Meeting of War Veterans

| Amer Delić |
Sharing experiences of previous joint peace actions and plans for the future
08/04/2015
4. August 2015

A meeting of war veterans from the region, active in peacebuilding and dealing with the past that we have worked with before, was held in Konjic and on Mount Jahorina from 22 to 25 July 2015 and was organised by the Centre for Nonviolent Action Belgrade/Sarajevo. On the first day of the meeting, through a summary of peace actions we carried out together in the past year, we also looked at the public reaction to them in our communities. This was an opportunity to exchange experience and talk about the need to work on reconciliation in our societies and on the numerous problems and difficulties that we face. We also focused on current political developments, conflicts regarding the commemoration of the Srebrenica genocide, the victims of Operation Storm (B/C/S: Oluja), etc. and their impact on readiness for cooperation in peacebuilding. We were glad to find that the group that gathered for the meeting, despite the general context of fear, hurt and uncertainty about the proper way to remember war, felt a confirmation of their path to peacebuilding that equally respects all victims of war.

The war veterans also presented their work on peacebuilding and the activities they had participated in within other peace initiatives.logor Čelebići

During our stay in Konjic, we visited the barracks in Čelebići where a camp for detained civilians and soldiers was situated in 1992. The buildings where prisoners were held are still an unmarked site of suffering from the past war.

Continuing our meeting on Mount Jahorina, we talked about ideas for future joint actions.  Possibilities to improve existing cooperation in places where we had acted together were proposed, as well as guidelines to expand our activities to areas that have not been included in our efforts to date.

There were also ideas for projects that would bring together groups of war veterans and CNA activists to present our cooperation to the public.

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