Through Uskoplje, from Gornji to Donji Vakuf

In the past year, we’ve had an opportunity to visit various commemorative events organised by veterans associations we cooperate with. We could see first hand the kind of culture of memory fostered by war veterans and the places they come from.

We visited Gornji Vakuf/Uskoplje (GVU) again to attend a ceremony “In memory of Commander Goran Čišić” traditionally organised by the veterans association Goranovi to commemorate their commander and all the fallen and deceased fighters of this unit of the Army of RBiH. The ceremony was held in the crowded hall of the Gornji Vakuf/Uskoplje Municipal Culture and Education Centre. The gathering was addressed by the president of the Goranovi association, Ibrahim Topčić. He talked about the war period, his unit and Commander Čišić, pointing out that in those days people showed their humanity and decency in the most difficult moments, while today they are marginalised and feel like both they and their families have been abandoned. He was visibly upset, although he did not address the causes behind this situation.

Last year, in this same place, a youth group performed the musical “Hair”, sending a message of peace far beyond the walls of this hall. This year, children read their literary compositions in memory of Goran Čišić.

Last year, this event had been avant-garde compared to other such commemorations. This retreat back to the established “tested” models that differ from each other only by the national symbols they use and the name they give to the enemy, shows that peace is not a completed state, but rather a process with an uncertain outcome. Perhaps even then I had only imagined that pioneering steps on the road to peace had been made here. They were, but this did not continue, because it needs the support of the community, local authorities, society as a whole.

We used our visit to this town to hold meetings with representatives of local authorities and other veterans associations. We met with Mayor Sead Čaušević and the President of the Municipal Council, Marinko Krajina. They briefly explained the situation in the municipality since the end of the Bosniak-Croat conflict that had lasted from October 1992 to March 1994, leaving behind hundreds of casualties, a destroyed town and surrounding villages, and severed human and neighbourly ties. They say that, today, progress made since the war is noticeable. After years of parallel government structures, the municipal administration has been unified, as well as the local clinics, fire brigades and other institutions. This year also marked the first performance of the folklore ensemble from the Bosniak Cultural Community Preporod at the Uskoplje Autumn, a traditional event organised by the Croat Cultural Society Napredak since 1997, and Bosniak and Croat children train and play together in the Sloga football club. Does this mean life is going back to being normal?

From our side, we informed the municipal authorities with our work in the region, focusing on the visits by a joint veterans group to sites of memory, and expressed our desire to visit GVU in the same context, where our joint hosts would be the HVO and ARBiH veterans with whom we would visit memorials on both sides. They supported this idea, saying they were both veterans and were prepared to participate in all actions for the benefit of the people in this community and that contribute to better mutual relations and cooperation. They pointed out the disunity of veterans associations in the town as a potential obstacle to the organisation of the visit. Namely, there are no less than nine associations of HVO veterans and six of ARBiH veterans, each acting separately. The meeting was also attended by Suad Duratbegović, Secretary of the Cantonal Board of the Joint ARBiH Veterans Association in the Central Bosnia Canton, who also supported the idea and said he would try to coordinate the “Army” associations into a single representative body for the organisation of the visit.

We also had informal meetings to discuss potential cooperation and organising a visit with representatives of the HVO War Medal Recipients Association and the HVO Homeland War Volunteers Association. Sometimes, people cannot get over the feeling that they will come off as hypocritical in their communities, because in the past, they lead their people into war, and now they are supposed to direct them towards reconciliation. This dilemma is also an obstacle often encountered by war veterans, preventing their engagement in peacebuilding.

The next day, we visited the Memorial¹ at the site where Goran Čišić lost his life, in the area of the Podrepci village in the Bugojno municipality.  Traditionally, organised by the Goran Mountaineering Society, the anniversary of Goran Čišić’s death is marked by a hike to this site.  The President of the Goran Mountaineering Society, Ekrem Polić, explained that they had chosen this way of commemorating the death of their friend, fellow fighter and commander, because he had been a great lover of nature and mountaineering.  On our way back, we met a column of a few hundred people, members of this society and their friends, participants in this year’s hike.

We went to Donji Vakuf. There, we held a brief meeting to exchange our impressions about the activities we had conducted.  New members of the group from RS, who had participated at a commemoration with us for the first time, were invited to organise visits to sites of memory in Republika Srpska.

Often, when we visit various towns, we evoke memories of a painful past, repressed, but not forgotten.  We found out that a detention camp was situated in the vicinity of the motel² where we were staying. A war veteran from this town, that we had been cooperating with for years, had been detained there with another two dozen or so of his fellow fighters. The memories are still fresh and to this day he finds it difficult to go anywhere near the place. This is not the first time we encountered taboo places that hide their secrets and that are only whispered about among the local community. One of the reasons behind what we are doing is to remind people that such places exist and that they should make us think.  And not be silent.

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