Tuzla, June 15. Before I leave from Tuzla for the Netherlands, Pia, Beba Hadzic and I have a frank and useful discussion (as diplomats would say) about Pia’s work here and also about AP’s future relationship with Bosfam.

For me, it also helps to round off Beba the person. She’ll probably be glad to be rid of me. We’re both pretty stubborn, and occasionally one of us will start to bully the other. We both feel embarrassed when this happens, and revert to the convenient excuse that we are both professors and used to getting our way. Pia has observed such exchanges with some amusement. I’ve actually found it pretty hard work, given that I came here to reflect amidst the clear air and haunted valleys of Srebrenica.

Most visitors to AP’s site will know how the Advocacy Project has tried to help Bosfam over the past year. AP bought about $2,500 of Bosfam kilims (carpets) and showed them at three exhibitions in the US, where we also showed a film about Bosfam’s members that was shot last summer by Aspen Brinton during her trip to Bosnia and edited by Ginger Bazar, another Georgetown student. The goal of these events was first and foremost to get Bosfam’s message of hard work and reconciliation to an American public, and secondly, to raise some funds for Bosfam.

We’re still sorting out the accounts, but it looks as though the entire project has generated about $8,000 and sold about 45 Bosfam carpets, of which $5,000 has returned to Bosfam. The rest has been taken up by expenses.

AP has put a vast amount of effort into this, and been chided repeatedly by our board and by members of our own group (including “Salt” Peter Lippman) for trying to sell carpets – something we plainly know nothing about. We’re also in hot water with friends who have ordered carpets months ago and want to know why they haven’t yet arrived.

The whole thing has tied our little project up in administrative knots and cost us a bundle. But we’ve loved every minute of the exhibitions, and seen people’s eyes melt when they hear the Bosfam story. One group of Bosnian refugee women even visited our exhibition in Cambridge and went away determined to start weaving in the US! Also, it’s helped AP to develop some close friendships with other advocacy groups like the Center for Balkan Development (formerly Friends of Bosnia). This has made it all worthwhile and taught us a great deal.

Still, now that we’re here in Beba’s office we want some answers. We want to know why it’s taken Bosfam months to send on the carpets which we paid for immediately. We want to see their accounts. We want to know how much individual weavers receive for each carpet. We know that a lot of this information is inside the formidable mind of Beba Hadzic, and I would like to prize it out. Otherwise, I tell myself self-righteously, we cannot possibly continue this relationship. Damn it, we must have transparency!

I don’t get a chance to open my mouth. It is clear that Beba is even more steamed than I am, and she’s determined to get the first word in. There’s no way that I’ll succeed where the Bosnian Serbs have failed, so I listen quietly while Beba chides me for promising Bosfam much more money than we could deliver.

Ironically, she’s angered by one of our most successful events. The Bosfam exhibition that we held in Washington was covered by the Voice of America’s Bosnian television service. They spent almost two hours filming and the program was shown in Bosnia – including Srebrenica – the next day. We were hugely pleased, and the program apparently attracted a large audience in Bosnia. Beba sent us a lovely warm note, and I mentioned this to the Dutch government (which has funded AP) as a resounding success.

But now Beba is criticizing me for the publicity! Gradually, I begin to understand. After the program was aired, Beba received lots of inquiries from Bosfam members and clearly expected a windfall. Beba administers to a wide network of desperate women who depend on her, and she probably made promises based on that advance publicity from Washington, that she will now find hard to keep. Unfortunately the event only generated about $1,000 of clear “profit” for Bosfam (in addition to carpet sales and donations).

On the offensive: Beba Hadzic
defends Bosfam’s interests.

Beba does some rapid calculation, and decides that she’s in trouble. Or at least I think she does. So instead of gushing with joy, she feels angry that she has somehow been kept in the dark, or misled. It does not help that the dollar has fallen by 25% against the Bosnian convertible mark over the past year. And she takes it out on us.

There’s a precedent for this. Back on July 11, 1996 – the first anniversary of the massacre – Beba attended a mass meeting of Srebrenica widows in Tuzla alongside Queen Noor of Jordan, Ambassador Swanee Hunt (the US ambassador to Austria) and even Hebe de Bonafini, head of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo from Argentina. The widows wept and screamed as they were shown film of their husbands being led away to their deaths, and the visiting dignitaries promised a massive aid package. Many months then passed before it became clear that the aid would be for all Bosnian women, and not just Srebrenica. The $10-million “Bosnian Women’s Initiative” has produced a lot of good projects, but at the time it seemed like a broken promise to these broken women of Srebrenica. Now Beba feels let down by us.

But Beba also hears directly from me, for the first time, about the hard work that our young staff at AP have put into Bosfam. She learns that our own project has been enriched in spirit but not in dollars, and that we ourselves are short of money. She starts to soften. Still, she needs an outlet for her frustration, and she asks why there hasn’t been better communication between AP and Bosfam. “Hallo?” I feel like asking. “We haven’t exactly heard much from you!”

I’m on the defensive throughout this exchange. Part of me resents this deeply, because we feel that we’re Bosfam’s best friend outside of Bosnia. I (or rather my back) can still remember carrying heavy carpets across Europe and back to the United States.

But the other part of me knows that Beba is right, and that in a true partnership you have to lay everything out in the open. We were so busy promoting the carpets, that we did not keep Bosfam informed. Yet we make much of the fact that we develop “real” partnerships with groups like Bosfam, and that we don’t impose our agenda and then disappear like “normal” aid donors. Now we’ve been found wanting.

So I accept the rebuke. At the same time, I start making a mental list of the information that we’ll need from Bosfam about its business practices, book-keeping etc. This partnership stuff cuts both ways!

It’s been an illuminating exchange. It also helps to clarify our future strategy. Bosfam’s first goal will be to standardize and improve production of its carpets. This will mean reducing the number of lines (which are all named after individual weavers) and looking hard at the quality. It will also mean supporting some sort of project for the Bosfam weavers who have returned to Srebrenica, like Esma, Magbula and Hajra. Their carpets will be sold through the main office in Tuzla.

The second goal will focus on marketing. AP will sell no more Bosfam carpets in the US. We’ll hold events for Bosfam, exhibit Bosfam’s carpets and tell Bosfam’s inspiring story. But any sales will done via the Bosfam website. Pia’s job in the next few weeks will be to adapt the website and find the markets. There will be one price for the carpet, and the breakdown will show clearly how much goes to the weaver and everyone else involved.

At least that’s plan. Pia goes off to write it up and she’ll discuss it with Beba in the new few days. We’ll be able to see how it goes from Pia’s blogs.