This morning’s Dnevni Avaz newspaper in Sarajevo has plenty on the Ejup Ganic story. Here. For those of you unfortunate enough not to read Bosnian/Serbian/Croatian, some of the interesting points in the article as yet unreported in the UK media – British scoop, right here: Mr Ganic’s son Emir is […]
Dnevni Avaz reports that now the Bosnian authorities are considering weighing in and sending an extradition request to London, asking that former Bosnian leader Ejup Ganic be extradited to Sarajevo rather than Belgrade! This looks to be an attempt to create new legaL complications based on the proposition that Ganic is a […]
The arrest of former Bosnian leader Ejup Ganic here in the UK in response to an extradition request from the Belgrade authorities is a striking development. See this short account on the Belgrade-based B92 website. In fact the issue has been rumbling on for a couple of days, with Bosniac […]
An elegant essay by Theodore Dalrymple on legendary lofty US economist J K Galbraith. Needless to say, what caught my eye was reference to a book JGK wrote in 1958, Journey to Poland and Yugoslavia. As a fine, prosperous East Coast liberal from a democracy, JKG was disinclined to see […]
As you try to grasp what is happening in Ukraine, you may well be asking yourself: what does Ukraine mean anyway? And, needless to say, views differ. There is a root word kraj in Slav languages which has all sorts of nuanced meanings in different Slavonic languages, linked to the […]
Edging back to normal life again after three days running around bewinter’d Poland. What a pleasure to be in a country able to cope sensibly with snow. Far from snow is Haiti. Ben Macintyre blames the French for brutalising Haiti into paying ruinous reparations for its temerity in wanting to espouse […]
I have been asked by the FCO to give a talk there later in January to a group of foreign visitors about Using Democracy for Peace. Or maybe it was Using Peace for Democracy. I forget. One or the other. As always the Balkans is/are a laboratory for cutting-edge research […]
No amount of exhortations that the international community ‘be more robust’ in and with Bosnia can get round the horrible fact that the key problem is profound disagreement on what Bosnia and Herzegovina is (are?). The Bosniac/Serb/Croat communities and their leaders just do not and will not agree on what […]
My mention in the Times has led to various old friends getting back in touch, including Adam LeBor. Adam knows his Balkans and has written a much praised book about the rise and fall of Slobodan Milosevic: I especially recommend the quote from the ‘senior British diplomat’ on p. 308 in […]
As I wisely wrote back in 1998: It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that certain provisions of the new Constitution accepted by the Balkan nationalists at Dayton introduced a new apartheid-like discrimination in Europe. Article V laid down that “The Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina shall consist of … […]
