Monetary reparations by state institutions are not the end, but rather the beginning of the process of facing the past. They are an acknowledgment of wounds, but do not heal them. The families of victims request acknowledgment, truth and dignity. And that the crimes may never be repeated against anyone. Author: Sanela Karaica Demir Ličina from Bijelo Polje had waited […]

Thirty Years. It’s been thirty years since, in July 1995, sons vanished from courtyards, brothers from bedrooms, husbands from beds, neighbors from buses, students from classrooms.Since they were killed – systematically, indiscriminately – not for what they had done, but for who they were. Thirty years since genocide was committed in Srebrenica – a crime designed not only to kill, […]

Day of Youth, one of the more important holidays in the former Yugoslavia was forgotten and marked by a different narrative on May 25, 1995. The massacre at Tuzlanska Kapija is an event that changed the collective memory of this day. The Relay of Youth, a relay race held in the honour of Tito slowly became a distant memory, and […]

Just as in other cities in Bosnia and Herzegovina that came under the control of the Army of Republika Srpska in spring of 1992, in Doboj, there was the same war scenario with a similar prelude to crimes that ensued. May of 1992 in Doboj will be remembered due to the arrival of military, paramilitary and police units of the […]

On 28 April this year, a group of delegations from the Veterans’ Committee, the Ministry of Defence, the Army, the Ministry of Interior, and several political parties commemorated the killing of eight members of the security forces that occurred in 2001 between the villages of Selce and Vejce on Shar Planina. After the event, the delegations picked up the board […]

The conflict between the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Croatian Defence Council (HVO) resulted in a new and even bloodier period of war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. New front lines, mostly in Herzegovina and Central Bosnia, appeared, followed by new concentration camps, ethnic cleansing and new war crimes against civilians and prisoners of war on […]

Designed based on concentration camps in Nazi Germany, Jasenovac meant death or was the last station before concentration camps in Germany and Poland for most of its victims throughout its existence. Those that managed to escape from the horrors of Jasenovac started testifying about the extent and manner of killings immediately after it, which appalled even Nazis themselves. Following the […]

In a time when political instability shakes the very foundations of our society once again and the public space is increasingly flooded with fear and divisions, I ask myself what it means to be a peace activist today. Our past relentlessly reminds us of the fact that peace is not something to be taken for granted. In the current political […]

As one of the nearest cities to Bosnia and Herzegovina’s border with Serbia, Bijeljina was the perfect test site for war plans and crimes that were about to engulf the rest of the country. Everything that was happening in and around Bijeljina in April 1992 was replicated throughout the Podrinje region over the ensuing months and years. Everything started at […]

On March 26, 1992, a massacre was committed in Sijekovac near Bosanski Brod by armed groups that later on joined the Croatian Defence Council (HVO), together with other members of Croatian military formations, including the Croatian Defence Forces (HOS). The attack on this village led to the death of Serb civilians and destruction of their homes. Several persons were taken […]

Heliodrom, a heliport that was used as a concentration camp and controlled by the Croatian Defence Council (HVO), was a place of detention of around 8000 inhabitants of Mostar during the last war. A discussion about turning this space into a museum dedicated to the Croatian Defence Council has been ongoing for quite some time, which is nothing else but […]