The Bosnian War lasted from 1992 to 1995 and led to the deaths of 100,000 people and the displacement of 2.2 million more, the worst atrocity on European soil since the Second World War.

This event will look at the following questions amongst others:

How can journalists sensitively report on war crimes and gender based violence during conflict whilst still exposing the truth? What role does the media play in assisting people to understand the lasting impacts of war? In a world of fake news and genocide denial what is it like to act courageous and speak out from personal experience?

Chair

Prof. Jon Silverman is Professor of Media and Criminal Justice at the University of Bedfordshire and former BBC Home Affairs Correspondent. His latest publication is “Crime, Policy and the Media” (Routledge, October 2011), which traces the relationship between the media and criminal justice policymaking over the period, 1989-2010. His other books include “ Crack of Doom” (1994), the first British work to examine the phenomenon of crack cocaine and Yardie violence ; and “Innocence Betrayed” (2002) with Prof. David Wilson, which analysed the News of the World’s naming and shaming campaign against sex offenders and its social consequences. He is a criminal justice analyst and regular broadcaster. He has made numerous documentaries for Radio 4, including, most recently, “The No I Forensic Detective Agency” (October 2011) ; and “Guns, gangs and families”(2009). In 1996, he won the Sony Gold Award as Radio Journalist of the Year for reports on the “Today” programme on the UK’s war crimes inquiries.

Speakers

Lejla Damon grew up knowing she was different. It wasn’t until much later that she discovered the horrific circumstances surrounding her birth. Shortly after war broke out in Bosnia, Lejla’s birth mother, Safa, was taken to a concentration camp, where men were separated from their families and the women were often raped, killed or both. Safa, who is Muslim, was raped and eventually gave birth to Lejla on Christmas Day 1992 in Sarajevo. A British couple, a news agency crew reporting on the siege of Sarajevo for Sky News, heard about Safa’s story and came to the Sarajevo hospital to interview her. Safa was so traumatised by her harrowing experiences she told them she was incapable of looking after her baby. The British couple was given permission to evacuate Lejla from Bosnia and later adopted her in the UK.

Lejla’s adoptive parents ensured she knew about her Bosnian origins and when she was 18 told her the awful truth about her parentage. After researching the genocide and atrocities which took place in Bosnia, Lejla has started to come to terms with the events that led to her birth. Lejla was determined to make contact with her birth-mother and with the help of Sarajevo police and the Bosnian Foreign Ministry she found her in 2015. Lejla and Safa met in 2017 and now exchange letters and stay in touch. Lejla now uses her story as a platform to talk about sexual violence and the consequences of hate. She works with Remembering Srebrenica in order share her story. Lejla is currently studying for an MBA at the University of Salford.

Siân Damon in the 1980s and 90s, Siân  worked as a news-gathering camerawoman in Eastern Europe, the former Soviet republics and the Middle East. As one of the few female conflict camerawomen, she was given access to places cameramen couldn’t go. In December 1992, she interviewed a Bosnian Muslim woman who had been repeatedly raped in a Serb prison camp. Safa had become pregnant; she had nothing but anger in her heart and said the baby was too painful a reminder of what she had gone through. She would not even hold the baby. Siân and her reporter husband Dan decided that they couldn’t leave the baby to be sent to the orphanage, which they had already filmed as a place of terrible suffering. With permission and support from the government in Sarajevo, they evacuated the baby and later adopted her. They named her Lejla.

Siân travelled to other dramatic stories, including Nagorno Kharabakh, in a helicopter that came under fire, to Prague and Bucharest during the revolutions in 1989, and across Albania during the disturbances as Communism collapsed there. Today she is a photographer and teacher working with young children, giving them visual and creative skills.

Dr Myriam Francois  is a TV presenter, producer and writer with a focus on current affairs, Islam and France. Her documentaries have appeared on C4 and BBC1 among others. She currently presents and produces her own monthly Arts and Culture documentary series “Compass” on TRT world, a global news network on Sky 519. Myriam is the presenter of the Channel 4 documentary “The Truth about Muslim marriage”, as well as two BBC One documentaries, “The Muslim Pound” and “A Deadly Warning: Srebrenica Revisited”, which was nominated for the Sandford St Martin religious programming award 2016. She has also presented a 2-minute explainer video for BBC news on the genocide at Srebrenica.

On Wednesday 4 November, the Frontline Club marked the twentieth anniversary of the Dayton Agreement – the peace agreement that marked the end of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina – by welcoming a panel of those who helped shape negotiations at the time, and who reported on the three year conflict.

The discussion was moderated by Allan Little who reported on the war for the BBC. Anthony Loyd, foreign correspondent for The Times who reported on the Bosnian war in 1993 and wrote about his experience in My War Gone By, I Miss It So, recently returned to Bosnia for the first time in 20 years and kicked off the discussion.

Describing Bosnia as two countries, Loyd said: “In most of the towns they seemed as depopulated as they had done in the war… Sectarian divisions were more glaring than ever before and had been entrenched by Dayton. It seemed a sad and zombified place.”

Kemal Pervanic survived the atrocities of the Omarska concentration camp and has since dedicated his work to education and reconciliation in Bosnia. He painted a picture of a country whose youth are seeking to heal the wounds of the past and look to the future. “There’s a crop of new people, born towards the end of the war, a small group of people who want to see real change.”

Describing the often tortuous reconciliation process, Pervanic told of a fellow volunteer who had tried to kill him during the war. “We reached a point where he kind of apologised to me,” he said. He also blamed the government for the country’s division, saying: “Politicians are driving a wedge between us and young people.”

Zrinka Bralo was a radio journalist in Sarajevo and came to London in 1993 where she has fought for social justice and refugees’ rights. She described how “consumerism and capitalism [had] moved in and glossed over” many of the country’s issues, particularly the lack of democracy in the Bosnian constitution which reserves the highest political positions, including the Presidency, to three “constituent peoples” – Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats.

Paddy Ashdown served as high representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina and the European Union special representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina from May 2002 until January 2006. He was instrumental in ensuring the success of Dayton in the early years. His outlook for the country’s future was bleak. “The sky is darkening in Bosnia, by the day, by the month and by the year,” he said.

Ashdown was particularly critical of the international community for failing maintain peace and stability in the country. “It takes a long time to wash away the aftermath of conflict. You need strategic patience to see it through and the international community has failed to see it through.”

He described the first ten years after the Dayton agreement as “brilliant” but through neglect, the progress of the country “has been allowed to unravel.”

"The international community is going to do f*ck all for us," @KemalPervanic on Bosnia's problems @frontlineclub pic.twitter.com/gZZM92W2Uw

— Harriet Agerholm (@HarrietAgerholm) November 4, 2015

Bralo and Ashdown both spoke of a country returning to a “three mono-ethnic state” – Bosniak, Serb and Croat – in which multi-ethnicity is in “severe danger.” Bralo lamented the fact that Jews and Protestants are blocked from standing for president.

Among the audience questioners was Clive Baldwin, a lawyer for Jakob Finci, a Bosnian Jew who successfully launched an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights on the basis that Bosnia’s Constitution violates the European Convention on Human Rights. Baldwin pointed out that six years later nothing has been done and the constitution has not been changed. “It’s because Europe has given up on Bosnia,” Ashdown said.

Bralo agreed, saying: “Bosnia wanted to become more like Europe but Europe is becoming more like Bosnia.”

Pervanic, to the agreement of the panel, identified the youth and grassroots level initiatives as the key to the country’s development. Ashdown added: “They need time and need to get rid of generation that ran the war. The people in charge are exactly the same people at Dayton and they use peace for the same purposes of the war. They need to create a state were younger people can break through.”