Croatia was "not unlike Vermont," Priscilla Sears of Dartmouth's English Department said of her recent trip there to participate in the Woman's International Conference.
Like Vermont, Croatia is a land of "green fields, blue mountains, clean animals, clean horses, goats, pigs and clean streams," she said. However, Sears said the natural beauty of the region could not hide the marks of war.
"When we got over the border, there were still green fields and blue mountains, but all the houses marked with an X were destroyed. The roads were in poor condition because of the tank treads in the road and the shell holes," she said.
Women from Bosnia and Serbia, hoping to help both women and their country, created the Woman's International Peace Initiative conference. Approximately 50 people from Croatia, Bosnia, Australia, England, Germany and Serbia were invited to participate, including members of the NATO Peacekeeping force, Sears said.
The conference invited Professor Sears to deliver a paper entitled "Many woman in many cultures are socialized as peacemakers within a domestic sphere" and participate in the activities.
Sears said she based her paper on the line from Deuteronomy 30:19, "I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live."
During her time at the conference, Sears took advantage of optional trips to travel to centers of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, such as Banja Luka and the concentration camp at Omarska.
The goal of the trips was to test the Dayton Accord's provision for the freedom of movement in the country and to deliver supplies to local schools, she said.
Currently, Serbs are often not permitted free access to many places.
NATO police and UN monitors opposed the trip, citing the dangers existing throughout Bosnia. In the end, two tanks, a helicopter and two armored cars followed the group on their journey, making any test of the Dayton Accord impossible, Sears said.
Sears said people's responses to the Woman's Conference Groups varied within Bosnia. Small towns and schools welcomed the conference with parties, and the students were thankful for the supplies, she said.
The conference also talked to farmers and people who ran local businesses. "Generally speaking, they [the people of the region] were both receptive and informative and treated us most graciously," Sears said.
Not everyone was kind, Sears said. For example, the mayor of Prijedor, also a war-lord, said if he had known they were coming, he would have prepared a "reception." Last year the conference group was met by a welcoming party that threw stones.
In Banja Luka, people gave this year's group a three-fingered sign which symbolized Serbian authority.
In other cities they visited, the conference group was simply ignored, though Sears said such actions were most likely dictated by the war-lords of the region.
The conference group was "witness to the utter devastation of a lot of the destruction," Sears said. More than 100,000 Muslims are dead or missing, and refugees are returning home with nothing, she said.
"In Bosnia most people had lost everything," Sears said, adding that these people are refugees in their own country.
She said many fear that if NATO forces were to pull out, there would be more killing, but others are more optimistic about the situation.
They believe that the people of their country could come together to form some workable peace, she said.
Although Professor Sears has returned to Hanover, she and English Professor Lynda Boose and Rupa Mukherjee '99, who also attended the conference, hope to continue the work that was started there.
The three of them are currently working to supply computers to Bosnia, since communication is still a serious problem. They also hope to begin a drive to buy land-mine detectors and detonators for the people of Bosnia, she said.
Sears said she also hopes to organize a Bosnia conference at Dartmouth and create an internship in Bosnia through the Tucker Foundation.
Interns could teach English, rebuild house or help in local businesses or teach people to use computers, depending on what people there need, she said.
