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Podcast: Witness History
Episode: Kassandra: The peacekeeping telenovela in Bosnia
Description: In the early 1990s, the soap opera or telenovela craze was sweeping the world. One of the most popular was Kassandra made in Venezuela, about a girl switched at birth and raised in a travelling circus.
The show was broadcast all over the world, including Bosnia. In 1997, ravaged by war, people found escape in the make-believe world of Kassandra.
When supporters of Washington-backed president Billiana Plavšić took over a local TV station and turned the show off, there was outrage. The United States State Department was so worried that the loss of Kassandra could hurt Plavšić's popu...