Last week, the ICTY Field Office in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) welcomed two groups of visitors: students from the University of Wisconsin Superior, USA, and interns from the Sarajevo-based Post Conflict Research Centre (PCRC).
Together, the two groups attended a presentation held by Almir Alić, ICTY representative in BiH, about the work of the Tribunal, its major achievements and various challenges it has been facing. Mr Alić also discussed the importance of facing the past in the former Yugoslavia and the substantial role that the Tribunal’s Outreach Programme plays in this process.
Outreach activities involving young people were of particular interest to the visitors, who agreed that this segment of the Bosnian population has the greatest potential to actively come to terms with the region’s past. Mr Alić shared with the guests the encouraging reactions from some of the BiH high school students who have benefited from the Outreach Programme’s youth education project. He explained how many of the young people had shown a willingness to accept the facts about crimes committed by members of their own ethnic group, some even expressing a heartening faith in the possibility of reconciliation between their communities.