Beli Manastir, 8 April 2013
Outreach representative Morgiana Brading today visited high school students in the eastern Croatian town of Beli Manastir.
The school in Beli Manastir is unusual in that, due to declining student numbers as a result of a low birth rate during and immediately after the Balkan conflicts, three high schools were brought together under the same roof. As the history teacher explained to Morgiana, the new amalgamated school is attended by a mix of Croatian, Serbian and Hungarian students, who work and get on well together and are hardly affected by the political and ethnic tensions that occasionally dog schools in other towns.
The teacher also mentioned that the students will be learning about the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia during their history classes in May and the ICTY will be covered as part of that curriculum, meaning that Morgiana’s presentation would serve as the perfect introduction to the topic.
The discussion after the presentation touched on a number of topics, including guilty pleas and the eventual closure of the Tribunal. Morgiana explained to the students about the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals and how it would take up many of the essential functions of the ICTY over the coming years.