(Prof. Dr. Dino Abazović, The Faculty of Political Sciences Sarajevo)
We sometimes think that the interpretation of facts is subject to manipulation.
I agree, it is.
However, I also think that before we could even talk about it, we need to see what the facts are.
Nearly two decades after the war in the former Yugoslavia,
the Western Balkans still function as a region of "frozen conflict"
where various amalgams of religious and nationalistic narratives
about the danger of "the other" persist.
(fans cheering)
Kill, slaughter, make the Shiptars disappear!
Although the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia were foremost of a political nature,
they have also undoubtedly had a religious connotation.
The dominant religions played a specific role in creating ethnical divides and hatred.
Religion served as a constructive element of nationalism
and one of the basic identifying markers that defined the opposing sides in the conflict.
Thus, religious symbols, rituals and organizations served as the catalysts of conflict,
the rise of nationalism and ethnic antagonisms.
(The bishop Vasilije Kačavenda in July 1995,
just before the entry of the army of Republika Srpska into Srebrenica)
Blood cries out for revenge. By taking revenge, the Serbian people destroyed the mightiest empires
and now we are looking forward to the glorious days, as we draw closer to the moment when,
after the Battle of Kosovo, the Serbian state will once again be united and established.
(the El Mujahedin division, Zenica, 1992)
(The celebration of the Orthodox Slava, Republika Srpska, 1995)
Consequently, the political elites incorporated religious symbols and elements
as a new form of political capital and a new ethnic and ideological matrix
– a nationalistic populism still present today.
(Father Ante Perković, the protest against the Cyrillic script, Zagreb, 2013)
Just as the sign of three fingers is not a symbol of faith in the holy Trinity, but something else
which I won't talk about now.
We all know what that means.
Neither is the introduction of the Cyrillic script in Vukovar at this moment a symbol of a legacy,
a cultural heritage,
but rather it's a sign of the continuation of aggression and the occupation of this region.
Even though they share the same geographical and post-conflict space,
the dominant religions of the Western Balkans - the Serbian Orthodox Church,
the Roman Catholic Church and the Islamic Community -
sometimes hold completely opposite views of the past conflicts and history.
Could the historical places of bloodshed such as Jasenovac
or later ones like Srebrenica, Vukovar and Bratunac,
obtain a religious dimension that would surpass the selectivity of memory?
In order to achieve that, we need to go back to the time just before the ethnic conflicts,
just before the beginning of the end of Yugoslavia.
Religions, nationalism and the culture of remembrance Author and director Nikola Knežević
(Prof. Dr. Vjekoslav Perica, University of Rijeka, Croatia)
And, then, in the beginning, we see a situation in which religion...
as the strict policy of socialism towards religions from the 1950s was growing weak,
religions gained more and more space and there were these main religious organizations;
First of all, Serbian Orthodoxy, Croatian Catholicism, and only later, Bosnian Islam.
We see how they were entering this space that the system had in fact provided for them,
and how they expanded it,
because the regime had set some boundaries.
And if we look at their mutual relationship,
we find that they were definitely paving the way for that which would come to pass in the 1990s,
not in the sense of war, but in the sense of the reconstruction of national identities,
those churches were the first to start, in a liturgical and symbolical way,
and by evoking certain fragments of history that they had interpreted in a new way.
(Father Vukašin Milićević, a priest of the SOC)
Those conflicts, as we know, are very complex, because they are multilayered.
The discussion whether it was a civil war or a classic war and so on, still persists today.
They certainly contain many different components and the pain they have left us with,
caused by exactly that, because the effects hit deep, on all levels of human existence.
So, in that sense, religion certainly played a role too.
Religion was often the only dividing factor when it comes to the peoples who were at war.
These peoples have the same origin, a common language, and, in a large measure, a common culture,
specifically the culture that was established during the time of their common state.
It completely characterized every one that lived in it.
In this way, religion as a means to an end held an incredible potential for conflict,
as it was the only differentiating factor.
What is somewhat surprising is that, if we look at the history of interreligious relations during the SFRY,
we can see that what ensued was unpredictable, because the relations were, it seems, quite decent,
and the conflicts started with the first political conflicts.
We can hardly speak of religions as having had a crucial influence
on the beginning of the conflicts in an active sense.
Religions played a passive role.
They were used as an excuse for conflict.
The role of religions in the war was controversial.
(Dr. Marko Nikolić)
Despite the varying presentations of their individual representatives,
relying on the official documents of the Serbian Orthodox Church
it seems that we can determine that the church's role both before and during the war was mostly preventative,
reconciling and integrative in the sense of its value.
The highest religious dignitaries appealed and fought for a cessation of hostilities.
Still, behind the common declarations,
the official papers such as Orthodoxy, The Voice of the Council and the Islamic Resurgence
published articles and feuilletons that fit into the national and ethnic interests
and deepened the differences.
Certain appeals and statements published in the newspaper of the SOC
which represents the public opinions of the church, advocated for a change to the Avnoj borders
Individual priests, episcopes, bishops and imams
all acted contrary to the peace appeals coming from behind the trenches
instead of acting between them.
(Alen Kristić, theologian and editor of the magazine Concilium)
I would like to use an illustration.
If trenches are one of the symbols of war,
then we could say that religious communities were behind them and played a dual role.
At times they would offer spiritual solace and support to the soldiers,
thus portraying the national and religious profile assigned to them by various historical circumstances.
However, on all sides, although not in the same measure, they also became a propaganda machine,
offering more or less directly, from behind the trenches, legitimacy for conquest and barbarism.
(Aleksandar Šibul, psychologist)
When religious leaders take on the role of waving the banner that leads into conflict,
then the results can not be good.
However, if the religious communities act in a way that is calming and speak of love
even in extreme circumstances such as wartime,
and speak of the need for honest and noble behaviour,
the need to bear in mind the godlikness we were created with,
and make this the code of conduct in war...
The religious leaders should not instigate violence,
but act peacefully and help those involved in conflict not to commit war crimes.
The consequence of the conflict in the Balkans are war crimes commited by all parties involved.
Regardless of having experienced the Holocaust and the Second World War,
we haven't learned anything from all of that.
The victims of war and their stories
(Antun Dugan, retired colonel of the Croatian army and guardsman)
All of those that came here from surrounding places came to kill me, to kill my family, to destroy my town.
And I didn't... the border is there in Tovarnik, behind the old partisan cemetery, behind it is Šid.
I didn't even cross these 5 km to the Croatian village of Negoslavce inhabited mostly by Orthodox believers,
I didn't break a single window.
And they came from that village and the surrounding villages and joined the locals,
committing unthinkable crimes.
I can claim for myself, that I know...
(Arkan speaking) Kill everyone in battle.
There is no mercy.
They won't be kind to you.
Remember our two soldiers who were mutilated,
caught alive and then mutilated in Laslovo
and bear that in mind the whole time you fight.
So, none of our men can be caught again, is that clear?
(Soldiers responding) Clear!
(Arkan speaking) Another thing,
there is no mercy for the enemy who shoots at you.
(The news on national television, Miloš Marković, presenter)
Good evening, dear viewers. Vukovar is liberated.
Mitnica, the toughest stronghold of the Ustaša has fallen.
The members of the Croatian armed forces surrendered to the guardsmen of the motorized brigade.
The act of surrender was monitored by the EUMM and the International Red Cross.
(Damir Živković, prisoner of a camp in RS and guardsman)
We asked for European observers, but they wouldn't let them.
Even though they were here, they didn't let them in.
They had captured a group of people
– a hundred twenty and who knows how many –
and brought them out.
They said: "If you don't surrender, we will shoot them all."
We surrendered so they wouldn't shoot those hundred twenty some people.
(The journalist asking) What camp were you in?
I was in Stajićevo, near Zrenjanin.
After the snow fell, Stajićevo was closed down and I was transferred to Niš, and then to Sremska Mitrovica.
I suffered nine months of torture, hatred, harassment, beatings, and humiliation.
It was horrific.
According to the estimates of several independent sources
– the Humanitarian Law Center, Documenta,
and the Bosnian Book of the Dead –
it is believed that during the war in ex-Yugoslavia,
on the territory of Slovenia, Croatia,
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosova,
Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia,
approximately 130,000 people lost their lives.
A large number of crimes
have still not been solved or processed.
The historical facts have not been clearly established,
placing a burden on the ethnic and political relations in the region.
The chasm is even deeper when we consider
the dominant religions in the Western Balkans
that often hold a diametrically opposite position
concerning the past.
Selectivity prevails, and there is still a lack of support for
regional peace initiatives such as RECOM
Why are RECOM and the naming of victims important?
(Dr. Dinko Gruhonjic, president of NDNV and representative of RECOM)
It is important that it be supported, because without a state stamp
on an international multilateral agreement on forming a commission
that would investigate the facts about the victims of war,
we don't have authority for that data.
We, as the civilian sector, as an NGO, as a citizens' association,
have achieved very much in the last ten years.
Large amounts of data have been collected within the civilian sector
that could be of great help to this future commission.
But, all that will have no value unless states, with their authority and signature,
do not stand behind that all.
In that case, when that happens,
then we will know that future generations will not be so easily manipulated,
like we and some other earlier generations were, or better said, all generations before us.
Then we will be certain that we have made a revolutionary step forward for this region
and that we have, practically for the first time in history, counted the victims,
and what's most important, given them names and paid them tribute.
(Žarko Puhovski) It is the connection between the normalization of life in the aftermath of war
and the rendering of accounts for what happened during the war.
Religions, nationalism and the culture of remembrance Contested memories
(Dragan Pjevač, lawyer)
In September 1993, on September 9, in the well known Croatian operation Medak Pocket,
three villages were completely destroyed: Divoselo, Čitluk (my village Čitluk) and Počitelj.
My mother was killed among the 88 people, 36 civilians and 17 women.
That was something that left a mark on my entire life...
a sadness, a tragedy
that each victim carries within.
And, that is the reason it is so important not to pass over such events easily,
I mean, we who have experienced this cannot get over it so easily.
(Prof. Dr. Dubravka Valić-Nedeljković)
In the Western Balkans it is very important for an umbrella organization,
an integrative non-governmental organization to exist, such as RECOM,
which will, in a certain way, network all the individual efforts toward the process of reconciliation
and ensure that this process will last.
(Prof. Dr. Dino Abazović, the Faculty of Political Sciences Sarajevo)
RECOM is doing a very good work.
RECOM is doing an exceptionally important and significant work,
trying to establish the facts, on the teritory of ex-Yugoslavia,
including the names and the circumstances of all victims, regardless of their distincitve characteristics
that politicians make use of extensively for their daily political purposes.
However, RECOM is not the only one...
What I consider important is the extent... perhaps it is even – correct me if I am wrong –
the widest initiative of the civil society in the area of ex-Yugoslavia...
regardless of this fact, I am not sure that it is important to be accountable to RECOM
for something RECOM objectively was not able to do in the given circumstances
and that impatience... sometimes people demand and expect much more, and that leads to scapegoating
– finding a scape goat in such initiatives...
I don't think that is fair.
On the other hand, it is a process that is important in itself,
and in considering those questions
I am primarily oriented towards understanding the process, and not the goal.
As a process, I value it highly and consider it be a very important work.
(Miroslav Keveždi, philosopher and religiologist)
RECOM is important because it is necessary to establish the facts,
to establish the truth about the war victims in ex-Yugoslavia.
Why are the facts important?
If the facts are not established then there is space for manipulation
in increasing and decreasing the number of those killed,
who are used as some kind of currency,
in the sense of something that needs to be collected in current political relations
or, God forbid, in the future.
(Dragan Pjevač, lawyer)
It is necessary to establish the facts and collect them in one place, from the vast material,
about all events, specifically about crimes that took place on these territories.
The role of faith communities in the processes of Transitional justice
Polili su ga benzinskom bombom.
Jedan od njih mu je držao noge
i počeli su da mu pale noge.
Trebalo im je devet sati da sagore njegovo telo,
a jedan od momaka je rekao, dok je telo gorelo, da meso dobro miriše.
Pili su pivo u isto vreme.
Bili su ponosni na to što su radili.
Examples from the rest of the world
clearly point to the contribution of religions in the truth and reconciliation commissions;
the key role of the Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu in the South African commission
or the Archbishop Juan Gerardi, who formed and headed the commission in Guatemala.
Examples from East Timor, Peru and Chile
where the religious communities offered necessary support to the commissions, contribute to this claim.
Examples from Brazil and Chile show that Protestant and Catholic organizations
formed separate commissions for the violation of human rights.
Apart from the Archbishop Desmond Tutu in the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission,
one of the most graphic examples of the participation of church dignitaries in the process of transitional justice
is without doubt the case of the South American Roman Catholic bishop in Guatemala, Juan Gerardi.
U Gvatemali nastupa mir
Po prvi put nakon deset godina narod Gvatemale udiše sladak vazduh slobode.
Samo nekoliko dana nakon ostavke komunističkog predsednika Hakoba Arbenza,
pobunjenički vođa Kastiljo Armas dolazi u grad.
The bishop Gerardi was one of the fiercest critics of the dictatorial establishment
during the civil war in Guatemala
and he invested a lot of effort in fighting for the rights of indigenous Mayan peoples
who were under enormous repression by the ruling military junta.
According to the report Guatemala: Nunca Mas (Guatemala: Never Again),
within the Recovery of Historical Memory project, organized and led by bishop Gerardi,
more than 150,000 victims, 50,000 missing, one million refugees, 422 massacres
during the more than three decades of civil war were documented.
The Recovery of Historical Memory project was intended
to strengthen the Historical Clarification Commission.
On April 24, 1998, Bishop Gerardi presented a four-volume report
report in which he accused army members and their collaborators among the political and social elite
of the previous regime for the crimes.
Only two days later, his body was found in the garage beside the church in which he served as priest,
his face unrecognizable from the beatings.
Three army officers, together with a priest as an accomplice,
were accused and sentenced to twenty plus years in prison each.
Up to this day, many of the perpetrators have not been convicted
for their participation in crimes during the dictatorial regime that lasted several decades.
One of the regime's leading dictator, general Rios Montt,
was sentenced to eighty years for crimes against humanity in May 2013,
but only one month later the Constitutional Court reversed the whole process to the beginning.
"As the church we have collectively and responsibly taken upon ourselves
the task to break the silence that thousands of victims kept within themselves.
We have opened an opportunity for them to share their truth,
to share their experiences of suffering and pain,
so that they could be free from the heavy burden
they had been carrying for so many years."
Juan Jose Gerardi Conedera, April 24,1998
on occasion of presenting the Recovery of Historical Memory Project report
(Vukašin Milićević, priest of the SOC)
I think we have a huge responsibility, firstly for the victims of World War II,
we still don't know the death toll.
That was a genocide of, so to say, Biblical proportions.
(Zora Radanović, former prisoner of the Jasenovac concentration camp)
...she was glad we came back.
One day, I was playing in the ditch beside our house,
when I saw some boys and my brothers walking in a column
and on every five to six meters a soldier with a gun.
And I came out of the ditch running and shouting: Mile, Milan!
My older brother Milan said to me: Run, run, they'll catch you too!
Where are you going? I asked.
We're going to pick corn, he said.
We never found or saw them again.
They were killed, burned, who knows what happened...
The master could have hidden them.
Our neighbour worked on the thresher for another man and he hid him in the haystack.
He lived until recently, he was older than my brothers.
But this master didn't hide my brothers to keep them alive...
And so I ran to my mistress and told her: Ma'am, my brothers left, they went to pick corn.
But she just shook her head and said:
Alright, dear, I hope they make it in time for the harvest.
We stayed there a while longer.
At the end of November we set out to return home
but when we arrived everything was burned down...
(Vukašin Milićević, priest of the SOC)
Also, in connection to those victims we carry a responsibility for the victims of this past war,
especially for the deaths caused by members of our own people.
What compromises our victims of World War II,
although the victims are impossible to compromise,
but our memory of them compromises the most
and it is the way some individuals among us treated the members of other peoples in the last war,
individuals and groups, this should be said in the open.
Remembrance, if we talk about its Christian meaning,
doesn't look at the differences between the victims,
because it is an act of establishing justice,
the justice that proved unable of solving the problem in history,
but that will triumph in the end.
(dr. Srđan Sremac, Vrije University, Amsterdam)
It is certain that religions, even if they didn't have a key role, contributed to the last war,
and in the same way, they have an enormous potential and responsibility for reconciliation, for facing the truth.
As I said before, we have great examples from other countries,
Latin America, the South African Republic, Indonesia, West Timor,
where religious communities played a key role in reconciliation and facing the past.
Bearing in mind the contribution of religious dignitaries in the truth and reconciliation commissions,
the question arises whether it is possible to see similar examples in the Western Balkans
of religious dignitaries promoting peace
and supporting a regional initiative for transitional justice such as RECOM?
(Miroslav Keveždi, philosopher and religiologist)
However, the big question for our area is why don't we have a Desmond Tutu?
And I remind you of the words of Nelson Mandela, who said that Tutu was the voice of those who had no voice.
In the time of apartheid, the segregation between blacks and whites,
the blacks didn't have a voice, but they had Desmond Tutu,
which means that the blacks were the subordinated group,
that acted from a position of less power
and had the brave Tutu to raise his voice and speak out about some phenomena.
The question is
– are the religious communities in ex-Yugoslavia the ones that represent those without a voice?
(dr. Dinko Gruhonjić, president of NDNV and RECOM representative)
Through one of the films we produced
we tried to portray that even in the worst of times there was humaneness.
We wanted to promote, not necessarily ecumenism,
but an elementary humaneness of some people from faith communities
who had the strength to resist, I could say, the paradigm
that was accepted by the leadership of those communities
and who had the strength, like priest Golijan, to save two imams from horrific Vlasenica
where, we can freely say, not only an ethnic cleansing was taking place, but probably a genocide.
In the same manner, we tried and succeeded to find examples of priests like the deceased friar Marko Gelo,
who as a Roman Catholic priest, as a Bosnian Franciscan also saved people of other faiths in Livno,
including the treasure from the local Orthodox church.
Religions could, if they are willing, contribute to...
I won't use the word reconciliation...
I am not a big fan of the word reconciliation.
You cannot make people reconcile, if they don't want to,
but you can ask them to try to communicate, to understand each other better,
because then they will see that they share the same problems.
I am not an optimist in that matter,
not only because I am not a member of any organized faith community.
I won't say I am an atheist, perhaps more of an agnostic.
But, I think I am being objective when I say that the faith communities here, and not just here,
were always closer to the government or exclusively supporting the government,
so I have no doubt that they will continue to support the government,
and the government is the way it is.
(Prof. Dr. Dino Abazović, The Faculty of Political Sciences Sarajevo)
Today, it is important to observe the relationship between organized religion and nationalism.
Since the 90's, in ex-Yugoslavia, religious symbols have first been profaned and then resacralized,
not as religious symbols, but rather as national symbols of the first order.
Even today a large portion of the population does not make
the crucial distinction between the religious and the national identity.
This is problematic to the extent that our prepolitical
– I call them prepolitical -
nationalisms of a romanticized form...
because those are old feudo-imperialist conceptions
where you primarily belong to your community of religion, language, teritory
and only secondarily to the common geopolitical space.
In this part of the world, we unfortunately still comply to those old doctrines.
In that sense, religion has always been used as an additional source of legitimization of such politics.
We have witnessed that.
There were numerous misuses by the political actors in these regions,
but, on the other hand, the religious dignitaries were not able to adequatly respond
to such a profanzation of the religious in the public sphere.
When we discuss this today, it is important to mark
that in a certain way there are trends towards, as people like to say, an authentic or true spirituality.
However, I also think that the process of a dominant pseudoreligious discourse is still present,
especially when there is a need to mobilize or demobilize a certain collectivity.
(Alen Kristić, theologian and editor of the magazine Concilium)
According to my humble opinion, the key for religions to become a positive factor in this region,
is for religions to mercilessly face their own guilt for the evil that took place.
Until that happens,
religions and religious resources will remain a dead capital for positive change in our society.
Religious people and religious communities need to ask themselves what kind of theology they cultivate,
what kind of pastoring they cultivate, what kind of spirituality they teach to their people
if neighbours could turn on their own neighbours over night.
How could it be that everywhere our neighbours were disappearing
and we were pretending not to know that they were held captive in local schools and tortured,
while we attended our Sunday service or worshipped in a mosque with serenity and indifference?
Without facing the question of how Srebrenica, Vukovar or Sarajevo
could have happened to us, the believers in this region...
Until the religious communities and people do not face this question,
until this question becomes the framework for each of their prayers, and for their every mention of God,
it will unfortunately be impossible for the religions in our region to be a positive factor.
The voices of the victims
The naming of the victims as justice for all victims
(Dragan Pjevač, lawyer)
My brother Nikola found our mother after 18 days.
She had gunshot wounds on her chest,
, her head was fractured and she was missing three fingers on her right hand.
It is always hard for me when I remember this, just like for any victim.
And for this action in Medak Pocket the court in the Hague transferred the case to the Croatian court.
I was present at the trial with my whole family.
The first defendant Ademi was freed, and the second defendant Mirko Norac got 7 years.
Finally, in the appeal, his sentence was reduced to 6 years.
For all those crimes practically no one was held responsible.
In the exposition of the court's ruling Norac was charged for failing to prevent the crimes.
It's traumatic for every victim, and at the end, when the verdict is reached,
the truth is that it would have been better for the victim to have never existed.
(Damir Živković, prisoner of a camp in RS and guardsman)
I saw a man they were beating.
They took him out and beat him, they made him run from Stajićevo.
He didn't want to run, but they kept beating him for 20 minutes
until he didn't have the strength to take the beating anymore.
And then he somehow decided:
I'll go – I guess – I know they'll shoot me, they'll kill me, but that is better,
I can't take this beating anylonger.
He started to walk slowly, one foot after another.
When he was fifty meters away, he didn't even run, he just moved away.
They killed him with two short bursts.
I also witnessed a man being beaten to death.
All kinds of things were happening, so...
No one has been held responsible for the crimes
committed in the prison camps in Stajićevo, Begejci and Niš.
. Up to this day, the setting up of a commemorative plate has not been not allowed.
(Antun Dugan, colonel of the Croatian army and guardsman)
But then all these different savages appeared, so to speak.
I don't know.
I don't want to compare them to any animal, as not to offend the animal.
With the help of locals they found out in which houses the Croats lived.
So, unfortunately, on September 15, 1991, my parents were slaughtered in their house,
because some of the locals revealed that I was in the Croatian National Guard.
They couldn't catch me.
Who knows what would have happened to me if they had.
Even if someone had come from Belgrade and seen those two old people in the basement,
they wouldn't have known who they were.
But one of the locals had pointed their finger...
As our late doctor Njavro said:
"The finger was more dangerous than the rifle, than the bullet."
So, that – the betrayal.
Unfortunately, it didn't just happen to me,
but also to the Sučić family, the Potočićs, the Timanovacs.
They went zigzag, from house to house and committed crimes
that can not be washed off, even then in those days.
Although the killers of Antun Dugan's parents are known by name,
up to this day they are still on the loose.
(Dragan Pjevač, lawyer)
After 10-11 years, by the court's ruling we were awarded a certain compensation.
At the end, we received the court's decision that all of this was rejected
and that we, as families, had to pay...
My brother Dane, who is a subtenant, has to pay 3,000 Euros,
and all of us together around 12,000 Euros.
This is additional trauma of injustice for the victims.
This is an example of what victims face.
My example is just one of many injustices experienced
by citizens
of the Muslim faith, the Bosniacs, Albanians and Croats...
Mirko Norac in Croatia was sentenced to a minimal penalty of seven years in prison
for failing to stop and encouraging the killing of four civilians,
and for plundering the property and killing and torturing
of a war prisoner during the Medak Pocket Operation.
This sentence was reduced by the Supreme Court to six years.
According to the same verdict, Rahim Ademi was freed of all charges. Both of them are free today.
No one was held responsible for the killing of Dragan Pjevač's mother.
Twenty years later, the impression is that the standpoints of dominant religions
towards the past conflicts, crimes and the past have grown further apart.
Selectivity prevails in collective remembrance.
There are no records of an Orthodox priest visiting the cemetery in Srebrenica, nor an imam visiting Bratunac.
Operation Storm, in which more than 200,000 Serbs were evicted,
remains without a critical reflection from the Church of the Croats.
On the contrary, it was justified on several occasions,
and today many religious leaders publicly support right wing nationalist and populist ideas.
Certain Orthodox and Catholic bishops and priests
still retain the national-political narratives that only deepen the existing divisions.
A selective approach to conflicts prevails.
(A Catholic priest speaking)
I cannot forgive Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović for stating that the Croatian state, the independent state,
was not independent and that it was a criminal state.
Who can claim that the present Croatian state is more independent than the one from 1941-45?
And if she had to say that in front the Americans, then I ask her
– Why didn't you say that it wasn't us Croats who dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
neither did we bomb Dresden or Hamburg.
Who did we kill outside of our own borders?
Enough of throwing stones at ourselves.
Enough about what had happened in the past, during the two presidents
who were presidents of an anticroatian state.
I am glad our guardsmen finally got their minister,
a minister who was not an advisor to either of the two presidents,
a minister who did not graduate in Kumrovec or Bileć.
(Alen Kristić, theologian and editor of the magazine Concilium)
If we were to discuss the fundamental task of the religious communities,
than their place would be in the trenches.
And if we go back and see that there were no religious dignitaries in the trenches,
that there were no local religious officials in the trenches,
that there were no responsible religious individuals,
then, unfortunately, we must conclude that the religious communities have failed.
They did not perform their fundamental task, the prophetic one.
It may seem idealistic for many that they should be the force in the trenches.
Epilogue
The question is whether the dignitaries of the dominant religions can find a common language
and uplift the victims beyond mere selectivity
and put the places of bloodshed in a context of an inclusive culture of remembrance
where they truly belong?
Our collective conscience must come to a point where we realize
that it is necessary to first speak about the crimes committed by the members of our own nation
and thus follow the path of collective responsibility and the culture of remembrance.
The reciprocity of collective remembrance implies that
the parties that committed crimes against our people do the same.
This is the only possible way to lift the victims of past conflicts
beyond the attributes of the national and religious,
and make them holy to us all and not only to the members of a certain religious and ethnic identity.
Everything else is mere selectivity and bias that re-sacrifices the dead on the altar of nationalistic,
ideological and political interests, setting a stage of horror for the next generation.
(Aleksandar Đakovac, priest of the SOC and professor at the Orthodox Theological Faculty)
From our perspective, it is our duty as Christians to work sincerely on reconciliation,
to work sincerely on surpassing these past conflicts, and perhaps those that could ensue.
For this is the only way we can stay true to ourselves, Christ, and the Gospel.
If we don't do that, or if we won't, if we neglect it out of fear, interests or other reasons,
then, I'm afraid, we will compromise our churchiness.
Being the church of God is not something we have received to keep for ourselves.
When the Lord speaks about Christians as being the salt and light,
he says "take care that the salt doesn't lose its saltiness".
So, if we lose our saltiness and start worshipping other gods than Christ who is God
and in whom there is neither Greek nor Jew, neither male nor female,
neither slave nor free, but we are all humans in Him.
If we don't proclaim him the way he revealed himself,
and instead start proclaiming a different gospel,
then we will exclude ourselves from the reality that is called the Church of Christ.
If we, as Christians - I'm speaking from our Christian perspective here -
if we would understand this, in spite of all the difficulties that are very real,
then our faith could be a sufficient motive for us not to act according to some historic laws or events,
but to make a real contribution towards peace and reconciliation.
Among other things, as a part of the road to reconciliation,
we should support the naming of the victims,
so that each person's name and destiny would be known and kept.
However, this will be possible only if all of us relinquish the instrumentalization of victims.
(Miroslav Keveždi, philosopher and religiologist)
...it is important for opposing parties to come together and reach a consensus on certain facts.
Firstly, we need to establish the facts and then move into interpreting them.
Interpretation without facts can only lead to new conflicts and various rash and thoughtless moves.
Facts first, and then everything else, meaning the facts that we establish together.
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