Post by Dinko on Jul 24, 2003 19:46:15 GMT
Sibenik's festival of peace
Thursday July 24, 2003
I read Julia Pascal's baffling text (Email, 14 July) about the International Children's Festival, the town of Sibenik, and Croatia, with shock and disbelief. As Mayor of Sibenik, the host town of the festival that has a long and distinguished tradition, and president of the festival's board, I write to try to rectify, at least in part, the damage that she has inflicted to us in Sibenik and to Croatia with her article.
Though the festival finished more than three weeks ago, I continue to receive letters from our guests from all over the world thanking us for the warm hospitality extended to all of them, the British included. (There isn't, by the way, a single burned out village on the Croatian coast.) The fact that children do not wish to talk about the recent war is commendable. Julia Pascal does not know what children in Sibenik lived through during the war years and probably does not know, either, that our festival lived through the fiercest fighting and thus sent to the world the children's message of peace. When it comes to inter-ethnic relations, Sibenik had one of the most stable environments during the war. Unfortunately, her vitriolic text seems aimed at opening the wounds from the past which have been healing slowly, and at disturbing our peaceful town, which is devoid of ethnic tensions.
I am writing this letter mostly because of all the hardworking people of Sibenik who have put so much effort into the International Children's Festival. I do hope that British readers will be able to come and judge for themselves of the reality in Sibenik.
Milan Arnautovic
Mayor of Sibenik,
Croatia
Thursday July 24, 2003
I read Julia Pascal's baffling text (Email, 14 July) about the International Children's Festival, the town of Sibenik, and Croatia, with shock and disbelief. As Mayor of Sibenik, the host town of the festival that has a long and distinguished tradition, and president of the festival's board, I write to try to rectify, at least in part, the damage that she has inflicted to us in Sibenik and to Croatia with her article.
Though the festival finished more than three weeks ago, I continue to receive letters from our guests from all over the world thanking us for the warm hospitality extended to all of them, the British included. (There isn't, by the way, a single burned out village on the Croatian coast.) The fact that children do not wish to talk about the recent war is commendable. Julia Pascal does not know what children in Sibenik lived through during the war years and probably does not know, either, that our festival lived through the fiercest fighting and thus sent to the world the children's message of peace. When it comes to inter-ethnic relations, Sibenik had one of the most stable environments during the war. Unfortunately, her vitriolic text seems aimed at opening the wounds from the past which have been healing slowly, and at disturbing our peaceful town, which is devoid of ethnic tensions.
I am writing this letter mostly because of all the hardworking people of Sibenik who have put so much effort into the International Children's Festival. I do hope that British readers will be able to come and judge for themselves of the reality in Sibenik.
Milan Arnautovic
Mayor of Sibenik,
Croatia