(Vasa Miskin St massacre)
1. Were where you were when you realize that war is inevitable?I was all the time in Sarajevo. I never imagined that it was possible, war in Sarajevo. When the conflicts with the first street battles, I thought that the incident occurred, which will pass within a few days, and then for several weeks, months and years it continued ... and then you are being totally unrealistic to the fact that you're surrounded, you're in the epicenter of the war, the way you're used to in the cinema watching war movies.
2. Do you remember where you were from the beginning of the war?01.April 1992 and I returned from a film festival in Belgrade. The very next day the airport was closed.
3. Where were you when the war is affecting you and city?I was in Sarajevo. participated in demonstrations (for Bosnia) in front of parliament.I testified when the sheep SDS (Serbian Democratic Party) opened fire on demonstrators. I lived in the street (Trieste) by four years under siege by Serbian snipers kept firing.
4. The most striking moment of the war was for you ...?Pink stains on the washer. My father happened to be there, in the time of massacre on Vaso Miskin street! He helped wounded people, and returned home soaked in blood. He washed his shoes, and placed them on the top of the washer. Pink drops were falling off of the shoe laces( blood mixed with water), on the white washer surface, then he said to me and his son in law" I am sixty two years old, and I lived enough". Starting tomorrow, I will be going outside( to bring food and water)! You take care of women and children. If anything happens to me, you take responsibility for your families! 5. What do you most contributed to the hopelessness of the war? The vain belief in justice, the international community, UN, NATO. I believed that it would not allow "povampirenje"blood sucking fascist vampires.
6. What gave you hope during the war?families. daughter and husband. I had a strong existential and artistic motivation
7. Have you lost someone close during the war?uncle and some friends
8. Have you been injured during the war?not
9. What was your greatest losses during the war?loss of faith in a just world order and the realization that the world is there anything other than personal interest
10. What was the most difficult period during the war?passivity of the international community on the manifestations of fascism at the time. I think here the aggression of Serbia, Montenegro and Croatian in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
12. After 19 years since the war began, what do you think about everything that happened?There was an aggression occurred, fascism, genocide happened
13. Are things better or worse than what you might have expected 20 years ago?all the worse. I could not imagine that things could be so much bad. The Dayton agreement stopped the war, and then destroyed everything, especially about the future.
14. I believe that I would be back in the war?the experience from the 90s, I am not prepared to say that there will be no more war. just know that the state without such a winner and political situation worse than it was a time of war. war we all have "taken away" by 3 years of age. post-conflict situation is abysmal lifetimes. no political scum, which is against Bosnia, it is not eliminated from political life.
15. What future is predicted for BH?Suffering is most accurate word for the future. and this is the only certain thing.11. Did you I would leave during the war?several times I've traveled abroad, organized by the "open society", promoting the documentary film that I shot with my colleagues during the war in production "saga" in Sarajevo.
"I testified when the sheep SDS (Serbian Democratic Party) opened fire on demonstrators. I lived in the street (Trieste) by four years under siege by Serbian snipers kept firing."
ReplyDeleteI was told that the snipers were Bosniak and that Jusuf Prazina and the Bosnian Muslim Green Berets were involved. And that Jusuf Prazina, an ex-con gangster with a limp, bragged about it. Isn't there some footage which shows him in the area?
UN soldiers have testified that the Bosnian Muslim army did use buildings in the infamous "Sniper's Alley". They knew Serbs would automatically get blame.
You also fail to mention the Bosnian Muslim "Celo" who opened fire on Sarajevo Serbs celebrating a wedding, serious wounding the groom and killing his father, as the start of the war. After that, Serbs started putting up road blocks and the city became divided.
Serbs documented scores of concentration/torture/beating camps, jails and illegal jails that the Bosnian Muslims had set up in Sarajevo alone - all at the very beginning of the war.
You shouldn't try to justify crimes committed by one side by talking about other unrelated crimes. There's no doubt that it was SDS snipers who fired on the protest, there is footage in Yugoslavia Death of a Nation an interview with Karadzic were he brags about it.
ReplyDeleteYes, the story of the wedding is true, but it wasn't just a wedding in Sarajevo, you need to put it in context. Crimes were already being committed in Eastern Bosnia and in Hercigovina and tensions were running high in Sarajevo and the city was already fragmenting along ethnic lines. The Serbian father of the bride decided to march with the Serbian flag in Old Town waving it around, a clear provocation...He shouldn't have been killed for it but he decided to draw attention to himself and paid the ultimate price for it...
There were crimes committed against Serbs in Sarajevo, there is no doubt...It was a difficult situation for all in Sarajevo during the war, even worse for the Serbs that decided to stay in the city. They should be commended for their courage in such a difficult situation.