{"id":248558,"date":"2026-04-22T07:51:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T05:51:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/?p=248558"},"modified":"2026-04-30T11:01:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T09:01:15","slug":"we-come-in-peace-book-and-photography-exhibition-presented-in-mrkonjic-grad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/we-come-in-peace-book-and-photography-exhibition-presented-in-mrkonjic-grad\/","title":{"rendered":"We Come in Peace: Book and Photography Exhibition Presented in Mrkonji\u0107 Grad"},"content":{"rendered":"

The book We Come in Peace: War Veterans in Peacebuilding and the accompanying photography exhibition were presented in Mrkonji\u0107 Grad on Tuesday, 21 April 2026, at the Petar Ko\u010di\u0107 Culture and Sports Centre.<\/p>\n

Milorad Agbaba (Novi Grad\/Bosanski Novi), Mirko Ze\u010devi\u0107 Tadi\u0107 (Br\u010dko), Asim Parli\u0107 (Zavidovi\u0107i) and Nenad Vukosavljevi\u0107 (Belgrade) took part in a discussion moderated by Borislav \u0110uri\u0107 (Mrkonji\u0107 Grad).<\/p>\n

The photography exhibition will be on display at the Petar Ko\u010di\u0107 Culture and Sports Centre until Friday, 24 April 2026.<\/p>\n

In his introductory remarks, Borislav \u0110uri\u0107 said that war veterans and peacebuilding might at first seem like a strange combination, but from the experiences of the people who were presenting the book We Come in Peace in Mrkonji\u0107 Grad, it seems completely logical and viable.<\/p>\n

\u201cWar leaves lasting consequences, and it sometimes seems the post-war period is more challenging and difficult than the war itself. The personal experiences of war veterans who joined peace initiatives after the war can help us find a healthy way to convey our experiences to younger generations,\u201d \u0110uri\u0107 said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Nenad Vukosavljevi\u0107, a member of the team from the Centre for Nonviolent Action and author of the photographs, explained how the cooperation with war veterans from the region started.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe initial idea was to speak about war experiences openly and honestly, not in monologues but through dialogue. The idea was for everyone to speak from personal experience, and not on behalf of their army or ethnic group. The idea developed from there, then we started visiting sites of suffering, official commemorations, but the main idea was always to send the message that the war was over. We wanted to leave the new generation with a better atmosphere as a legacy, to expand that feeling of freedom,\u201d Vukosavljevi\u0107 said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Mirko Ze\u010devi\u0107 Tadi\u0107 recounted how right after the war he wanted to see the people from the \u201cother side\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to see who it was I went to war against, who was on the other side. Maybe it was subconscious, I was only 21 at the end of the war, but that wish was huge. Three years after the war, we all sat down together in Br\u010dko, there were veterans from all three armies. And I saw that we could talk about things, we could use our experience to convey a message to young people so that they don\u2019t suffer what we have suffered,\u201d Ze\u010devi\u0107 Tadi\u0107 said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Asim Parli\u0107 from Zavidovi\u0107i remembered the visit by a mixed group of war veterans to Zavidovi\u0107i in 2017.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe visited all the sites of suffering, including the central memorial of ARBiH, but also the site known as the 13th kilometre, unmarked at the time, where captured VRS soldiers were killed. Later, the site was marked and there is a monument there now. During that visit, we had religious leaders from all three religious communities with us, mayors of the municipalities and that was the path we showed,\u201d Parli\u0107 said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Milorad Agbaba from Novi Grad\/Bosanski Novi talked about how it was easy meeting with people he had known before the war.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was a bit unsure of how I would react to meeting people from the other side that I didn\u2019t know from before. But, with time, you get to know these people, and today this is a group of people that when we come together, it says we had the strength to look each other in the eye, and we are former combatants. It turns out that the waters are being muddied by some others who had not been combatants,\u201d Agbaba said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Commenting on reactions from their communities, the veterans point out that despite obstacles, they were mostly met with understanding and support, especially from their families and the people who know them best.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The presented book collects the experiences gained by the Centre for Nonviolent Action over more than twenty years of working with war veterans on peacebuilding and has two parts: one is focused on the potential of war veterans for peacebuilding and the experiences gathered in this field, and the second part focuses on the people who make this work possible.<\/p>\n

The electronic edition of the book can be downloaded for free from our website and print copies are available to visitors in our offices in Sarajevo and Belgrade.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The book We Come in Peace: War Veterans in Peacebuilding and the accompanying photography exhibition were presented in Mrkonji\u0107 Grad on Tuesday, 21 April 2026, at the Petar Ko\u010di\u0107 Culture and Sports Centre.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":248409,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2404,39,73,78,72],"tags":[311,2131,285,2268,145,1947,1591,146,1988,1904,238],"class_list":["post-248558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-plusen","category-activities","category-promo","category-news","category-excomb","tag-activism","tag-book","tag-bosnia-and-herzegovina","tag-culture-of-remembrance","tag-dealing-with-the-past","tag-former-combatants-en","tag-memorialisation","tag-reconciliation","tag-republic-of-srpska-en","tag-war-veterans-in-peacebuilding","tag-war-veterans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248558"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":248568,"href":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248558\/revisions\/248568"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}