on the public relations aspects of the handling of the grants. Also he is working with participants interested in a project to create prints for future exhibitions in the United States. He is focusing on multiple prints to express ones personal experiences or views about life. There is also the possibility to add a poetic touch to the photos created. The exhibition material will be open for every participant, the examples of poetry and multi photo pieces that tell stories are only examples to help inspire participants to express themselves or their views through the medium of photography.

Working in the new house is still giving us new motivation and a real refreshment. We now have a much bigger darkroom with two enlargers and a lot of space for working – thanks to Frank, who helped to make this happen quickly.

The project is still looking for a qualified Photographer to join the MM team so you can help by sending or posting this attachment to anyone and everyone you might think of...Thanks and please enjoy the remains of the summer while it lasts...

Dzemal and Company

No theatre workshops were held this month.

Ecology as our new activity will be presented and we’ll start with the workshops very soon, although it was introduced to the girls at the seminar that was held on the mountain. So far, only one preparational meeting for the ecology workshops was held.

Mentioning the Ecology, the ecological seminar called "Leadership In Nature" was held on the mountain of Vranica, near Gornji Vakuf. There was a total of 11 participants there from Mostar and Gornji Vakuf, and all the activities were led by the mountaineers, skilled in their work. Some of the topics of the seminar were mountaineering, surviving in nature, different herbs, etc. This seminar was also a result of the 2 year long Mladi Most – Gornji Vakuf Youth Center cooperation, where we found out about this mountaineering house.

Five Outreach Workshops were held in this period. One was held in Nevesinje and another one in Konjic, each involving about 10 people. Another workshop was held in Gornji Vakuf/Uskoplje, involving 7 people, co-led by the peer-leader Almira, YWELN’s group member. Workshop in Kostajnica was also co-led by another group member, Martina, having 3 participants, and the Bijelo Polje workshop had 4 participants, led by 2 YWELN staff members. All these workshops had a discussion as a basis for work, which was then further spread onto drawing and usage of colors as the means of expression.

Four members of our group came back from Spain, where they went at the end of June, and came back three weeks later. They spent some time and participated in different workshops at the youth center in the town of Rubi, near Barcelona, and then went to a summer camp also organized by the Rubi youth center. This exchange was a good opportunity to make a connection between our group and Mladi Most as whole with the Rubi Youth Center, and hopefully we will cooperate again.

Arijana, MM women’s group

Hi everyone, I'm Nina Hoessli the new volunteer from Switzerland. I arrived 3 weeks ago and I'm still trying to get used to the heat here in Mostar. My first project will be a mountaneering day in the beginning of September for young people from Mostar together with professional climbers from SFOR. We're also talking about other sports activities such as River Rafting or Soccer games.

I will try to set up an experimental discussion group in Mladi Most. The main focus will be on discussions about identity and conflict resolution strategies. Another project will be Identity Workshops in schools in Mostar.

I have many ideas for projects and I'm starting to work on them, but first of all I'm trying to get to know the people better, life and the situation here in Mostar. So, I hope you will hear more from me the next time...

Nina

During the second half of June, the Mostar Intercultural Festival (MIF) took place. And, it was a success in several regards. Firstly, the Festival had success concerning the goals: of increasing mobility between the "two sides" of Mostar, and providing a forum for alternative groups in the town and region. In comparison to previous years there were more events and more active participants. Although the sheer number of spectators increased a lot, the expected "critical mass" was not reached. Nevertheless, the most surprising fact was the "quality of the audience": Many people crossed "sides" for the first time since years and visited previously less known places and people. Obviously, the festival is crucial in triggering increased mobility within Mostar.

Secondly, many organizations from all over Mostar as well as the region have been actively participating in the preparation and implementation of the festival. Both sides, the French and Spanish co-organizers and the Mostarian organization benefited a lot from collaboration. Language skills and un-bureaucratic problem shooting were "traded in" with a great stock of equipment, funding and organizing experience brought by the "Frenchies".

There will be a new festival taking place for sure next year. Then, the already active process of localization will be continued, ties and publicity with the community increased. One important move will be the support for the local MIF Organizing Committee by three French volunteers in Mostar after November 2000. Maybe we thus see the birth of a much needed (sub)cultural network organization for Mostar.

Another facet of inter-cultural co-operation is youth exchanges. Seven young Mostarians were invited through MM to go to Spain and Germany, where they will meet youth of similar peer groups. What’s more, MM and other youth organizations from "both sides" of Mostar, from Sarajevo and Barcelona were organizing an exchange with youth from Barcelona. As a first round, 14 Barcelonians visited Sarajevo and Mostar. Through a multifaceted program – from a visit to the ministry of education through games and discussions on education, drug problems, to "underground" parties – they got to know the life situation of young Bosnians. Close ties also evolved by the hosting of the guests in families.

But, besides the inter-cultural aspect it was important that young Mostarians were preparing and structuring the visit themselves. And especially now, as we are conducting fund raising for the second round of the exchange, Mostarians take the initiative themselves. This kind of empowerment of new participants is the base for new activities in the future and for the sustainability of youth organizations like MM.

The possibly most important news of the last two months have been the arrival of registration papers from the Ministry of Social Affairs (after three months waiting). They provided the missing link in the complex process of opening of a local bank account! These facts might seem banal to you, but they are just illustrating what factors youth work depends on in BiH.

What’s more, after more than half a year we finally managed to register our van! Undoubtedly this is a great push towards "increased mobility" of the MM projects, but also the many Mostarians who will benefit by that. Just provided that the wheels do not fall off while driving, as it happened two weeks ago…

We are glad to have Frank back.

Now, the annual "youth fair" in Sarajevo is getting closer, and MM is preparing a decent presentation of its work. Of course, there will be exhibitions of photos and pieces from the "Blago Ti Pameti" workshop and MM won’t hesitate to raise its voice in the numerous round-table discussions. But also the indispensable sofa and other ambient furnishings are crucial to attract interest of youth activists and generate brainstorming on joint future plans.

Coming to the end of our extended newsletter version, let’s summarize: Mladi Most is doing well, everyone is well, new people are coming and projects are running smoothly. Just to give a positive impressions after all the previous months of uncertainty …

Timm, MM administration