Teleseminars

Upcoming

There are no teleseminars scheduled at this time. If you would like to receive notice of our next teleseminar, and to receive infrequent e-mails about Karuna activities throughout the world, please send us your e-mail address:

Recent

8 pm Thursday, October 18
Unfinished Peace in the Balkans

Background
During the early 1990s, Yugoslavia broke up violently into a number of successor states, provoked by opportunistic leaders, and influenced by the fall of Communism and the death of Yugoslavia’s President Tito. Due to the fact it was a conflict where ethnic nationalism was manipulated, people of minority ethnicities generally fled towards regions where their ethnicity was in a majority.  The conflicts caused the death of many innocent people throughout the region and left thousands of people displaced. Fighting in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo was especially brutal, leaving an unhealed legacy and incomplete peace.

The Dayton Accords nominally ended the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which remains divided as the Bosnian Federation and Republika Srpska. Croatia, an independent country, is now in line for EU membership, already granted to Slovenia.

Kosovo, an autonomous region of Serbia that is seeking full independence, has a population that is approximately 90 percent ethnic Albanian Kosovars and perhaps 10 percent Serbs. In 1998, open conflict between Serbian forces and Kosovar Albanians resulted in the deaths of 10,000 to 12,000 Kosovar Albanians and forced 400,000 people from their homes, many seeking refuge in neighboring Macedonia and Albania. Following international intervention, as Albanians returned to a devastated country and shattered economy, they and the remaining Serbs faced an uncertain future in terms of Kosovo’s political status and the treatment of an increasingly dwindling Serb population.

This teleseminar focused on current peacebuilding issues in the Balkans, especially Bosnia and Serbia, where our guests have extensive experience. We explored the potential for social healing and reconciliation and what steps might be necessary for a sustainable peace in the region.

Tanja Menicanin was born in Croatia and has lived and worked in Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia. Tanja completed her education in Serbia and is currently a student at the School for International Training in Brattleboro, Vermont where she participated in the CONTACT Program and is studying for a Masters of Arts degree.  Tanja worked for several relief and development agencies in Croatia and Serbia from 1996 to 2005. She is currently Executive Director of a local grassroots NGO, the Centre for Development Services, in Belgrade, which works with issues of refugees, Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) within Kosovo and illegal immigrants from Serbia living in Western Europe.

 
Mirsad Miki Jacevic is deputy director for partnerships and consultations at the Initiative for Inclusive Security in Washington D.C.  He has worked with the organization since its inception in 1999, originally serving as the liaison between members of Women Waging Peace, a network of women peacemakers from conflict areas around the world.  Miki is a human rights activist and peace program specialist from Sarajevo, Bosnia Herzegovina.  During the war, he was involved in numerous projects to ease the suffering of youth and the elderly.  Prior to joining The Initiative for Inclusive Security, he directed the Emerging Leaders Project at the State of the World Forum and managed child-soldiers reintegration efforts at Search for Common Ground.  He holds a Master of Science degree in Conflict Analysis and Resolution and teaches in the Conflict Transformation Across Cultures (CONTACT) Program at the School for International Training in Brattleboro.

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7 pm Wednesday, June 13
Recovering from Genocide: The Challenge of Reconciliation in Rwanda 13 years later

Freddy Mutanguha	Dora Unujeri

During the 1994 genocide in Rwanda nearly one million ethnic Tutsi and moderate Hutu were brutally massacred in just a hundred days. Incited by an extremist government, tens of thousands of ethnic Hutus participated in the killings. Today, 13 years later, Rwanda is outwardly peaceful, but the population faces the massive challenge of reconciliation, as those who killed and the families of victims continue to live side by side.

Freddy Mutanguha and Dora Unujeri, both survivors of the genocide, live and work in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. They are spending the month of June in Brattleboro, Vermont at the CONTACT (Conflict Transformation Across Cultures) program at the School for International Training with seventy other peace leaders from conflict regions around the world. The CONTACT program is directed by Dr. Paula Green, the founder and director of the Karuna Center.

Freddy is coordinator of the Kigali Memorial Genocide Museum, and secretary of Ibuka, a genocide survivors’ organization. Dora is the capacity building coordinator for a group of NGOs involved in AIDS prevention and support services. She previously worked with the Internews Justice Project on post-genocide social and legal issues.

Paula joined Freddy and Dora at 7 pm Wednesday, June 13 for a discussion of how they and other genocide survivors are managing the challenge of co-existence, and how some have even moved beyond co-existence to reconciliation and forgiveness.