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Army reservist rebuilds towns crushed in war By Irwin Block, Montreal Gazette Tuesday, September 03, 2002 |
When Aida Hakirevic graduated with an engineering degree from McGill University last year, she decided it was payback time.
Though her family and friends suffered during the 1995 Serbian bombardment of their town, she decided to return to Bosnia with one goal in mind.
Hakirevic, 26, a reservist in the Canadian Forces, was delighted to serve Canada as part of its peacekeeping mission to help rebuild a shattered country.
Now she is nearing the end of a six-month posting to her former homeland proudly wearing the Maple Leaf on her left shoulder as a recently commissioned second lieutenant.
In the mid-'90s, Serbian MiG fighter jets pounded the industrial sector of her native Visoko, where half the population is Muslim. Friends and neighbours were killed. Food was scarce. Her mother and brother, who still live there, suffered.
Rebuilding Schools
But Hakirevic is on a swords-into-plowshares mission in Bosnia as part of Operation Palladium. Her task is to help create conditions so refugees can return.
That means rebuilding schools, hospitals, city halls. For Hakirevic, the past is history.
"Even if I'm angry, I cannot generalize," she said, in a telephone conversation from her base camp, as she reflected on life when ethnic cleansing ravaged the former Yugoslavia.
Her goal today, as an economic-development officer with Montreal's 3rd Field Engineer Regiment, is to rebuild infrastructure.
The conditions for approving projects in the area, 80 kilometres west of Sarajevo, are the same, whether they benefit Orthodox Serbs, Muslim Bosnians or Roman Catholic Croats.
"I can't see why people cannot live, if not together, then next to each other and work toward a better future, rather than wallowing in hatred," Hakirevic said.
She is involved in co-ordinating 12 projects, costing $1 million. Her role is to ensure that construction is moving ahead and money budgeted is being spent properly in two zones, covering some 10,000 square kilometres. They are approved and paid for by the Canadian International Development Agency.
When she spoke to The Gazette last week, Hakirevic had just returned from Drvar municipality, where Canada is financing an electrification project affecting four villages.
Serbs and Croats are returning to mainly Muslim Bihac where Canada is helping rebuild a school.
Hakirevic is anything but sentimental about her work with the army or its mission.
After working as a translator for Canadian Forces, she emigrated here and in 1996 enrolled in the reserves while studying pure and applied science at Vanier College.
With her mechanical-engineering degree from McGill, she landed a job with a technology and business services consulting firm. But it won't start until the fall, and Hakirevic felt it would be a good time for a mission overseas.
"I always wanted to do a tour with the military ... I didn't have to be in Bosnia. It could have been any place."
Still, Hakirevic admits a special pride in helping to build a more tolerant society.
"With modernization, the younger generation is coming to the realization that life is not about ethnic hatred. Through education as well, it will get better, and it is getting better."
Her Canadian uniform sends out its own message of tolerance, she said.
"We are one of the world's greatest democracies. Human rights are well respected and we take in so many refugees and immigrants every year."
© Copyright 2002 Montreal Gazette