Article published in Oslobođenje on 6 January 2019
By: Mirza Dajić
All the innocent victims should be honoured. It’s the least we can do, according to Zdravko Marošević, Mayor of Vareš, who went on to explain that he supports the suggestion of the political directors of the Peace Implementation Council (PIC) to the newly appointed members of the BiH Presidency to demonstrate unity and work on reconciliation in BiH by, among other things, attending commemorations and visiting sites of atrocities throughout BiH together.
No one had to tell him to do it
Marošević needed no suggestions: On 23 October 2017, this former commander in the Croat Defence Council (HVO) and member of HDZ attended the 24th commemoration of the massacre in Stupni Do and paid his respects to the innocent victims. After that, joint visits are being made to all sites in this town where people were killed. Vareš is in many ways an example of how we should behave.
“We can differ in how we think about the organisation of the country, but common values must always be present. Politics should be kept out of this. Let everyone find their position in society, but this should never affect respect for the state, victims, human values,” Marošević pointed out.
He explained he never made himself do anything.
“I felt a human need and great responsibility as the Mayor to go to Stupni Do and honour the innocent victims. I am proud of my fellow citizens of Vareš. But, I repeat, I only did what any normal person would do, a person of faith, a responsible citizen,” Marošević said.
He hopes those in higher positions will do the same. Members of the BiH Presidency should ask themselves, “If we can have coffee together, travel together, why couldn’t we visit a memorial cemetery or graves of innocent victims together?”
“We should all lead by example. We shouldn’t think about what the others will do or will they do it. I go first, and whoever wants to follow my example can do so. I know that in Vareš many decided to follow my example. Those who never thought they would be honouring innocent victims on the other side, they came on Statehood Day and visited all the sites of massacres and memorials, including those from the Second World War, for partisans, and those for the innocent victims from this most recent war, memorials to both fallen fighters of HVO and of the Army of RBiH. If there was a memorial to the fallen fighters of the Army of RS, we would have gone there too,” Marošević pointed out, adding that he was proud to be a citizen of Vareš and to be surrounded by such good people.
Miodrag Živanović, a professor at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Banja Luka, believes such a message is useful both for our present and our future.
“To date, we have never had our collective head of state travel across the entire territory of BiH. Each would go only to his own. The Bosniak Member of the Presidency to his own, the Croat to his own, and the Serb, of course, to his own. Here, I’ll give you another catastrophic example. In 2014, during the unprecedented flooding in BiH, the collective heads of state never appeared anywhere together as a whole. They never came together, instead each would appear only in their own territory. As long as this is the case, and it is unfortunately foreseen by our highest laws, we as ordinary people, not to mention holders of public office, we cannot have a decent attitude towards these public offices. Unfortunately, the result of this message will likely be minor, which is to say, they will never visit these places together, instead they will again be divided along both ethnic and personal lines,” Prof Živanović pointed out.
Sretko Radišić from the Steering Board of SUABNOR BiH (Federation of Associations of Antifascist Veterans of the People’s Liberation War) says that as an organisation fostering the values of antifascism, they support the idea of members of the BiH Presidency visiting all the sites of atrocities in BiH from the Second World War and this most recent war.
“It would be a good move. I hope they will have, above all, the human decency to do it, because I think in the current political situation, this would be a big plus for the whole of BiH, and a good message. We should honour all victims, pay our respects, and as people would say, we should pray that wars never happen again in this region,” Radišić said.
According to him, SUABNOR strives to bring together all the living veterans, members and sympathisers “who have a positive attitude towards the legacy of the People’s Liberation War and the role and work of Comrade Tito as the first antifascist”.
“We wanted to give our contribution, if only symbolic, by organising the Small School of Antifascism in Zenica. We wanted to get young people involved, to model and formulate antifascism more flexibly and elastically. We are glad that we succeeded. We can organise lessons in antifascism, history lessons, but the focus is to get more young people involved,” Radišić pointed out.
Muhamed Jusić, media advisor to the Grand Mufti and spokesman of the Islamic Community in BiH, explained that for two years running, the Islamic Community, together with the Interreligious Council of BiH, has been participating in visiting sites of atrocities.
“Religious leaders have visited the sites of atrocities commemorated by all traditional religious communities, the Jewish, Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Islamic Community. We believe that the future can only be built on truth and justice, that everyone must deal with the past, that the past cannot be relativised or falsified, and that it should not be used to keep us frozen in conflict. A genuine dealing with the past is the best way to turn to the future. We believe every victim should be honoured,” Jusić said.
Apart from religious leaders, politicians can also look to groups of war veterans from the region, former members of the Army of BiH, HVO, VRS, HV, VJ, and JNA, who attended commemorations honouring killed civilians.
Since 2008, the peace organisation 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 suffering of civilians and soldiers from the past war and to official commemorations.
“By coming to the commemoration, you come to terms with what happened in Bosnia and Herzegovina and you realise that individuals from all sides committed horrific crimes. Then you ask yourself whether we still have the humanity, the kindness to move forward. You wonder if you’ll have the strength to visit a place where members of your people committed a crime. Can each of us do that? We, war veterans, who can come here to Stupni Do and pay our respects to the victims, we send a message to young people that despite everything that happened, we can live together,” said Mirko Zečević-Tadić, an HVO veteran, on 23 October while visiting the site where 38 civilians were killed in Stupni Do.
Relationships based on trust
Under the organisation of the Centra for Nonviolent Action, veterans from the region have attended commemorations in BiH in Gornji Vakuf, at Site 715 near Zavidovići, in Stog near Vozuća, in Novi Grad/Bosanski Novi, Sanski Most (Hrastova glavica), Sijekovac near Brod, Laništa near Brčko, Trusina near Konjic, and in Serbia in Grdelička klisura near Leskovac, Varvarin near Kruševac, Aleksinac, as well as in Croatia in Pakrac, Varivode and Gošić near Knin.