{"id":6521,"date":"2016-02-03T10:02:24","date_gmt":"2016-02-03T10:02:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eu-monitoring.ba\/?p=6521"},"modified":"2016-02-16T13:18:11","modified_gmt":"2016-02-16T13:18:11","slug":"different-coloured-obituaries-and-the-idea-of-a-common-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eu-monitoring.ba\/en\/different-coloured-obituaries-and-the-idea-of-a-common-future\/","title":{"rendered":"Different coloured obituaries and the idea of a common future"},"content":{"rendered":"

By: Nedim Jahi\u0107<\/strong><\/p>\n

Originally published in: Perspectives;
\nPublisher: Heinrich B\u00f6ll Foundation
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

On the path towards the European Union, Western Balkans countries have faced \u2013 and still do \u2013 the issues of dealing with the war crimes committed during the nineties, as one of the issues that are frequently interwoven with the reform processes set by the EU in the course of the integration process. Lessons from Croatia, where the process of transitional justice took the opposite path the moment the country entered the EU, or Serbia, where those in government consider their role to have been practically done from the moment the country delivered the Hague fugitives Karad\u017ei\u0107 and Mladi\u0107, are certainly valuable to the experience of Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, the multiethnic community simply is not capable of leaving this behind, letting the problems and frustrations accumulated as the result of a two-decades-long silence leave their stamp on day-to-day politics day in and day out. Without a domestic consensus about the facts related to the war, BH can continue its process of integration, but this leaves us with the question of how lasting is the sustainability of such a society, and what is the significance of such system with regards to values for the coming generations. A very important aspect of this process concerns the role of leaders from within the Bosniak political community, who, in their public statements, and less so with specific actions, are staking a claim to the title of being the one to safeguard the country.<\/p>\n

Two decades have passed since the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina ended. Yet, the consequences of the conflict are present everywhere, both in the context of a political system that is a reflection of the divisions of war, but also in the general \u2018state of mind\u2019 within the society; in a sense that justice came undone, perpetrators still out there, at large, and, finally, in the absence of an \u2018absolute winning side\u2019, every day seems like a losing game.<\/p>\n

Obituaries are a very common thing to see on the walls and lampposts throughout Bosnia. For the families, sometimes it is a matter of long discussions about the order in which names and surnames are going to be mentioned. Due to the multi-faith aspect of the community, obituaries actually differ in the colours of their frames. While green frames are usual when the deceased comes from the Muslim community, for Orthodox and Catholic Christians the black lines are common. It seems that in certain communities, these different colours are the only trace of what once were multi-faith towns and villages. Also, they come as a reminder of the atrocities that took place throughout the country in the early nineties.<\/p>\n

The first Saturday in October. The International Theatre Festival \u2013 MESS<\/a> is taking place in Sarajevo for the 55th<\/sup> time, and on the stage of the National Theatre this evening I am about to see the Maxim Gorki Theater<\/a> play “Common Ground\u201d. Most of the actors are from the Western Balkans region, and the play itself relies on their personal fates and true life stories. Suddenly, one of them mentions \u010carakovo, a village near Prijedor, quite distant and unfamiliar to the regular Sarajevo urban elites that tend to frequent theatre plays. Yet, as it happened, I had visited the village a few years ago, and had the opportunity to meet a number of Bosniak returnees there. Many of them had gone through concentration camps, and each had their own story to tell, the names of their own family members who died or went missing in the ethnic cleansing campaign of the spring of 1992.<\/p>\n

Today, there are no memorials to the victims of the concentration camps in the Prijedor area. Local authorities treat returnees as second-rate citizens, banning public gatherings and encouraging denial of war crimes that took place in this area. However, the truth finds its way through. In September 2013, a new mass grave, Toma\u0161ica, was detected, with the remains of at least 385 Bosniaks<\/a> who had been missing for the past 20 years.<\/p>\n

Very few are touched by these facts, and biased media tend to safely black out any \u2018unwanted\u2019 contents. This especially applies to the entity of Republika Srpska, where the main public broadcasting service (RTRS<\/a>) remains under heavy control of the ruling SNSD party (Alliance of Independent Social Democrats). Yet, for me, having been involved in human rights actions for a long time now, most of the questions concerning the attitudes of the Government of the RS or the way how leaders of HDZ BiH (Croatian Democratic Union BH, a party with majority support within the Croat community) position themselves in relation to war crimes and the past, have been answered many times, and sometimes the need to retell that part of the story seems redundant. The murky aspect of the issue of \u2018dealing with the past\u2019 is the leadership of the political parties that gain support in Bosniak-majority areas of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This is very important, because this part of the political spectrum actually tends to monopolize the claim to concern for the common future and the multiethnic society, and poses itself as the \u2018guarantor\u2019 of the country\u2019s integrity.<\/p>\n

Crimes committed by members of the Bosnian Army remain a matter of taboo, without any efforts from the present-day leadership, primarily the Bosniak member of the Presidency, Bakir Izetbegovi\u0107, to take concrete steps in acknowledging the victims and condemning the perpetrators, except in statements expressing \u2018general regret for all crimes\u2019<\/a> or similar vague and cowardly statements regarding the nineties.<\/p>\n

The first point of our journey through the Bosniak collective conscience, the Kazani pit, is very near Sarajevo. During the siege of Sarajevo, the central government had substantial problems controlling street gangs and self-organized military troops. This led to spreading terror through the city, with a number of unresolved deaths, many of which were Serb civilians, among others also the 39 persons whose remains were found in Kazani. The government confronted the group loyal to Mu\u0161an Topalovi\u0107 Caco, a warlord connected with the Kazani case<\/a>, in a clash that resulted with the killings of 9 young members of the special police forces sent to arrest him and his men, alongside 8 civilians held hostage by his troops. Soon after, Topalovi\u0107 was killed. In addition, 14 persons connected with Kazani were sentenced during the war. After the war, Topalovi\u0107’s remains were transferred to the Kova\u010di memorial, to the first row, near the grave of the country\u2019s first president Alija Izetbegovi\u0107.<\/p>\n

Kazani remains controversial due to the fact that the case is often used in RS propaganda aimed at relativising the ethnic cleansing campaign against the Bosniak civilian population in eastern Bosnia or the massacres and shelling of Sarajevo during the four-year siege. Also, the general public in RS, but also in Serbia, familiar with the case of Kazani, remains cut off from the information that the government did confront Topalovi\u0107, but also that the Bosnian media openly reported on the topic, actions which would have been unimaginable in similar cases in other parts of the country during the war years.<\/p>\n

On the other side, in early postwar years, but also today, the Bosniak leadership failed to find the strength and courage to confront the groups and individuals who propagate the narrative that presents Topalovi\u0107 as a war hero, failing therefore to pay respect to those killed, both civilians and young men from the special police forces. Even the Social Democratic Party (SDP BiH, with voter-support mostly coming from the Federation BH), showed the level of utter hypocrisy in the course of their participation in the government (2010-2014), when they pushed their member Svetozar Pudari\u0107 (as the Serb member of the vice-presidency of the Federation entity) to discuss the topic in public, yet undertaking no real action to bring the story about the adequate marking of the site of Kazani<\/a> to a close.<\/p>\n

Another issue illustrating the short-sighted Bosniak political elites’ policies towards war crimes issues, was the decision of the Cantonal Assembly of Sarajevo condemn<\/a>ing the actions<\/a> of the Prosecutors Office of BH in the Silos case<\/a> in 2011, after 8 persons from the Had\u017ei\u0107i municipality were arrested on charges of crimes against the civilian population and crimes against prisoners of war.<\/p>\n

If you travel further south, you will reach the village of Bradina near Konjic. Every May 25th<\/sup>, families and relatives gather to mark the date when the majority of 88 people whose names are listed on the memorial plate next to the village church were killed in 1992. Up until now, the public has only known of one case related specifically to the killings of civilians in Bradina; however, the person accused died before the end of <\/a>proceedings<\/a>.<\/p>\n

From the village of Bradina, a number of Serbs were taken to the \u010celebi\u0107i camp, which was operated both by the Croat Defence Council and the Bosnian Territorial Defence. \u010celebi\u0107i operated from May until December 1992. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia found Zdravko Muci\u0107, Hazim Deli\u0107 and Esad Land\u017eo guilty on the charges of murder, torture and inhumane acts against inmates<\/a>. As of today, the only effort to reach across ethnic lines in condemning the \u010celebi\u0107i camp war crimes was made by the Association of Detainees of BH, who organized a commemoration last October<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The story does not end there. It is a different year, 1993. The village of Grabovica is situated between Jablanica and Mostar. The village has been under the control of Bosnian Army since May, and in September, members of brigades located outside the area were given accommodation to stay in Grabovica for the time being. In the night between September 8th<\/sup> and 9th<\/sup>, a massacre took place against the local Croat civilian population. Until now, Nihad Vlahovljak, Haris Rajki\u0107 and Sead Karagi\u0107 were the only ones to have been convicted, limited only to the killings of three civilians from the Zadro family. All were sentenced to 13 years in prison, the verdict confirmed by<\/a> the Supreme Court of the Federation BH.<\/p>\n

In the years where war crimes and commemorations serve as a boost for warmongering, the question remains whether there is another way. Or, to be more precise, is Bakir Izetbegovi\u0107, or anyone within the Bosniak leadership, ready to take that step forward? Any move that would not come across as seeking to minimize the genocide and atrocities committed against their ethnic group, but as something that would actually ease the pressure that Bosniaks feel in Prijedor, Srebrenica or Stolac?\u00a0 If this step does not come any time soon, the way how we look upon the past will very soon reflect the way how so-called \u2018pro-Bosnian\u2019 political forces look upon our common future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The murky aspect of the issue of \u2018dealing with the past\u2019 is the leadership of the political parties that gain support in Bosniak-majority areas of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This part of the political spectrum actually tends to monopolize the claim to concern for the common future and the multiethnic society, and poses itself as the \u2018guarantor\u2019 of the country\u2019s integrity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6261,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[764,765],"tags":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/eu-monitoring.ba\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/nedim_jahic_portret_2012.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eu-monitoring.ba\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6521"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eu-monitoring.ba\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eu-monitoring.ba\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eu-monitoring.ba\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eu-monitoring.ba\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/eu-monitoring.ba\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6521\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eu-monitoring.ba\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eu-monitoring.ba\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eu-monitoring.ba\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eu-monitoring.ba\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}