by Emir IMAMOVIC
This morbid incident on May 7 indicates that everything is possible and nothing is sacred. And that everything and nothing could give birth to only one thing. The commemoration of this horrible date and camps as most inhumane points in Bosnian history seemed like some sort of function organized to mark the day of the village school or the tenth anniversary of the now traditional first Bosnian bull-fight. The only thing missing was a soccer game between (having in mind the given occasion) survivors from Keraterm and Dretelj [camps] and the team of Bosnian politicians coached by Dr. Biljana Plavsic and led by Jadranko Prlic. In the end they would have to exchange sportsmanlike greetings, but there would be no exchange of shirts, and the winners (not moral but actual winners) would get a cup from some of Izetbegovic's envoys for sport. On the other hand, the camp inmates would have to, humiliated, again leave the pitch.
Insulted Truth: Those whose sacrifice is apparently likely to end up on the pyre of oblivion, almost 200,000 survivors from 600 camps, cannot be blamed for such a scandalous and inappropriate commemoration of the Day of Camp Inmates. What can one object to Sandro Selman, a marathon runner before the war, and then an inmate in Omarska and Trnopolje, who briefly left behind his popcorn maker, with which he earns his livelihood, and decided to run a route connecting the killing fields? The fact that his memorial marathon was cut short by the Police Minister of the Republic of Srpska, Sredoje Novic, who informed him that he hadn't consulted those who do not like to hear the mention of the camps? Or perhaps that inadvertently he became one of the central figures of the commemoration of May 9? That, instead of projections of documentary films, promotions of books and conversation with, for example Roy Gutman, he reminded us of genocide with the shortened route of the race with bad memories, and then a recital or speech of the most persistent seeker of the truth, Amor Masovic? Briefly, that would be a lie and moreover an insult. For the people and the truth. As far as the people who today skip newspaper headlines with recorded testimonies of surviving camp inmates are concerned, it's not much of a harm. However, as far as the truth is concerned, it is.
For the sake of that same truth it should be said that it is possible to find a culprit among the camp inmates as well, the president of he association, Irfan Ajanovic. But what can one blame him for without leaving a bitter taste of exaggerated accusations which, when added up, can easily give an unexpected result? Irfan Ajanovic, the way he is and with his experience in bad politics, is above all a camp survivor. And that fact in itself can make everything else irrelevant. He perhaps knew how to sacrifice his victimhood to the Party. Perhaps at one time he knew how to or tried to turn that same victimhood into a political stake. He may have done all sorts of things, but today he is a persistent president of a small and poor association that does not even have an office with central heating, and is still trying to save the story about camp inmates from oblivion. Are they trying to get a monopolistic position? There is only one problem: that position cannot be monopolized. That is only a burden that can or cannot be born, when all others reject it or it becomes, simply, unnecessary.
This year was not the first time that the camp inmates were given signals "from above" that they have become unnecessary and that they should, if they can, forget about their suffering. If they cannot (this was not openly stated but was clear from the context of the message) let them do whatever they want with it in Denmark, which during the war immediately provided assistance for the freed camp inmates; or in Germany from where, if that does happen, camp inmates will be the last in the line for deportation. As early as in 1997 the Association sent an open letter to Alija Izetbegovic, requesting to meet with him. They never got a reply. And that would have been an interesting meeting. Without a single question, it would be clear what the answers should be. Answers of the President of the Presidency. Why did his henchmen and envoys make so much noise about the penis of the Multicultural Man in the Writer's Park, after failing to react to the information that Serbs in Keraterm had erected a monument to their slain soldiers? Why hasn't anyone yet tried to resolve the unjust attitude according to which former camp inmates have no rights, while all former soldiers, including camp guards (who did not do anything but made sure that no one escaped), have all sorts of valuable security papers or privileges? Or why did the Army of BH fail to liberate more than one camp (Lipje) but instead allowed some of its commanders to play, instead of Partisans, some other armies and take with three camps (Tarcin, Celebici and Grabovica), recognized by the Association, a place on the list of horror?
Liberation from Camp Inmates: The only official who was in the position to address those questions this year was the Federation president Ejup Ganic, together with Cantonal Minister Zaim Backovic and the envoy of the Cantonal Prime Minister, Beriz Belkic, the "senior official" at all gatherings commemorating the Day of Camp Inmates. However, that man, living near some of the spots where the events took place and distant from the Party cannot do anything anymore. Apart form finding out that the budget of Bicakcic's government allocated KM20,000 for the Association of Camp Inmates, which is the only, relatively speaking, state assistance for the inmates. However, last year, a somewhat smaller state (within the non-existent state) spent more than KM200,000 for the organization of the series of concerts of Esma Hadzagic named Bascarsija nights.
Camps and surviving inmates are today, actually, a burden with which the Bosniak authorities, or better said one party and a self-declared guardian of memory, does not know what to do. Because those people are the embodiment of the truth, with which the SDA does not want to deal. Today, Izetbegovic cannot win even with 200,000 camp inmate's votes, but the inmates can at every moment reveal to him the depth of the defeat and confirm the magnitude of the price paid for the survival in power with two coalitions. One that created the camps (1990) and another one with those who carried out the plan. From sharing the presidency with Krajisnik to unofficial reconciliation with the political wing of the HVO and ministers from Herceg-Bosna governments.
That is why the survivors should today be discarded as soon as possible. And as much as possible. If they are already here, goes the logic of those without wounds and a surplus of power, let them gather around their association, let them commemorate their days and at those gatherings retell sad stories. During that time new forces will be mobilized to exploit the tragedy. Of Chechnya, for example. For the tragedy of Chechnya there will be always time and money, as Behmen's Young Muslims and Pezo's even younger Taliban are always in the mood to protest in front of the Russian embassy or the department store. Where, on May 9, on the Day of Camp Inmates and the Day of Victory Against Fascism, as well as everywhere else, there was no one to raise his voice against camps against the system of amnestied criminals and humiliated victims, against the fact that half of the state is set-up on the foundations forged from the roof beams of camp barracks and surrounded by barbed wire behind which the ITN found breathing skeletons.
Marathon to the Hague: And who can today help the surviving camp inmates? Only God, it seems. So that they do not die from poverty and injuries and do not experience the worst of three possible denouements. As the time in which certain things will finally be resolved, perhaps in a wrong way, is coming. There are three options: either Serbs will apologize to Bosniaks, or Bosniaks to Serbs for surviving all the blows by rifle butts in the face; all the kicks with boots in the ribs and everything from the collection of unimaginable violence; or, in the end, everything will remain the same and still be referred to by a wrong name. And that is perhaps the worst possible outcome. As it implies that the whole sad story will be left to the foreigners. They, pragmatic as they are, will continue with theories that it is not important whether in Bosnia there was an aggression or genocide, but it matters that there is now peace; that the erection of a monument to the victims form Srebrenica in Potocare is slowing down the reconciliation; that...
And that everything will be sorted out by the infamous Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Will it? Let it try to deal with the camps. Let it organize next year a commemoration of the Day of Camp Inmates and by then prepare a detailed study of the number of camps, number of captives, number of killed, raped and pour that truth in the face of those who would like to reconcile. Numbers will be merciless, and the truth will not be in the interest of only one category: the most numerous one. That story can then include a camp guard from east Bosnia, captured on the Majevica Mountain. He was supplied by cigarettes by former camp inmates while he was in jail, just as he used to, secretly, until he was caught and sent to the front, throw at night into barracks tins with food and tobacco. A Serb Oscar Schindler, some would say. Perhaps? The only problem is that there are always less contemporary Schindlers than captives. That, however, does not deny them a place in the still unwritten book of the truth that will be taken to the Hague by Sandro Selman. He wants to finish his next marathon exactly in that city. The capital of the Bosnian truth.
In early March the Association of Camp Inmates of Bosnia-Hercegovina sent to the IPTF a letter in which it demanded from the international community to obtain permission from the Police of the Republic of Srpska and the Federation Police for the surviving camp inmate Sandro Selman to run an ultra-marathon along the route connecting locations of wartime camps. Detlef Buwitt, the IPTF commissioner, sent that request to the entity ministries, saying that he "was confident" that they would "give a positive reply". The Police Minister in the Republic of Srpska, Sredoje Novic replied to Buwitt on April 6 that the camp inmates should approach "the Ministry of Traffic and Connections, the Ministry for Issues of War Veterans, Victims of War and Work, as well as the Ministry of Sport." Also the organizer of the marathon was obliged "to submit the necessary documents, according to the law regulating public gatherings in RS".
Novic sent a differently worded but essentially the same reply to the Association of Camp Inmates two days before the start of the marathon on April 21. That letter states that "the holding of the requested gathering could provoke and incite national, racial and religious intolerance and hatred"!
In translation: not only do they have to request a permit to visit camps (which are only eight years old), but the surviving camp inmates must request that permit from their torturers, or, respectively, from the RS ministry that takes care among other of such individuals (war veterans, victims of war and work). They have to one more time humbly kneel and ask the same people who founded those camps whether they mind if they lay wreaths on the place, for example in Omarska, where 5,000 people disappeared.
I do not know exactly how long I was kept in the camp. I was imprisoned in late May and released in mid-June. "Drive them to Cerska, let them starve," said a soldier, after stopping our bus, which was going towards Kladanj. The driver without objection turned around. He apologized that he could not drive us any further. We had to walk for about ten kilometers to our lines in Cerska.
The first person I met in the camp was the warden, Dragan Nikolic-Jenki. He entered through the door of the hangar and the prisoners suddenly pulled back. All of them somehow squeezed in the corner, as if they wanted to be as small as possible, so that he would not notice them, or make sure they were not drawing attention to themselves. At the moment he opened the door I ended up between him and the other prisoners.
"Where are you going?"
"To the bathroom!"
Slap! I did not even see when and how he hit me. I fell on the ground, seeing lights in front on my eyes.
"Go back!"
I saw him later. He came to the hangar every day, twice of three times, and took out girls. They usually never came back. The men did not come back either. They were taken out by certain Lukic. He would stop in front of us, carefully watch and then point out someone and say "You!". They would slowly drag towards the door, as if they were condemned to death.
They beat us every day. I was only 17 at the time, but I had bruises all over my body. During the first 15 days in captivity, until I came to Susica, I did not get anything to eat. I managed to convince the guards in Vlasenica to let me go to the toilet and drink some water from time to time. I had lost 20 kilograms and was having trouble standing on my own. The first day in Susica, a woman, brought from one of recently "cleansed" villages near Vlasenica, gave me some bread. I ate a pound of bread at once and then fainted. My body could not take all of that food at once. I was constipated for about twenty days and every visit to the toilet could be fatal, so that I was reluctant to ask. We were beaten all the time on the way from the hanger. This was the only time they would let us out of the hangar.
They beat us on other occasions as well. With iron rods, metal cords, baseball bats, they pushed rifle barrels into mouths. I watched as a camp guard pushed a barrel of a sniper rifle into the mouth of one inmate. The sniper rifle has a significantly longer barrel than other rifles, and the guard managed to push almost the whole barrel inside the inmate's mouth. At times I lost voice singing Chetnik songs; on one occasion, I remember, I had to "chant" for more than two hours in front of the guards: "Serbian Kingdom!" I could not sleep during the time spent in Susica. Actually, that was not possible. Every few minutes one of the guards would come inside and randomly hit at the people, who were lying on top of each other in the dark.
I was captured at home, with my father in mid-May. They promised that they would not harm us. Moreover, they said: "Nothing will happen to your family!" Two weeks later, a bus escorted by the Police came to the part of the town where we lived. They told us to bring only the necessities and hurry on the bus. They were taking us to Kladanj. However, in Nova Kasaba we encountered a checkpoint. The soldier who got on the bus ordered all the males to get off. The bus then continued. We stood on the meadow, watching the bus leave. Our families, mothers, sisters, were on the bus. Three days later they again took us from Vlasenica to Kasaba. There were 38 of us and we were to be shot. They lined us up in a meadow. On the other side were 12 soldiers and an armored troop carrier. I recognized Zeljko Lukic behind the big machine gun. He was a conductor on the city bus, the same bus that used to take me every day to school. They lie that people facing death do not see their whole life as if in a film. I saw my whole life in one minute. One of the soldiers stepped out of the execution squad and approached me.
"How old are you?"
"Seventeen."
"What are you doing here?"
I took my father's arm and said. "I am here with my father, I won't be separated from him!"
"Get lost, you shouldn't be here!" he said and then took me and another four boys of the same age from the line and took us to the spot from which we could not see the execution. We were walking when we heard shooting from behind our backs. I turned around and, I swear, perhaps I imagined that, but I swear, I saw my father falling down.
(prepared by Emir Suljagic)