CNA [Sarajevo | Beograd]
Centre for nonviolent action
Organised by the Centre for Nonviolent Action Sarajevo/Belgrade, with the support of the Jajce Culture Centre and the Veterans’ Association, the photography exhibition “War of Memories” was opened on Monday, 23 September 2019. At the opening of the exhibition, we organised a public discussion titled “From a War of Memories to Remembering the War” and this time subtitled “Fighters in War and Peace”
War veterans, former members of the Army of RBiH, HVO, HV, VRS and VJ laid flowers and paid their respects to civilians killed in Grabovica. “The killing of innocent civilians cannot be justified, and even today families are still looking for the remains of 17 of their beloved. We cannot turn back the time and put things right, but we want to show that, with all our differences, we can remember all victims together, honour them together and build a more just society,” said Amer Delić from the Centre for Nonviolent Action, a war veteran of the Army of RBiH from Zavidovići.
We were glad that we were joined in Goražde by figures from its political life, who also have the power and responsibility to forge a different culture of memory
While veterans from the region were paying their respects for the victims of the 1993 massacre in the village of Ahmici, Croatian activists were criticising their country’s leadership for not participating in the April 16th commemoration.
“We are here to show by our presence that we can and must show compassion and respect not just for victims from our own people, but for others too. To show that there is another way. Then we can set the foundations for peace and coexistence in this region, which is our goal. So that our children never have to go through what we went through,” said Krešimir Ivančić, a veteran of the Croatian Army.
Since 2008, the Centre for Nonviolent Action, with offices in Sarajevo and Belgrade, has been organising visits by groups of war veterans from Croatia, Serbia and BiH to sites of atrocities against civilians and soldiers committed in the recent war and to official commemorations honouring victims, organised by local and state authorities and victims associations.
On Friday, 8 March, the Centre for Peacebuilding in Kragujevac organised a round table at the Vuk Karadžić National Library on “Violent speech in the media and on social networks – verbal violence or freedom of expression”
Short story contest for authors writing in Albanian, Macedonian, Bosnian, Montenegrin, Croatian or Serbian.
Mirza Dajić writes in Oslobođenje (6 January 2019) about the need for political officials to jointly visit sites of suffering, following the example of, among others, war veterans from the region who have been visiting sites of atrocities together for 10 years now, under the organisation of CNA.
Our new handbook, bringing together experience gained over 20 years of trainings, has just come out in print.
From the Annual Report 2018: Political and social contexts in which we work: We’re not adapting to nobody, no way (about Bosnia and Herzegovina), Subjective experience (about Montenegro), Bearers of European Values (about Croatia), What have(n’t) we learned from our neighbours (about Kosovo), There is Tension (Again) (about Kosovo), At a Crossroad Again (about Macedonia), As the old saying goes, “The higher they climb the harder they fall” (about Serbia)
On Human Rights Day, 10 December, a public debate on the Peacebuilding Strategy was held
Full text of the Peacebuilding Strategy
The “War of Memories” exhibition was opened on 4 December 2018 at the Cultural Centre in Zavidovići
At the promotion, we discussed both the personal and social responsibility of artists in the reconciliation process in the region, and how activities such as this one can make a contribution.