ZaMir:
PEACE NETWORK
IN THE WAR ZONE
PART III
The Sarajevo On-Line event happened in the physical space of Studio 99 in
Sarajevo, which became a cybe-cafe. On April 5, 1995, the inhabitants of
Sarajevo began their fourth year under siege. In order to promote
world-wide solidarity with this highly symbolic city, the World Media
Network, UNESCO, CAPA, Radio-France, RFI and SIPA organized an international
media operation entitled "Sarajevo Live, Sarajevo On-Line". From March 29
to April 10, an electronic forum was organized on the Internet to promote
direct dialogue between the inhabitants of Sarajevo and the Internet
community. The content of this dialogue was published by several national
daily newspapers throughout the world: Liberation (France), Sueddeutsche
Zeitung (Germany), La Stampa (Italy), El Pais (Spain), Le Soir (France), Der
Standard (Germany), La Jornada (Argentina), Irish Times (Ireland), Yomiuri
Shimbun (Japan). A team of two journalists was sent to Sarajevo to set up
the Internet connection (by means of computers connected to "suitcase
satellites") and to supervise the participation of the city's inhabitants in
the electronic forum. Eight young people from Sarajevo's International Peace
Center coordinated the public access (Aida Tabakovic, Alma Duran, Amina
Cehajic, Amra Dzemidzic, Anesa Sosevic, Vedran Persic, Zoran Illic)
(IPC_SA@ZAMIR-SA.ZTN.ZER.DE). Jovan Divjak, commander of the defense of
Sarajevo answered questions from French soldiers and diplomats on Sarajevo
On-Line, and Ibrahim Spahic, a relentless IPC director, posted a long list
of requests for the various peace, media and arts projects in Sarajevo.
The connection was first implemented by satellite between Sarajevo and
Paris, then from Paris on the Internet. Twice a day, the journalists on site
in Sarajevo collected testimony from Sarajevo residents, assisted by the
local media (Oslobodenje, Sarajevo's daily, and the above mentioned Studio
99 - which provided space). These texts were then transmitted to Paris. Each
night at 8 pm GMT, the responses of Sarajevo's residents were published on
the Internet (see URL : http://www.cnam.fr/Sarajevo/). There were lots of
requests from Sarajevo residents wanting to pass a letter to relatives or
friends in the outside world. Many people reading messages to people in
their area on Sarajevo On Line spontaneously went to their phonebooks, and
called to say they had a message waiting from Sarajevo. BTW, You can still
participate via the Sarajevo Pipeline, the successor to the Sarajevo Online event. The Sarajevo Pipeline is a cooperation between MediaFilter, ZaMir Net and PeaceNet...Send a message.
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Links to other Sarajevo and Bosnia related sites