“Association Sarajevo”

The “Association Sarajevo” was created in August 1992 in Paris and played a central role in the development of solidarity mobilisations, grassroot initiatives and cultural actors in France during the war. It was initiated by Mirjana Dizdarević and her father, the journalist and former diplomat Faik Dizdarević, who had resigned from his position as Yugsolav Ambassador in Spain and had found refuge in France. They were joined by other Bosnian and French citizens, among them Francis Jeanson, a renowned political activist who had been a member of the French resistance against Nazism and later supported the Algerian independence movement. Members of the Association Sarajevo regularly traveled to different cities in France, to hold public discussions and explain the war in BiH’s true nature, countering the interpretation of an ethnic conflict rooted in ancient hatreds.

Their activities contributed to the launching of local “comités Bosnia” in France, for example the “Assemblée Européenne des Citoyens” in Nantes. Besides disseminating information about the war in BiH and alerting public opinion and political authorities about the need to support multicultural BiH, another aim of the Association Sarajevo was to facilitate the establishment of contacts with protagonists of the intellectual and cultural resistance in Bosnia and Herzegovina, for example the association “Circle 99”. “Association Sarajevo”’s most important information and communication tool was the “Sarajevo” newsletter, which was published monthly and disseminated among numerous solidarity groups in France. The “Association Sarajevo” continued to be active and to publish their newsletter until 2002.