Prison Camp Survivors and Peace Activists Visit Sites of Detention Together and Issue a Public Appeal

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Together with prison camp survivors, supported by peace activists, reporters and war veterans the Centre for Nonviolent Action organised a joint visit to mark four…

03/05/2023

5. March 2023

Together with prison camp survivors, supported by peace activists, reporters and war veterans, from 3 to 6 March 2023, the Centre for Nonviolent Action organised a joint visit to mark four silos that were used as sites of detention in the area of Tarčin near Hadžići, Kaćuni near Busovača, and in Žepče and Derventa. The Iron Bridge in Doboj where 13 prisoners were executed in June 1992 was also visited and symbolically marked. You can find out more about these sites of detention at https://onms.nenasilje.org. Numerous sites of massacres, suffering and torture across BiH remain unmarked because local authorities oppose having signs at sites of suffering where the victims were not members of the current majority group in the given area. Even today, after so many years, families of victims are still fighting for their right to have their loved ones remembered. Since 2015, the Centre for Nonviolent Action has been supporting the action to mark unmarked sites of suffering in BiH, and we have so far tried to rescue from oblivion more than 130 sites of suffering across BiH. After visiting these sites, the prison camp survivors and peace activists from BiH and the region issued a joint appeal:

Deeply convinced that all victims deserve equal respect, with our joint visit to sites of suffering, including former detention sites, we want to express human decency, share in the pain, and provide encouragement and support to each other. By jointly visiting sites such as these, we hope that they can become places of encounter, dialogue and learning for future generations, places where we will come to remember the wartime past, not to incite hatred or revenge, but in order to warn about the tragic consequences of war that span generations. Remembering the suffering of all, whatever their ethnicity, prepared to equally condemn every crime, no matter who committed it, we want to stress the importance of respecting every victim as a path towards building the sustainable peace we want to live in. We invite our friends, neighbours, fellow community members and all people of good will to join us on this path of remembering all victims and recognising all human suffering. Without denying our differences, we believe that mutual respect and understanding, based on these principles, can create space for dialogue where we can hear each other with open hearts, and learn about each other’s difficulties and needs that are so often similar. We know that many sites of suffering, including detention facilities, have not been marked to this day, while former prisoners, survivors and families of those who were killed are often prevented from accessing these sites. We call on the authorities, especially those at the local level, to provide support to victims fighting for their right to remembrance, not to put up obstacles, but to enable access to and permanent marking of sites of suffering. We want to make sure suffering is never repeated. We cannot make up for human losses and suffering, but we want to do everything in our power to build up relationships of mutual recognition, respect and trust, to stand as a bulwark against the threat of hatred among people from different communities becoming a basis for new injustices and future violence. We believe that our right to freedom and peace can only be achieved by working together, crossing the borders that have separated us since the war and by learning from our painful past.

More than 50 former prisoners and peace activists took part in visiting these sites and stand together behind this appeal. They come from: Mostar, Jablanica, Konjic, Sarajevo, Rogatica, Višegrad, Bijeljina, Zenica, Zagreb, Glina, Kruševac, Beograd, Podgorica, Bihać, Novi Grad, Šamac, Derventa, Zavidovići, Žepče, Brčko, Rudo, Busovača, Fojnica, Prijedor, Livno, Doboj, Vareš, Jajce…

“During our years of working on peacebuilding in the former Yugoslavia, we have encountered many people who were prepared to cross visible and invisible borders, who were and remain ready to pay their respects to all victims and call for the prosecution of perpetrators and support dignified memorialisation of all sites of suffering in the interest of building a better and more just society. In the spring of 2022, we organised a joint visit to Trusina near Konjic and Stupni Do near Vareš, with the help of victims’ associations from both places. This was a rare opportunity for cooperation and for jointly honouring Croat and Bosniak victims from these two places, and the fact that representatives of the associations visited and paid their respects to victims at both sites indicates the path that can be taken. Emir from Stupni Do and Dragica from Trusina are not alone. When marking unmarked sites of detention, we met prison camp survivors who had no reservations about expressing their support for people that have suffered a similar fate, about visiting all sites of suffering, irrespective of who was the victim and who the perpetrator, and about appeals to enable all prison camp survivors to mark such sites and the significant dates related to them with dignity,” says Amer Delić from the Centre for Nonviolent Action.

The Centre for Nonviolent Action Sarajevo – Belgrade (CNA) has sought to contribute to building an inclusive, non-selective culture of memory in BiH in various ways: by researching sites of suffering and sites of memory for the database and website kulturasjecanja.org; by publishing “War of Memories”; putting on the “War of Memories” exhibition that has toured the region over several years; through programmes of non-formal education aimed at enhancing social capacities for peacebuilding; through exchanges and learning from the experiences of other countries, and by systematising gathered information and knowledge; as well as through joint commemorative actions of war veterans from BiH, Croatia and Serbia.