DAY 98 - SARAJEVO

One year to the Olympics Opening Ceremony—Video diary—Reflections on the cost of war

27th July, 2011

Total: 955.2 miles–1,843,491 step

“If you want to make peace, you don’t talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.” Moshe Dayan (Israeli military and political leader)

DAY 97 - TRNOVO TO SARAJEVO: 15.5 MILES (31,000 STEPS)

Arrival in Sarajevo

26th July, 2011

15.5 miles (Total: 955.2 miles) 31,000 (Total: 1,843,491 steps)

“Like all great travellers, I have seen more than I remember, and remember more than I have seen.”  Benjamin Disraeli

Sarajevo is the most significant city for the Olympic truce that I have visited since Delphi. The reasons: Sarajevo was an Olympic City for the 1984 Games (who could ever forget Torvill & Dean and the ‘perfect six’ Bollero routine); in 1994 the UN Resolution proclaiming the Olympic Truce was passed for the first time for the Lillehammer Games in Norway. The day before the Opening Ceremony of the Games, a mortar shell landed in the crowded market place of the besieged city of Sarajevo killing 89 people, mostly women and children. In response to the suffering of Sarajevo, Norwegians lit candles and the international community invoked the new Olympic Truce to broker a ceasefire in Sarajevo to allow in humanitarian aid. It was the boldest and, many would say, the only use of the Olympic Truce and the result was that tens of thousands of children received vaccinations and immunisations. Out of the inhumanity of the mortar attack, came the humanity of the response.

The parallels as we all came to terms with the events in Oslo and Utoya were very real. There is a level of empathy here, because of the humanity of the Norwegian response in 1994, that has never been forgotten. I attended the Norwegian Embassy in Sarajevo to sign the Book of Condolences and wrote, “from a city that knows your pain”.

Of much lesser significance, my arrival in Sarajevo would coincide with completing the first 100 days of the walk and, almost, the first 1000 miles.

Biljana Ristovic, from the British Embassy in Sarajevo, had lined up a group of three journalists to come out to meet me on my final stretch of walk into Sarajevo. I always find the line of questions from journalists interesting, as they often reveal the underlying currents of political debate within the country, city or region. I think that it would be fair to say that across the countries I have visited so far, there is great distrust and cynicism around politics and politicians, who are seen as boring and just in it for themselves. By contrast sport, is pure and full of heroes. So when a politician walks into town talking about peace in connection with a major sporting event, the prejudices and assumptions are thrown into temporary confusion.

Once I made it clear that my campaign is not a sporting one, it is firmly a political one, their questions become tougher, but the confusion is ended: I am proud to be a politician and I am certainly not, nor ever pretended to be, an athlete. My campaign is:

At present all the countries of the United Nations sign up to a resolution saying that they will ‘pursue peace and reconciliation during the period seven days before until seven days after the Olympic Games’, but since Sarajevo in 1994, no one has ever implemented it. My campaign and conviction is that if, for instance, the British government thinks this is at best “worthless sentiment” and at worst “dangerous appeasement”, then I can understand and respect that.  But, therefore, don’t sign it and in the case of the UK and the truce resolution for London 2012, certainly propose it.  However, if you sign it, and certainly if you propose it, then you should IMPLEMENT IT. That’s it.

Why do I walk? Because I have been talking about this for over a year and no-one has listened. So, instead asking others to act, I decided to do something in the hope that through ‘being a change’ it might help bring a change.

DAY 96 - BROD TO TRNOVO: 26.1 MILES (52,200 STEPS)

Hard Plod from Brod

25th July, 2011

Brod, BiH to Trnovo (Completed in two sections)

26.1miles (Total: 939.7 miles) 52,200 (Total: 1,812,491 steps)

“Action is a great restorer and builder of confidence. Inaction is not only the result, but the cause, of fear. Perhaps the action you take will be successful; perhaps different action or adjustments will have to follow. But any action is better than no action at all.” Norman Vincent Peale

There is no doubt that getting up early and getting into a car to drive back down a road to complete a section of the walk, is so much more difficult and less satisfying than getting up and starting to walk.  That said, completing a walk of this nature is always a trade off: by getting rid of my camping gear, I managed to reduce the weight of my backpack by 6kg—the down side is that now when I can’t find accommodation, my only choices are to get transport to a major centre and return to complete the section, or to sleep rough—the least attractive option—I have seen too many dead snakes on the roads to be able to sleep easily in these mountain areas.  The upside of working from a base with a support car is that the distance walked can be tailored to the conditions of the day and of how I am feeling and I don’t need to carry my backpack.

The section between Niksic, Montenegro and Sarajevo, Bosnia (approx 120 miles) had, as far as I could find, only one guesthouse—that was in Pluzine; so travelling into Sarajevo and then back and forth was the only option. I think that out of the 96 days, I may have had to use transport to and from finishing points to get around shortage of accommodation, about ten times, but it is always second best. That said, it reminds me that this is not walking with a ‘Wainwright Guide’ and cosy B & B accommodations and country pubs every eight miles. The fact that I have only ever met one fellow walker on the road, in Meteora, Greece, and he was just visiting the monasteries, reminds me that this is not yet a tourist trail.  Each day is a new challenge and a new experience.

Back to Brod and the experience of walking that day was a bit grim—heavy rain and narrow roads with heavy trucks servicing the mines and forestry which keep the economy of these parts growing. I had hoped to do the full 26 miles in one go, but after 13 miles the car which was bringing me food and drink at the halfway point, gave instead, with minimal encouragement,  a lift back to the hotel in Sarajevo, leaving the whole exercise to be repeated another day.