An article written by Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie provoked headlines around the world when she chose "not to keep my story private" and revealed she had undergone a double mastectomy to lower her risk of breast cancer, which was high due to her genetic inheritance. The impassioned letter, published in the New York Times, did not fit the stereotypical celebrity image. But Jolie's act of extraordinary courage didn't seem out of character at all to me. I already knew from my own experience that she was a woman of tremendous strength, focus and perseverance.
In the spring of 2010 I was working in Bosnia, tracking the movements of a war criminal not yet caught by the international criminal court, when I heard that Angelina Jolie was in nearby Foca. This was not the kind of place for one of the most famous women in the world to be roaming. It is an eastern Bosnian town with connotations of evil, since it was the scene of some of the most gruesome war crimes of the 1992-95 war. It is still an unpleasant place to be. Jolie was there with her partner, Brad Pitt, scouting for locations for her directorial debut. It was to be a film about the rape camps during the Bosnian war, and she had written the script.
Over the next few days the Bosnian press — sensitive at the best of times to depictions of their heartbreaking three-and-half-year war — had a field day.