Vesna Bjekic, Longtime Pillar of BIRN, Dies

"Vesna Bjekic was a trustworthy colleague, a dear friend and in a sense our guardian, always ready to remind younger journalists in BIRN about the Milosevic era and about what journalism was like back then, always warning us about the dangers recent history repeating itself. She was our very own institutional memory bank, ever ready with names, dates and explanations," said Gordana Igric, BIRN's regional director.

"We will miss her so much. It will be painful for many years to leave the office in the evening without seeing her in her familiar chair, always staying behind to finish the day's tasks - but I will always try to imagine her as she imagined herself - swimming out to sea, further and further towards the horizon."

Born in 1952 in Arilje, near Cacak, over the course of a long career in journalism, Vesna worked with Politika, 4 Jul, YU Panorama, Revijalna Stampa, many local Serbian newspapers, and with the Croatian weekly Danas.

In 1992, as Yugoslavia fell apart, unwilling to compromise or bend to any kind of pressures, she lost her job under the regime of Slobodan Milosevic. She was a regular at all the protests in the 1990s against the late former leader of Serbia.

In 1993, she began working as a freelance journalist, and until 2000 was a key member of the regional Alternative Information Network, AIM. At the same time, she became a regular contributor to IWPR's Balkan Crisis Report, and after a while took up the position of IWPR Serbia Office Manager.

Jovanka Matic, a close friend, said: "She was a journalistic encyclopedia. You could always rely on her memory for a variety of information about events, people and places. Above all she was a person you could rely on, one you know would never let you down....