27-29.11.2010.
From the 27th to 29th of November 2010, we had organized joint veteran visits to Derventa and Brod, where we had meetings with the local veteran organizations and within which we visited atrocity sites and monuments from the wars of the 90’s. The initiative for these visits was launched at the training for war veterans that took place during June and July 2010. We are organizing visits to atrocity sites and monuments with war veterans, in cooperation with the veteran organizations from the region, for the third consecutive year now.
A group of twenty-five persons that took part in this visit consisted of: veterans from Bosnia and Herzegovina (Tuzla, Gornji Vakuf, Brčko, Odžaci, Prnjavor and Zavidovići), Croatia (Županja, Vinkovci) and Serbia (Novi Sad, Belgrade, Vlasotince). These veterans were members of the following military formations (during the war): Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatian Defence Council, Croatian Army, Army of Republika Srpska, Republic of Serbian Krajina Army, and the Yugoslav Army. This is an important piece of information because it shows that the participants were members of all armies involved in the wars of the 90’s in the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia. The team for organization of this visit consisted of Nedžad Horozović, Adnan Hasanbegović and Nermin Karačić.
In consultation with the local veterans, we brought a decision to organize a joint visit to Derventa. Two members of the Veteran’s Organization RS – Derventa took part in the aforementioned training. After a couple of meetings, individuals from the Veteran’s Organization RS – Derventa, before all our long-time associate Spasoje Kulaga, decided to be the hosts of this activity, despite partial resistance within their native war-veteran association . The president of the organization himself had informally supported the idea.
Apart from Derventa, we also wanted to visit the neighbouring municipality of Brod and their veteran’s organization, among other things to also have an opportunity to go to the memorial room1 in Brod. VORS (BORS-war veteran association of Republika Srpska) – Derventa still does not have a prepared memorial room, and the visit of this kind of a group to the memorial room has a special importance for the local veterans. It is an opportunity for them to tell of their war path and remember and mention their fallen comrades. Next to Brod there is also the village of Sijekovac2, which is important for the Serb people from this area, but also the whole of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Namely, in Sijekovac, in March 1922, a crime against Serb civilians was committed by the members of the Ca (Croatian Army) and the CDC (Croat Defence Council). The Veteran’s Organization of Brod municipality agreed as well to support the visit to their town, host us and take us to the monuments and atrocity sites in that area.
During the three days we visited: the memorial room in Brod, memorial church in Sijekovac, monument to Army of Republika Srpska in the centre of Brod, the place where a mass grave of Serb civilians and war prisoners in Derventa was found, the Čardak-monument, where Serb civilians also suffered, and the house of the YPA, which was a camp for the Serb detainees in the period from April to August 1992. We had encounters with the local authorities and the media, as well as meetings at which we talked and shared impressions of all seen and experienced. We were touched by the hospitality of Veteran’s association RS from Brod that had warmly welcomed us in the premises of their humble association. At some point a lot of people found themselves in a small place and a very warm atmosphere was created.
As the most important in the series of visits we conducted, we would first highlight Sijekovac as a place of important symbolic significance for inter-ethnic reconciliation. We consider the fact that Bosnian and Croatian veterans visited this place and paid respect to the victims very important, because for many people it is the symbol of Serb suffering in the war. An important moment during the course of this visit was when we were joined by an older woman who was a direct witness of the events and whose family was killed in Sijekovac. The veterans had the opportunity to hear her immediate testimony, which made a very emotional impression on them.
During the visit to Čardak we heard a testimony of a man who was a witness and a victim of the events of this place. He emphasized that he is aware that other peoples as well were victims of war, and then he told us his testimony of concrete events he experienced. At some point he used the term ‘ustashe’, but already in the next moment he was making it clear that he does not mean by it the Croat people, but rather the concrete persons that harmed him directly. Some of the veterans from the group later said that they minded some of the thing in his story and that they had recognized generalization. Still, they also recognized the pain suffered by that man, so they have understanding for his story.
At the places we visited, we paid respect to the victims with prayerful silence, and in Sijekovac and Čardak we laid a wreath in the name of our group. Veterans from Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina laid the wreaths together with the hosts. The participants kept stressing that the visit to the memorial room in Brod was very emotional because in it they could see hundreds of photographs of killed persons, a thing that is impossible not to cause nausea and disgust over the war tragedy.
The encounter with the local authorities was significant because of two key reasons. The first is that the local authorities (the Mayor Milorad Simić, the Municipal Assembly President Ilija Zirdum and the member of the assembly Fadil Pelesić) supported this visit and had an open two-hour conversation with the war veterans. Second, which is very important to mention, is that the representatives of the local authorities are simultaneously representatives of all three constitutive peoples, and that the conversation was initiated about the return of Croats to Derventa (which was a predominantly Croat municipality prior to the war, and now there is only a small number of Croats living in it). The political representative of Croats in the Derventa municipality, Ilija Zidrum, pointed out that it is of great importance to him that we initiated the aforementioned topic, and that this visit is important to him in the context of a support to Croats to return to their homes.
We also intended to visit atrocity sites of non-Serb population in that area, but the information we obtained showed that there were no greater crimes over Bosniak and Croat population. We found out that there is a monument to the Croatian ‘defenders’ in this area, but as we did not manage to establish contact with the local CAD association (who’s members mostly live in exile in Croatia), we decided not to visit it this time. It is important to have ‘hosts’ in this kind of places that would take us to the tour of the monument.
With regards to the media support, our calls were responded by the Radio RS and FTV. FTV made a several-minute long report with the interviews with several veterans, the Mayor of the municipality and the organizers. This report was broadcasted during the primetime news programme.
Emotional distress with the crimes we heard and spoke of were dominant during the conversation with the participants at the end of the visit. The veterans empathized with the suffering of the people from that area. Also, a certain dose of shame could be sensed because of the violence as such. On the other hand, a gratefulness could be felt with the hosts, the veterans from the Serb associations, because the ‘others’ paid respect to the victims of their people and in that way ‘admitted’ that the crime had really occurred, without the so called ‘relativization’. In their final comments an ambivalent feeling was present in which the veterans had the need to justify their ‘side in the war’, but they also regretted and felt genuine empathy for the suffering of the ‘others’. An example of that is when the veterans pose the question of who the victims were, whether they were civilians or soldiers, as if with it they wish to decrease the grandeur of the crime committed. Still, these comments were not dominant, and it was obvious that there was a significant step forward out of the nationalistic boxes and victimization as the most common pattern of behaviour in the post-war surrounding.
It is important to mention that we also planned to visit Mostar and Gornji Vakuf/Uskoplje during the same period, but due to the political situation (elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina) and insufficient readiness of the local CAD associations to participate in this action, the visits never took place. We are planning to try again to organize these visits in 2011.
All the participants of these visits expressed a readiness to continue to participate and initiate this kind and similar activities, and they stressed their commitment to activities that contribute to reconciliation in their local environments and the region.
We are thanking all participants and guests, and especially the hosts who really worked hard in organizing these visits and without their effort these would not take place.
A.H.
* * *
1 A Memorial room is a unique kind of a museum made by the local veterans, in it is the archive of the war path of the local military units, pictures of those killed published brochures, etc.
2 We had an opportunity to visit Sijekovac within the framework of our first organized joint visits in 2008.