FOB Briefs
Vol. 10, No. 1, December, 2003

FOB Briefs

Friends of Bosnia Honors the Life of Frank McCloskey

Friends of Bosnia was deeply saddened by the passing of former Indiana congressman Frank McCloskey, who died in early November at age 64 after a year-long battle with bladder cancer. We mourn his loss and send our best wishes to his family and friends.

Rep. McCloskey was a good friend and valuable ally of Friends of Bosnia throughout the Bosnia crisis. He led the fight in the House for legislation to lift the US arms embargo on Bosnia, which, against all odds, passed in June 1994. Unfortunately, he was rewarded with losing his reelection bid the following November. But Rep. McCloskey never doubted his decision or his priorities.

He made several trips to Bosnia during his years in Congress and called in 1992 for selective air strikes against nationalist Serb forces if they continued their siege of Bosnia-Herzegovina. He later criticized the Clinton administration’s handling of the Bosnian conflict, and called for the resignation of then Secretary of State Warren Christopher, warning that nationalist Serbs were committing genocide in Bosnia. Rep. McCloskey also called for war crime trials for nationalist Serb leaders, specifically Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, who was ousted in 2000 and is currently on trial at the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands. Much of Rep. McCloskey’s career after 1994 was spent trying to bring stability to Bosnia and the Balkans.

Frank McCloskey was an honest politician who tried to do the right thing. He was willing to sacrifice his political career to help people with whom he had no personal connection. Rep. McCloskey was a hero to Friends of Bosnia and to all who fought for justice in the Balkans. He is survived by his wife of more than 30 years, Roberta, and their two adult children.

Medical Aid Drive

In the spring of 2002, Friends of Bosnia was approached by the Brimmer and May School in Chestnut Hill, Mass., to see if we would consider hosting a high school student from Bosnia to work with us as an intern. A week later, Selma Duhovic showed up at our door eager to begin.

Duhovic, who is from Gorazde, came to the United States with her mother and brother just as the war was ending. They had endured more than three years in the most isolated region of Bosnia and were under intense siege for the entire war. Tragically, Duhovic lost her father during the war, but she did not lose her spirit nor her will to make a new life in a new country.

After considering several ideas, Selma decided that she would like to raise money to help her country. To do this, she sold baked goods during a school fundraiser, raising $1000.

Her goodwill inspired Neda Chernack, of Belmont, Mass., to donate $5,000 worth of medical supplies. Their combined effort assisted FOB programs in Bosnia, where people are only now returning to their former homes, with the medical supplies being delivered by SFOR peacekeepers to medical centers in Prijedor and Srebrenica.

FOB Kosovo Photo Documentary

In 2000, FOB produced a documentary photo exhibit, “Reconstructing Kosovo,” that was conceived to help Americans understand the war in Kosovo and the complex problems of postwar reconstruction and reconciliation. The photographs and text present images and stories of people who lived through 10 years of Serb oppression followed by 78 days of a NATO air war. Now Kosovo is struggling to survive as the economy falters, the long-term political status of the province remains unresolved, and abuses against minorities continue. Through the exhibit, individuals speak out about their fears, hopes, and desires for the future, providing powerful portraits of a nation scarred by ethnic violence working toward peace.

After traveling to a dozen sites across the United States, the exhibit was shown in Pristina in August 2003.
For more information about the exhibit, visit
www.friendsofbosnia.org/kosovo/

Stories from a War Hospital by FOB Board Member

FOB Board Member Sheri Fink, M.D. has written an important new book that reviewers have called “a moving account of one of Europe’s worst modern tragedies” and “tough and unforgettable…a lesson in courage.” The book, War Hospital: A True Story of Surgery and Survival, presents an account of the experiences of several young doctors, who in April 1992 were trapped in Srebrenica and worked heroically to keep the residents of the besieged city alive. Reviewer David Rohde wrote of War Hospital, “This heroic story of a small group of seemingly doomed doctors skillfully raises questions about medical ethics, international aid, and human nature itself. Humanity captured at its worst and its best.”

This gripping and thought-provoking book, which the author spent five years researching, illuminates the moral and medical challenges faced by the doctors — who were not surgeons — and the life-and-death decisions they were forced to make under terrible conditions. The book also follows the doctors’ lives, as they struggle with personal as well as professional issues against a backdrop of war.

War Hospital made its debut on August 12, 2003, in bookstores around the country, and Fink has appeared on NPR, CNN, and other major media promoting the work. Friends of Bosnia held a book signing and reception with Fink in early November, to celebrate the book’s release.

For more information about War Hospital, visit www.warhospital.net.

FOB Receives Pro Bono Legal Support

Palmer & Dodge, a leading Boston law firm, has been providing pro bono support to FOB, helping with our name change and other legal matters. Attorneys Amy Grunder and Michael Zucher have been assigned to our account, and we are deeply grateful to them for volunteering their time and effort!

Finding the Good in Evil

Marshal Josef Tito’s granddaughter, Svetlana Broz, has written a book about reconciliation in Bosnia and the heroic efforts of people of different ethnicities to help their neighbors during the war. In 1993, Dr. Broz, a cardiologist, began to record the stories of people throughout Bosnia who witnessed the bravery of people of different and “opposing” ethnicities in helping their neighbors and strangers to survive impossible situations. These stories form the heart of Good People in an Evil Time.

The book’s introduction includes the following tribute to the human spirit: “Human goodness is something we take for granted under normal conditions. Often enough we don’t even register it. In evil times when someone’s survival depends…on someone else’s respect for moral and ethical norms, only against a backdrop of countless horrors does goodness gleam like a pearl in the sand, plucked from a shell at the bottom of the sea.”

Good People in an Evil Time is available from Friends of Bosnia. To order, send a check to FOB made out to Friends of Bosnia.

Good People in an Evil Time
By Svetlana Broz
Translated by Ellen Elias Bursac
374 pages, hardbound
$25.00 USD
Plus $3.00 postage and handling (US delivery only)
For international orders, please inquire about postage before sending order.