PART III. Sarajevo On-Line

The Sarajevo On-Line event happened in the physical space of Studio 99 in Sarajevo, which became a cybe-cafe. On April 5, 1995, the inhabitants of Sarajevo began their fourth year under siege. In order to promote world-wide solidarity with this highly symbolic city, the World Media Network, UNESCO, CAPA, Radio-France, RFI and SIPA organized an international media operation entitled "Sarajevo Live, Sarajevo On-Line". From March 29 to April 10, an electronic forum was organized on the Internet to promote direct dialogue between the inhabitants of Sarajevo and the Internet community. The content of this dialogue was published by several national daily newspapers throughout the world: Liberation (France), Sueddeutsche Zeitung (Germany), La Stampa (Italy), El Pais (Spain), Le Soir (France), Der Standard (Germany), La Jornada (Argentina), Irish Times (Ireland), Yomiuri Shimbun (Japan). A team of two journalists was sent to Sarajevo to set up the Internet connection (by means of computers connected to "suitcase satellites") and to supervise the participation of the city's inhabitants in the electronic forum. Eight young people from Sarajevo's International Peace Center coordinated the public access (Aida Tabakovic, Alma Duran, Amina Cehajic, Amra Dzemidzic, Anesa Sosevic, Vedran Persic, Zoran Illic) (IPC_SA@ZAMIR-SA.ZTN.ZER.DE). Jovan Divjak, commander of the defense of Sarajevo answered questions from French soldiers and diplomats on Sarajevo On-Line, and Ibrahim Spahic, a relentless IPC director, posted a long list of requests for the various peace, media and arts projects in Sarajevo.

The connection was first implemented by satellite between Sarajevo and Paris, then from Paris on the Internet. Twice a day, the journalists on site in Sarajevo collected testimony from Sarajevo residents, assisted by the local media (Oslobodenje, Sarajevo's daily, and the above mentioned Studio 99 - which provided space). These texts were then transmitted to Paris. Each night at 8 pm GMT, the responses of Sarajevo's residents were published on the Internet (On www.cnam.fr/Sarajevo/, these files since deleted by CNAM). There were lots of requests from Sarajevo residents wanting to pass a letter to relatives or friends in the outside world. Many people reading messages to people in their area on Sarajevo On Line spontaneously went to their phonebooks, and called to say they had a message waiting from Sarajevo.

Note added Feb 1999: the Sarajevo Pipeline, the successor to the Sarajevo Online event, continued to be a conduit for messages to/from Sarajevo while there were volunteers and while ZTN was still an effective transborder network.  Already in late 1996 the effectiveness had begun to decline, as detailed in Part IV following.

Supplementary material:
Sampling of  postings carried over Sarajevo On-Line
Full Archive of Postings (large; slow load)