"I think it's important for the Canadian public to realize that we and the peaceful Western world, with our good governance and our affluence, have a responsibility to step up to the plate to assist countries who are struggling," said Maj. Greg Frank, who has been serving since last March on Canada's last military mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Operation Bronze.
Twenty minutes away from downtown Sarajevo at Camp Butmir, where NATO's headquarters are located, Frank and the seven other Canadians serving in Operation Bronze have just finished small arms training.
Camp Butmir headquarters is home to troops from more than 30 countries. Since 1992, more than 40,000 Canadian military personnel have served in the Balkans on peace support missions to protect the lives of civilians and allow for stabilization and reconstruction initiatives. While deployed in the Balkans, 23 CF members have lost their lives.
Now, Canada's main, and final, military contribution in Bosnia and Herzegovina consists of supporting NATO in defense reform tasks, which includes the merger of the country's two armies and police forces, as well as fighting terrorism and supporting the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. The merger is a very difficult process, for Bosnia's Serbian entity, Republika Srpska, is politically isolated. Bosnia and Herzegovina's unemployment rate is over 30% . (Top: a man that's lucky to be employed in Sarajevo. KA)
Canada has been mine-clearing and initiated a treaty making sure that legal framework to ban the use of landmines was in place. Djenana Jalovcic is the project manager for the CIDA-funded Balkans Primary Health Care Policy Project.
Canada has assisted the Balkan countries on many levels from the early 90s, when the civil war broke out in the former Yugoslavia. CIDA has disbursed over C$540 million in the region, which has translated into more than 800 projects. Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia (including Kosovo) and Montenegro have been the largest recipients of Canadian assistance.
Jalovcic and her team of doctors, consultants and nurses from Queen's University in Ottawa and the Canadian Society for International Health opened 60 community-based rehabilitation centers in Bosnia and Herzegovina. For disabled people and those wounded after the war, this meant finally getting the care they required within their homes and communities instead of having to go to special institutions.
The concept of community-based rehabilitation not only addressed people's desire to regain control of their lives but also the need to raise awareness about disability among the countries' populations. This led to the creation of peer-support groups, one of the foundations of the project.
After the Dayton Peace Accord which ended the war in the former Yugoslavia in 1995, Bosnia was divided into two entities: the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, mostly populated by people who consider themselves Bosniaks and Croats and Republika Srpska, inhabited by Serbians. Each entity has its own government with different ministries and up to recently, two armies. A central government runs the whole country.
After the CBR project was successfully running in the Federation, CSIH and Queen's wanted to expand to Republika Srpska. However, since Serbians were still perceived as "the aggressor", donors refused to support the project.
"From an ethical point of view, how can you say to a child in one part of town, 'I will help you', and to another child on the other side of town, 'I won't'? How can you justify this?" asked doctor Malcolm Peat, a consultant for the project. Luckily for Dr. Peat and his team, a Canadian became the head of the World Health Organization and decided to support the project. It expanded to Republika Srpska.
The Balkans Primary Health Care Policy, which is at the root of the CBR project, is part of Canada's bilateral help to Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia. It is a type of cooperation that requires signing a Memorandum of Understanding between the receiving country and the donor to establish development objectives together.
CIDA has also developed strategies that can quickly address specific population needs. Local Initiative Program (LIP) funds are amounts up to C$100 000 given to local or international NGOs which support sustainable peace, prosperity and democracy.
Lepojka Mitanovski started an SOS helpline to provide legal and psychological counseling to over 3000 disabled women since its launch. During the last three years, it has increased access to gynecological exams for disabled women.
In the judicial reform project Canada supports in Serbia and in Bosnia and Herzegovina, one third of the program should be committed to improving the position of women in the legal and justice system in general. Men have over 70% of the economic power here.
The project team in Bosnia and Herzegovina printed 80,000 brochures about women's rights distributed on Women's Day. The teams are also analyzing legislation and laws that affect women to improve their situation at the legislative level. They will work with judicial staff to educate them on how to effectively protect rights of women in court.
These Canadians are a reminder that Canada's contribution on the international level, be it through NATO, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe or our own CIDA-funded organizations like the Canadian Society for International Health, is more crucial than ever.
Kinia Adamczyk for orato.com, 2007
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