A troublesome, and at times testing year behind me. Of depressions and disappointments, and of feeling lost and lonely as with so many other years in my life. But then also a year of new beginnings, of strong friendships being built, and of new experiences working. And a year when I look forward to new possibilities and opportunities in the next few months, which will hopefully change my life.

Leaving home

Two o'clock in the morning. Just came home from a dinner reunion of friends from university. We enjoyed a lovely dinner, and cherished each other's company next to a warm open fire. Outside, the land froze.

It sudden became very cold, the cold of a winter before talk of global warming began. The kind of cold that clears your lungs as you breathe in deeply, because it is so fresh and so very fragile. So cold that the dense fog condensed on barren branches of giant trees and turned them into frost coated towers that glisten under the yellow hue of the street lights. Grass put on a white wintry layer, as shrubs and bushes wrapped themselves with white tinsels.

Christmas is just around the corner, and the new year is waiting to be ushered in. After work tomorrow, I will be taking the long seven hours train journey, leaving home to go see my family in France. Leaving this house I live in with my brother, who is supposed to be the closest family I have for thousands for kilometers, but with whom I have no contact or communication at all. Needing to go somewhere else where I feel warmth and love, where I feel warmed and loved.

It's sad, in a way... that I can't enjoy the holiday season in my own home, and that I feel like escaping this place whenever I have the chance. But I feel rewarded and grateful, that I have friends and a baby boy who will be happy to see and receive me. Christmas, this season of gratitute and of love and care is magical see through the eyes of a young one.

Crimes

I cringe from the shock. The shock of reading horrendous accounts of terrible crimes. It's for my internship, which I've just gathered enought courage in the past week or so to do some work on.

...detained at Dretelj Prison, HVO members, including the prison warden and members of HVO units not attached to the prison, subjected detainees to beatings and cruel treatment, including constant fear of physical and mental abuse. Bosnian Muslim detainees were sometimes forced or instigated to beat or abuse other Muslim detainees. Muslim detainees held in the isolation cell were particularly brutalised. Muslim detainees were harassed, subjected to ethnic insults and humiliated.

I cringe from the descriptions. The descriptions of rapes, of children and elderly people detained in concentration camps, of men wilfully and arbitrarily taken away and shot, of death and destruction... descriptions of the worst excesses of human inhumanity toward fellow human beings. Of hate, and the actions that flow from the consequences of hate.

...soldiers repeatedly raped and sexually assaulted Bosnian Muslim women and girls detained at Vojno Camp. (Annex) Such episodes of sexual assault were often preceded or accompanied by beatings or threats that non-compliance would result in the woman's child (or children) being killed.

And I sit here in my room, sipping tea, listening to Christmas songs on the radio, occassionally munching on chocolate... but elsewhere so many have died and suffered in vain... and elsewhere, many more ar undergoing the same.

...regularly mistreated and abused, and allowed the mistreatment and abuse of, Bosnian Muslim detainees, both at the Heliodrom itself and at various locations where detainees were taken for forced labour or other purposes. There was regular cruel treatment and infliction of great suffering, with HVO soldiers and guards routinely beating detainees, often to the point of unconsciousness and severe injuries. Muslim detainees lived in constant fear of physical and mental abuse. Passing HVO soldiers often fired their weapons indiscriminately at Muslim detainees held in crowded areas. Other detainees were attacked by HVO guard dogs which were released by the guards for the specific purpose of inflicting injury and fear. Muslim detainees were often humiliated in various ways...

Someday at christmas men won't be boys
Playing with bombs like kids play with toys
One warm december our hearts will see
A world where men are free

Someday at christmas there'll be no wars
When we have learned what christmas is for
When we have found what life's really worth
There'll be peace on earth

Someday all our dreams will come to be
Someday in a world where men are free
Maybe not in time for you and me
But someday at christmastime

Someday at christmas we'll see a man
No hungry children, no empty hand
One happy morning people will share
Our world where people care

Someday at christmas there'll be no tears
All men are equal and no men have fears
One shinning moment my heart ran away
From our world today

Someday all our dreams will come to be
Someday in a world where men are free
Maybe not in time for you and me
But someday at christmastime

Someday at christmas man will not fail
Take hope because your love will prevail
Someday a new world that we can start
With hope in every heart

Someday all our dreams will come to be
Someday in a world where men are free
Maybe not in time for you and me
But someday at christmastime
Someday at christmastime

One day... someday.