Bosnia And Herzegovina Quotes

During the war, a battle was fought here, not only for the creation of a new Yugoslavia, but also a battle for Bosnia and Herzegovina as a sovereign republic. To some generals and leaders their position on this was not quite clear. I never once doubted my stance on Bosnia. I always said that Bosnia and Herzegovina cannot belong to this or that, only to the people that lived there since the beginning of time.

Pretjerano čitanje ne čini nas pametnijim. Neki ljudi jednostavno 'gutaju' knjige. Oni to čine bez onih neophodnih intervala razmišljanja, koji su potrebni da se pročitano 'svari', preradi, usvoji, razumije. Kod čitanja lični doprinos je potreban kao što je pčeli potreban 'unutrašnji' rad, pa i vrijeme, da sakupljeni cvijetni prah pretvori u med.

I realize that what happened in Bosnia could happen anywhere in the world, particularly in places that are diverse and have a history of conflict. It only takes bad leadership for a country to go up in flames, for people of different ethnicity, color, or religion to kill each other as if they had nothing in common whatsoever. Having a democratic constitution, laws that secure human rights, police that maintain order, a judicial system, and freedom of speech don't ultimately guarantee long lasting peace. If greedy or bloodthirsty leaders come to power, it can all go down. It happened to us. It can happen to you.

recent response to the atrocities in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Rwanda: while thousands have died almost unbelievably cruel deaths, the entire world has watched CNN and wrung its hands.

That war [Bosnian war] in the early 1990s changed a lot for me. I never thought I would see, in Europe, a full-dress reprise of internment camps, the mass murder of civilians, the reinstiutution of torture and rape as acts of policy. And I didn't expect so many of my comrades to be indifferent - or even take the side of the fascists. It was a time when many people on the left were saying 'Don't intervene, we'll only make things worse' or, 'Don't intervene, it might destabilise the region. And I thought - destabilisation of fascist regimes is a good thing. Why should the left care about the stability of undemocratic regimes? Wasn't it a good thing to destabilise the regime of General Franco? It was a time when the left was mostly taking the conservative, status quo position - leave the Balkans alone, leave Milosevic alone, do nothing. And that kind of conservatism can easily mutate into actual support for the aggressors. Weimar-style conservatism can easily mutate into National Socialism. So you had people like Noam Chomsky's co-author Ed Herman go from saying 'Do nothing in the Balkans', to actually supporting Milosevic, the most reactionary force in the region. That's when I began to first find myself on the same side as the neocons. I was signing petitions in favour of action in Bosnia, and I would look down the list of names and I kept finding, there's Richard Perle. There's Paul Wolfowitz. That seemed interesting to me. These people were saying that we had to act. Before, I had avoided them like the plague, especially because of what they said about General Sharon and about Nicaragua. But nobody could say they were interested in oil in the Balkans, or in strategic needs, and the people who tried to say that - like Chomsky - looked ridiculous. So now I was interested.

My quarrel with Chomsky goes back to the Balkan wars of the 1990s, where he more or less openly represented the "Serbian Socialist Party" (actually the national-socialist and expansionist dictatorship of Slobodan Milosevic) as the victim. Many of us are proud of having helped organize to prevent the slaughter and deportation of Europe's oldest and largest and most tolerant Muslim minority, in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in Kosovo. But at that time, when they were real, Chomsky wasn't apparently interested in Muslim grievances. He only became a voice for that when the Taliban and Al Qaeda needed to be represented in their turn as the victims of a "silent genocide" in Afghanistan. Let me put it like this, if a supposed scholar takes the Christian-Orthodox side when it is the aggressor, and then switches to taking the "Muslim" side when Muslims commit mass murder, I think that there is something very nasty going on. And yes, I don't think it is exaggerated to describe that nastiness as "anti-American" when the power that stops and punishes both aggressions is the United States.

Life is a game where nobody wins. .. except for those who believe and do good deeds. . . (Qur'an 103:3).” via > book> Notes from Prison ― Alija Izetbegović, the first President of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992) and the author of several books, most notably " Islam Between East and West " and " Islamic Declaration ".

Hitherto, the Palestinians had been relatively immune to this Allahu Akhbar style. I thought this was a hugely retrograde development. I said as much to Edward. To reprint Nazi propaganda and to make a theocratic claim to Spanish soil was to be a protofascist and a supporter of 'Caliphate' imperialism: it had nothing at all to do with the mistreatment of the Palestinians. Once again, he did not exactly disagree. But he was anxious to emphasize that the Israelis had often encouraged Hamas as a foil against Fatah and the PLO. This I had known since seeing the burning out of leftist Palestinians by Muslim mobs in Gaza as early as 1981. Yet once again, it seemed Edward could only condemn Islamism if it could somehow be blamed on either Israel or the United States or the West, and not as a thing in itself. He sometimes employed the same sort of knight's move when discussing other Arabist movements, excoriating Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party, for example, mainly because it had once enjoyed the support of the CIA. But when Saddam was really being attacked, as in the case of his use of chemical weapons on noncombatants at Halabja, Edward gave second-hand currency to the falsified story that it had 'really' been the Iranians who had done it. If that didn't work, well, hadn't the United States sold Saddam the weaponry in the first place? Finally, and always—and this question wasn't automatically discredited by being a change of subject—what about Israel's unwanted and ugly rule over more and more millions of non-Jews? I evolved a test for this mentality, which I applied to more people than Edward. What would, or did, the relevant person say when the United States intervened to stop the massacres and dispossessions in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo? Here were two majority-Muslim territories and populations being vilely mistreated by Orthodox and Catholic Christians. There was no oil in the region. The state interests of Israel were not involved (indeed, Ariel Sharon publicly opposed the return of the Kosovar refugees to their homes on the grounds that it set an alarming—I want to say 'unsettling'—precedent). The usual national-security 'hawks,' like Henry Kissinger, were also strongly opposed to the mission. One evening at Edward's apartment, with the other guest being the mercurial, courageous Azmi Bishara, then one of the more distinguished Arab members of the Israeli parliament, I was finally able to leave the arguing to someone else. Bishara [...] was quite shocked that Edward would not lend public support to Clinton for finally doing the right thing in the Balkans. Why was he being so stubborn? I had begun by then—belatedly you may say—to guess. Rather like our then-friend Noam Chomsky, Edward in the final instance believed that if the United States was doing something, then that thing could not by definition be a moral or ethical action.

If the international community is not ready to defend the principles which it itself has proclaimed as its foundations, let it say so openly, both to the people of Bosnia and to the people of the world. Let it proclaim a new code of behavior in which force will be the first and the last argument.

The deepest, most important question the human mind ever asked itself, the most important question ever asked, is : Why does something exist, rather than nothing? Or : why does something exist at all? For me, this is the fundamental question of ontology. via > Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988. Alija Izetbegović, the first President of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992) and the author of several books, most notably " Islam Between East and West " and " Islamic Declaration ".

Children lost their arms, legs, and eyes While foreign governments fed us blatant lies Bodies laid on the street, frozen to death While some foreign teenagers took crystal meth

My father was shot in his ankle by a Chetnik And my mother was 2 inches away from death I could have easily become an orphan And suffered endlessly until my last breath

We were trapped, we were completely caged Some of my mother’s good friends were raped This is what went on while war and genocide raged Our dignity, identity, and layers of skin were scraped

But old tensions and enmities persisted. Britain’s King George V loathed his cousin Kaiser Wilhelm II, Germany’s supreme ruler; and Wilhelm, in turn, envied Britain’s expansive collection of colonies and its command of the seas, so much so that in 1900 Germany began a campaign to build warships in enough quantity and of large enough scale to take on the British navy. This in turn drove Britain to begin an extensive modernization of its own navy, for which it created a new class of warship, the Dreadnought, which carried guns of a size and power never before deployed at sea. Armies swelled in size as well. To keep pace with each other, France and Germany introduced conscription. Nationalist fervor was on the rise. Austria-Hungary and Serbia shared a simmering mutual resentment. The Serbs nurtured pan-Slavic ambitions that threatened the skein of territories and ethnicities that made up the Austro-Hungarian empire (typically referred to simply as Austria). These included such restive lands as Herzegovina, Bosnia, and Croatia. As one historian put it, “Europe had too many frontiers, too many—and too well-remembered—histories, too many soldiers for safety.

I barely escaped Sarajevo in one piece Chetniks looked directly at my mother They were eager to kill us like mice She saw their evil eyes, as cold as ice They wanted to ensure our extinction They wanted to plan our demise But despite their ammunition We were strategic, clever, and wise Imagine being in a situation like that What would you do? What would you think? How would you deal with the intensity Of being afraid to even blink? Think about people that matter to you most What if they became like a distant ghost? What if all your friends, family, and favorite things Suddenly became birds with clipped wings?

This questioning of pronouns started in the former Yugoslavia, which after terrible wars between 1991 and 2006 was divided into six republics: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia. In that environment of war and hypermasculinity, patriotism was made up of a mixture of nationalism, patriarchy, and misogyny. Masculinity was defined by power, violence, and conquest. Women and girls from one’s own group had to be protected—and impregnated to provide children for the nation. Those on the enemy’s side were systematically raped and tortured, both to impregnate the women and humiliate the men.

The Dragons of Bosnia-Herzegovina was the satan that Nigeria's Super Eagles was to confront in the second group game.

The three-finger salute was flashed by Serbs To signify their hatred and nationalistic pride They shot at us repeatedly until we died We cried over and over again, we couldn’t even hide

I stand by the mothers of Srebrenica I know that Chetniks are a violent herd I think that the entire world should know that Serbs tried to ensure the truth was blurred

I stand by the mothers of Srebrenica I know that Chetniks are a violent herd I think that the entire world should know that Serbs tried to ensure the truth was blurred

The organization of Human Rights Watch spoke the truth About how the Serbian Radical Party launched a campaign Intended to undermine the July 1995 Srebrenica genocide and crime By spinning stories which degraded Bosniaks, Chetniks are such slime

The United Nations lied directly to our face They said that Srebrenica was a safe zone But clearly they did not protect us at all Judging by the number of bodies and bone

Graffiti showed the text of a Dutchbat UN soldier Who said that Bosnian women had no teeth He thought they smelled like shit and had mustaches, too It seemed that evil took over and shared its view

A member of the Red Berets spoke openly About how starving Bosniaks in Srebrenica Was like a cat and mouse game to play It was how nationalism continued to slay Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Karremans and General Ratko Mladić Were seen drinking a toast together to celebrate All of the innocent lives that were destroyed All of the Bosniak heads that were on a plate

Mladen Grujičić became the Mayor of Srebrenica He is an ethnic Serb that spreads vicious poison He said that genocide never happened there Why is there no justice for Bosniaks? This is unfair!

Miloš Milovanović, a former commander of the Serbian Guard Who represents the Serbian Democratic Party in Srebrenica Stated that the entire Srebrenica massacre was a lie He called it propaganda, as if Bosniak people didn’t die

Why were so many painful tears shed? Why were so many babies not fed? Why did Serbs have to throw darts? Why were Bosnian bodies torn into parts?

I’m sick of the oppression, constant trauma, and despair I’m sick of seeing innocent people have to live in fear Being heroic needs to become common, not something rare Otherwise war, genocide, and hate will always be near

Nura Alispahić, the mother of Azmir, had her entire family killed Her husband (Alija) and her two sons (Admir and Azmir) are all gone In addition to her brother, 12 of her nephews, and five brother-in-laws Everyone was wiped out from the face of the Earth, their destiny was drawn In addition to all of the hell that she went through Nura’s daughter died after the Bosnian War because of intense grief Why do Serbs get to do whatever they want to Bosniaks? But then receive prison sentences that are very brief?

Serbs murdered Safet Fejzić, Azmir Alispahić, Sidik Salkić As well as Smajil Ibrahimović, Dino Salihović, and Juso Delić These killers called themselves the Scorpions to display power They thought they were gods, that they ruled society’s tower There is a video online that shows the brutality of this crime How a Serbian Orthodox priest blessed them to show support These Serbs were so confident that Chetniks would win the war They thought that they would never see the inside of a court The cameraman of the Scorpions massacre video was disappointed Because the camera’s battery was almost out Can you imagine the level of evil that lived inside them? This is why good people have to fight against such scum

In another such instance I witnessed a classmate ruthlessly declare to my entire class, “All Bosnians should have been killed in the war”. He was an Albanian Catholic who openly supported Serbs, hatred of Muslims, and genocide. He also enjoyed pointing out that my father was a “weakling” next to his father because my father worked as a security guard (despite having a college degree) while his father worked for a reputable company and made more money despite not having any education. He wanted to emphasize how much more powerful he and his family were than me and my family.

Please remember the heroes of the Bosnian War Like Izet Nanić, Safet Hadžić, and Mehdin Hodžić Who bravely ventured into situations that were unknown Risking their safety in the middle of a war zone Sing this powerful song for everyone to hear Sing so that the stories of Bosnians are clear and loud Pound your fists on the table and declare That justice must be firm, strong, and proud!

For some, their childhood began in World War II And old age ended with the Bosnian War They tried to run from their horrible past They wanted their heartache to pass by fast

Bosnia and Herzegovina went through hell Terror and evil ruthlessly charged through As snipers shot at heads and grenades fell The lives of Bosnians took on a dark view

More examples included Polish Catholics bullying and physically assaulting Bosniaks. Some Polish students slammed tables into the pelvises of Bosniaks to crush them. If a Bosniak child sat down to read a book or eat a meal, Polish students would put their feet on the back of Bosniak children to display their dominance. They would tear, break, and destroy the belongings of Bosniak children (books, backpacks, glasses, jackets, etc). Some of them even pushed Bosniak kids down long flights of stairs.

Furthermore, parents of these bullies also bullied Bosniak children by hitting Bosniaks with their purses (and other personal belongings) as they walked by them. These parents shoved into the shoulders of Bosniak children to make them suffer. Despite such tragic events, Bosnians face Serbian Chetniks and nationalistic Croats who publicly declare that they want to commit another genocide.

Serbian Nationalism and the Origins of the Yugoslav Crisis, Peaceworks No. 8, United States Institute of Peace, 1996 by Vesna Pesic The sheer complexity of the former Yugoslavia's current crisis has supported numerous interpretations of its origins. One explanation that has acquired a certain currency is "nationalism as a power game," which views the main cause of the Yugoslav crisis as an ideology (in the sense of "false consciousness") of "aggressive nationalism," perpetuated by members of the old nomenklatura who seek to preserve their threatened positions of power in the face of democratic change. … The problem with this approach is that it treats the "national question" as an epiphenomenon of the struggle to preserve power and privilege. In doing so, it forgets that political battles in Yugoslavia have almost always developed around the "national question." Such an understanding of nationalism as "false consciousness" discounts the power of national sentiment among the region's ethnic groups. … By its very nature, Yugoslavia has never had a staatsvolk ("state-people") that could "naturally" dominate by its numbers and serve as the foundation on which a modern nation-state could be built. (As members of the most populous national group, Serbs constituted only 40 percent of the total Yugoslav population.) … An aggressive Serbian nationalism broke the thin thread holding together Yugoslavia's nations in a compromise arrangement, pushing toward an extreme solution of its national question through threats and warmongering: Either Yugoslavia's various nations would accept Serbia's vision of a "normal," unified state that served Serbian interests, or Serbs from all the republics would "join together" and achieve their national unity by force.

These are the voices of Sarajevo This is the price of nationalism and fear These are the voices of Sarajevo Bosnians lost everything they held dear

We were trapped, we were completely caged Some of my mother’s good friends were raped This is what went on while war and genocide raged Our dignity, identity, and layers of skin were scraped

Countless people were traumatized beyond belief They were just looking for a way to escape From the mountains of intense sorrow and grief So that their suffering would become brief

I stand by the mothers of Srebrenica I know that Chetniks are a violent herd I think that the entire world should know that Serbs tried to ensure the truth was blurred

Serbs murdered Safet Fejzić, Azmir Alispahić, Sidik Salkić As well as Smajil Ibrahimović, Dino Salihović, and Juso Delić These killers called themselves the Scorpions to display power They thought they were gods, that they ruled society’s tower

There is a video online that shows the brutality of this crime How a Serbian Orthodox priest blessed them to show support These Serbs were so confident that Chetniks would win the war They thought that they would never see the inside of a court The cameraman of the Scorpions massacre video was disappointed Because the camera’s battery was almost out Can you imagine the level of evil that lived inside them? This is why good people have to fight against such scum

Serb leaders refuse to admit that genocide Is what happened to Bosniaks in Srebrenica Tomislav Nikolić, Dodik, Šešelj, Dačić, and Vulin are an evil crew That call the genocide in Srebrenica untrue

Serb leaders refuse to admit that genocide Is what happened to Bosniaks in Srebrenica Tomislav Nikolić, Dodik, Šešelj, Dačić, and Vulin are an evil crew That call the genocide in Srebrenica untrue

More than eight thousand Bosniak men and boys Were slaughtered mercilessly by Serbs in Srebrenica Who wanted Bosnia and Herzegovina’s land Who murdered in cold blood, it was all planned Mass graves were found on every single corner Because torture is how Chetniks spend their time They wanted to display their dominance over us And commit acts against humanity, their favorite crime

People were lit on fire, little girls were raped Pregnant women had their stomachs stabbed This is how Chetnik minds were shaped This is how they ensured our mouths were taped

I encourage readers to get informed and expand their perspective on war and global events. My life has been profoundly affected by the Bosnian War and genocide. I have made it my life mission to spread awareness about the excruciating impact it had on the lives of millions of Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) and Bosnians. My goal is to honor Bosnian people who were raped, tortured, and murdered from senseless violence. Bosnians have literally gone through every form of degradation from Serbs. They were beaten, harassed, discriminated against, threatened, thrown out of their homes, dismissed from workplaces, had their properties robbed, and had their businesses bombed. In addition, Serbs took passports, driver’s licenses, jewelry (among other valuable items), and money from Bosnian families. Religious institutions were completely obliterated. Villages were raided, pillaged, and burned.

I encourage readers to get informed and expand their perspective on war and global events. My life has been profoundly affected by the Bosnian War and genocide. I have made it my life mission to spread awareness about the excruciating impact it had on the lives of millions of Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) and Bosnians. My goal is to honor Bosnian people who were raped, tortured, and murdered from senseless violence. Bosnians have literally gone through every form of degradation from Serbs. They were beaten, harassed, discriminated against, threatened, thrown out of their homes, dismissed from workplaces, had their properties robbed, and had their businesses bombed. In addition, Serbs took passports, driver’s licenses, jewelry (among other valuable items), and money from Bosnian families. Religious institutions were completely obliterated. Villages were raided, pillaged, and burned.

Serbs frequently used hammers, crowbars, rifles, and kitchen knives to inflict maximum damage on innocent civilians. People had their faces carved out by knives. Even Serb children engaged in beatings and murders of Bosnian citizens.

I think that it is important for everyone to understand the brutality of the Bosnian War. The Army of Republika Srpska (VRS, operated by Serbian Chetniks), The Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA, who transferred from their army and into the Army of Republika Srpska), The Croatian Army (HV), and the Croatian Defence Council (HVO) committed genocide against Bosnians, the majority of them being Bosniaks. Political parties that supported Croatian and Serbian nationalism included the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) and the Serbian Democratic Party (SDS). 90 percent of war crimes were committed by Serb forces while Croats were responsible for 6 percent of war crimes.

Paramilitary units that operated during the Bosnian War included the Serb “White Eagles” (Beli Orlovi) and the “Serb Volunteer Guard” also known as “Arkan’s Tigers” (commanded by Željko “Arkan” Ražnatović, a notorious Serb war criminal). They slit throats of babies and children in front of their parents. Afterwards, the Serb soldiers laughed. The Serbs would take the bloody bodies of the children and put them into the laps of their parents. Children’s heads were thrust onto knives and shown to Bosnians to traumatize them as much as possible.

Serbs also stabbed pregnant Bosniak women in the stomach, cut them open, took babies out of their stomach, and then beat those babies to death in front of everyone. Any Bosnian who survived torture would be forced to sing Serbian songs and then was shot. It was common to cut open Bosnian people from their throat to their stomach. Bosniaks were called “Balija” and “Turks” (derogatory terms for Muslims) by Serbs.

More than 100,000 Bosnians were killed during the war. More than 2.2 million people were displaced. There were more than 677 detention centers and concentration camps where Bosniaks and Bosnians were subjected to agonizing, inhumane, excruciating, and horrifying war crimes and conditions by the Serb forces. Several of these camps held thousands of prisoners. Intellectuals, in particular, were targeted because they are the backbone of society. They drive progress and initiate changes that benefit everyone around them. That is why the Serb forces sought to eliminate critical thinkers so they could conquer Bosnian culture more effectively. More books, movies, TV shows, and songs should discuss the Bosnian Genocide and its effect on Bosnian culture.

Compassion for the victims of the Bosnian Genocide can only be properly developed if people have an accurate understanding of what sorts of experiences someone has gone through. This leads them to realize the gravity of the situation. Please take a moment of silence and read about the atrocities that were committed towards innocent Bosniaks and Bosnians during this war. There is no other place for Bosnians to go but up because to say that we went through hell would be a massive understatement.

May the innocent people who died on the bloody soil of Bosnia and Herzegovina be forever remembered. May the voices of Sarajevo be heard throughout the world. May the mothers of Srebrenica (where 8,372 Bosniak men and boys were killed in cold blood) know that justice and truth is on their side. The forces of good and evil will always exist. The conflict between them shows the contradictions that live in human nature. We must ensure that love conquers hate.

Around 50,000 Bosniak women and girls were raped in the Bosnian War. Some of them were systematically abused and raped in special rape camps. Bosniak women often became pregnant and gave birth to children from rape. Serbs stated that they wanted to “plant Serb seeds” in the wombs of Bosniak women so that the Serbs could gain domination over the region and infiltrate as well as destroy Bosnian culture. Children that were born out of rape were unwanted, lost, and nameless. They often did not know their true identity or family origin. Bosniaks were brutally attacked by Serb forces because Serbs wanted the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The Serbs fought to ethnically cleanse Muslims in the region. This was due to the desire for Bosnian territory as well as religious and ethnic hatred. The extent of the suffering endured by Bosniaks has not been realized to this day. There are Bosniaks that still live in debilitating conditions, extreme poverty, and makeshift refugee tents. Furthermore, some Bosniak rape victims are forced to live next door to their rapists (as they have nowhere else to go) and see them on a daily basis. The level of horrifying injustice is deeply disturbing.

Around two million land mines and unexploded munitions were still littered around Bosnia and Herzegovina after the war. Some of these munitions exist to this day and people frequently lose their lives to them. Bosniaks have lost entire families and generations to the consequences of the evil acts perpetrated by the Serb forces. Prominent individuals have vividly described concentration camps of the Bosnian Genocide as an echo of Auschwitz. In addition to the terror of the Bosnian Genocide, Bosniaks and Bosnians have dealt with intense discrimination, obstacles, hardships, multiple types of stress, trauma, and harassment as refugees and immigrants in foreign countries.

Their university degrees were not accepted. They did not receive the jobs they had prior to the war, often working in dead-end and underpaid positions while barely trying to make ends meet. They called themselves “invisible” due to either being unable to work because of war injuries or having jobs which they were overqualified to do. At work, they were treated like second-class citizens and had to endure hardship because of their socioeconomic status.

Children were forced to translate English to their parents. Their parents had no one to help them understand English. Bosnian children also drove parents to places like work, stores, doctor’s appointments, etc. because of their physical handicaps. Due to a lack of understanding English, their parents could not get a driver’s license. Imagine barely escaping a genocide, going to a foreign country, leaving everything you own behind, having memories of war and murdered family members, your identity practically destroyed, and then having to figure out where grocery stores, department stores, and malls are in an alien culture. Essentially, they did not have resources and access to information that was trivially available to other people around them.

I have personally encountered several Bosnians who shared very negative experiences. Other employees would spew hateful and toxic comments intended to devalue them. They could not tolerate the thought of immigrants and refugees getting bigger paychecks. Many complaints were that Bosnians were easy targets for harassment. Those who harassed them could not pick on people from dominant, powerful, and wealthy socioeconomic classes.

Harassers chose Bosnians because they could not retaliate and had lower socioeconomic power. Bosnians had no one to turn to for support or to get their job back if they lost it. Other employees would turn on Bosnians to ensure their failure. Those employees frequently projected their own personal frustrations upon Bosnians and worsened their suffering. It was impossible to do this with other privileged and powerful social groups as they feared retaliation.

These crises (in addition to trauma endured during the war) led to identity issues, anger, depression, anxiety, physical illness, sleep and dream disturbance, neurological disorders, post- traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), addictive behaviors, eating disorders, attachment issues in personal and familial relationships, developmental delay, phobias, aggression, fear, gender dysphoria, self-harm, learning difficulties and disabilities, psychosomatic disorders, psychosis, and resentment for everything that they endured.

Bosnian Americans are a minority even though they are of European origin and have white skin. They have been systematically oppressed for a very long time by those who support Serbian and Croatian nationalism. They are not formally accepted as a minority, but I think that their horrifying conditions qualify them to be one. Bosnians have not received any “white privilege” and this is particularly true for Bosniaks. I had classmates attack me for being a Muslim. I faced severe xenophobia and Islamophobia. My classmates had the audacity to scream that I would bomb their house.

They went as far as to call me a “terrorist” even though the irony was that they were terrorizing, degrading, and harassing me on a daily basis. They would fake being “afraid” of me and Muslims, but treated me with ferocious hatred and vicious hostility. Their two-faced approach was sickening and a manipulative tactic to avoid getting punished for their evil acts.

I want to stress that Bosniaks received more threats, obstacles, and dangers than other Bosnians because of their Muslim religious identity, which was considered a “hindrance” by bigots. Furthermore, some people could not accept the fact that a white individual could be a Muslim. They thought all Muslims had to be Arabic. This caused Bosniaks to fall into the social category of “Other”.

Being a minority is not just about skin color. Minorities are a group of people who live in a culture where pain, fear, oppression, and poverty overshadow their thoughts and actions. I believe that the definition of a minority needs revision to consider a broader scope of factors so that it more accurately portrays the conditions of people that fit its criteria.

Divorces were common among Bosnians and especially among Bosniaks. Families struggled with new cultures, languages, hostility, memories, inner conflicts, and mental health issues in addition to physical disabilities (lost limbs, gunshot wounds, lips/noses/ears chopped off, etc). They often argued with one another. Some emotionally abused each other out of rage, an inability to cope, diminished empathy, and frustration because there was no other place for them to vent. Some even fought with each other because they could not psychologically handle the traumas of past events. It was common for them to be injured or still have shrapnel from grenades lodged in places where they could not be removed due to a risk of death during extraction.

I recall a few incidents from when I was a little girl in America, of Bosnian boys that I personally knew being mercilessly beat up and having their eyes gouged out by individuals of other social groups. This happened simply because Bosnians were “outsiders” and “unwelcome” in their territory.

It was a common occurrence for Bosnian boys and girls to be physically assaulted. Those social groups lived in the same area for a long time. Bosnians had to fend for themselves because they were often the only Bosnians in that region. This gave a sense of power to the other social groups, but weakened the courage and hope of Bosnians who had to endure such injustice. It was unnecessary, hurtful, intense, painful, hateful, stressful, and pure evil. I am disgusted by those who seek to degrade marginalized, traumatized, and oppressed people.

A recurring theme among Bosnians is that they could not meet other Bosnians in their residential area. They were forced to relocate as refugees to places that would accept them and not because the area was actually positive or healthy for them. This meant assimilation in communities where they were a foreign entity. Problems such as these caused social isolation and pain. It contributed to further fracturing of Bosnian communities by weakening the bonds between them. It also led to individuals not being properly informed about events in Bosnia and Herzegovina and other Bosnian diaspora.

Another theme among Bosnians is that they sometimes avoid speaking to each other because they do not want to talk about the war and how it dramatically affected the quality of their lives. There are so many open wounds, memories, and scars that have directly caused Bosnians to battle with suicidal thoughts and depression. They feel that their entire personality has been destroyed. These thinking patterns have led them to believe that they are “damaged goods”.

One memory stands out in my mind more than the others. My heart breaks from overwhelming angst each time I sadly recall a Bosniak boy I knew. He was a severe drug addict and killed himself because of the trauma of his mother being raped and killed in the Bosnian War. He had no real support system and people he encountered did not show an ounce of compassion or support for him. Situations like this were all too common for Bosniaks in particular because so many Bosniak women were raped during the course of the war. I have a personal connection to this terror because some of my mother’s friends were also raped during the Bosnian War.

My grandmother was almost shot dead Snipers proudly aimed right for her head The world watched us lay in our own blood As Serbian forces threw our bodies in the mud They chopped off heads of Bosnian children And thrust them directly onto a knife So that their mothers felt the unbearable pain Of having lost the meaning to their life

My grandmother was almost shot dead Snipers proudly aimed right for her head The world watched us lay in our own blood As Serbian forces threw our bodies in the mud They chopped off heads of Bosnian children And thrust them directly onto a knife So that their mothers felt the unbearable pain Of having lost the meaning to their life

Dicen del peregrinar que es darle la oportunidad a Dios de demostrarte en pocos días lo que puede hacer en toda tu vida.

santa Clara37 hizo huelga de hambre porque el Papa le dijo que no podía vivir la regla de vida que ella reclamaba para las clarisas38

En este punto hay que decir que la Iglesia jamás haría un juicio positivo mientras las apariciones estuviesen sucediendo, como ocurre en Medjugorje según los videntes. Sí, en cambio, la Iglesia emitiría juicio cuando éste fuese negativo. Las

Todo aquello que huela a costumbres cristianas como el ayuno o la alabanza y la oración, están absolutamente desterradas de la vida ordinaria y natural, de la vida pública de las personas, lo cual es tremendamente chocante en una sociedad en la que la inmensa mayoría de las personas ha entrado en una iglesia, al menos, un día de su vida: cuando fueron bautizados.

In Tuzla, erzählt sie, gebe es Kinder, die noch nie eine Portion Pommes frites gesehen haben. Hach, denke ich, so viel Elend auf der Welt. "Und Sie", frage ich, "schon mal eine Portion Pilav gesehen?" Sie stutzt. "What’s Pilav?" "Fastfood"‚ sage ich. "Landestypisch." Das habe ich von der Menütafel an der Wand in ihrem Rücken abgelesen. Sie wechselt das Thema.

Meine Füße, tastend beim ersten Kontakt mit bosnischem Boden: Alles klar. Trägt.

By 1975, the situation had become so serious that the Holy See issued a special decree—Romanis Pontificibus—demanding their obedience on this matter; but the Franciscans continued their resistance, and in consequence were penalized with various disciplinary measures. Hence, at the time of the Medjugorje visions, they were in a state of active disobedience to both the local Bishop and Rome, and clearly this was not a happy portent for the future. But in fairness to the Franciscans, it should be said that they had maintained the Faith in Bosnia-Herzegovina during four hundred years of Muslim persecution, when it was cut off from the mainstream Catholic world, and so it is understandable that a spirit of self-reliance should have developed amongst them. The tragedy was that self-reliance turned into stubbornness, and stubbornness into open disobedience.

In 1878, Bosnia and Herzegovina were liberated from the Turkish yoke, and came under Habsburg rule. Three years later Pope Leo XIII issued a bull establishing the authority of the secular clergy, and a new hierarchy was set up, with the Franciscans of Bosnia and Herzegovina losing their privileged position. This is the modern origin of the disputes between the Franciscans and the secular clergy, which have dominated Church life in Bosnia-Herzegovina in recent years, the so-called “Herzegovina problem.

Finché l’uomo vive nel suo ambiente e in condizioni normali, gli elementi del curriculum vitae rappresentano per lui periodi importanti e svolte significative della sua vita. Ma appena il caso o il lavoro o le malattie lo separano dagli altri e lo isolano, questi elementi di colpo cominciano a scolorirsi, si inaridiscono e si decompongono con incredibile rapidità, come una maschera di cartone o di lacca senza vita, usata una volta sola. Sotto questa maschera comincia a intravedersi un’altra vita, conosciuta solo a noi, ossia la “vera” storia del nostro spirito e del nostro corpo, che non è scritta da nessuna parte, di cui nessuno suppone l’esistenza, una storia che ha molto poco a che fare con i nostri successi in società, ma che è, per noi, per la nostra felicità o infelicità, l’unica valida e la sola davvero importante. Sperduto in quel luogo selvaggio, durante le lunghe notti, quando tutti i rumori erano cessati, Daville pensava alla sua vita passata come a una lunga serie di progetti audaci e di scoraggiamenti noti a lui solo, di lotte, di atti eroici, di fortune, di successi e di crolli, di disgrazie, di contraddizioni, di sacrifici inutili e di vani compromessi. Nelle tenebre e nel silenzio di quella città che ancora non aveva visto ma in cui lo attendevano, senza dubbio, preoccupazioni o difficoltà, sembrava che nulla al mondo si potesse risolvere né conciliare. In certi momenti gli pareva che per vivere fossero necessari sforzi enormi e per ogni sforzo una sproporzionata dose di coraggio. E, visto nel buio di quelle notti, ogni sforzo gli sembrava infinito. Per non fermarsi e rinunciare, l’uomo inganna se stesso, sostituendo gli obiettivi che non è riuscito a raggiungere con altri, che ugualmente non raggiungerà; ma le nuove imprese e i nuovi tentativi lo obbligheranno a cercare dentro di sé altre energie e maggiore coraggio. Così l’uomo si autoinganna e col passare del tempo diviene sempre più e senza speranza debitore verso se stesso e verso tutto quello che lo circonda.

—Vamos a suponer que el libro lo lee la madre, la novia o la hermana de un chico que está metido en la droga, como estuviste tú. ¿Quieres aprovechar este medio para decirles algo? Seguro que todos aprendemos. —¡Amadle! Estad seguros de que en él existe el bien. Pero existe un camino que tiene que recorrer antes para demostrar ese bien. Él necesita una ayuda concreta. Al chico que vive en el mal, si queréis amarle de verdad, abandonadle un tiempo para su bien. Si es un chico que se aprovecha de su familia o de la gente para llegar a la droga, mejor echarle de casa y cerrarle la puerta, porque vosotros, de momento, solamente sois para él una fuente de dinero. Hay que aprender a amarle con actos concretos, y eso a veces significa sufrir. —Tú has vivido una cruz muy grande. ¿Qué supone para ti Jesús en la cruz? Tú que has vivido esa cruz, ¿puedes decir que tenga sentido el sufrimiento? —Jesús en la cruz me enseña el camino de la vida… Mira, muchas veces me dijeron: «La cruz es el amor». Sin embargo, cuando siento la cruz, lo que más me gustaría es dejarla, porque duele. Pero soy consciente de que es el único camino verdadero. —¿Qué ha supuesto el fenómeno de Medjugorje para tu vida? —Ha supuesto la conversión de mi vida.

A Mall and Bullet Holes" While walking in the city of Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina, a country devastated and drained by the wars of the global elite, exactly like mine, I arrived at an intersection and noticed a huge mall on the right side… On the left side, there was an old residential building filled with bullet holes that looked like eyewitnesses to all the free death that took place here in a war that has since ended, yet its real causes and the criminals behind it are still lurking in every corner, like infected pus ready to burst at any moment of awareness… I wondered bitterly: When will the world understand that violence never erupts inadvertently, that all violence in our times is premeditated and agreed upon by a small elite that decides in advance that any nation that rejects malls, consumption, and superficiality, must be disciplined with free death for those who resist! It is also agreed upon – and it all costs – that the minds and souls of all survivors must permanently be pierced with bullet holes! In the same intersection, I observed a redhaired elderly woman with sorrowful eyes deep as bullet holes… I then saw a group of youth wearing modern clothes, like those we see in malls… The elderly woman looked at them as if wishing to tell them about all that happened here, but they didn’t notice her existence for their eyes were fixated on their phones… I painfully wondered then: Has anyone told them about what happened here? Can they distinguish the sounds of bombs from those of fireworks? Has this elderly woman, who looked broken and brokenhearted, told them about the real price she’d paid with all the holes left in her heart and her history for the sake of these malls and cheap consumer goods? [Original poem published in Arabic on July 4, 2024 at ahewar.org]

Bosniak civilians were forced to flee their homes due to the constant shelling and army attacks by May 1992. Most of the civilians were taken as prisoners or surrendered to the Serb forces. The residents were then gathered and moved to the prison camps operated by the Serb forces in the surrounding area. Within 3 weeks of the hostile takeover of the government entities, the Serb forces mounted large scale military offense and subsequently started rounding up civilians and moving them to the Omarska camp.

The Bosnian Serb forces operated the Omarska concentration camp to torture, murder, rape, and abuse captured Bosnian civilians, intellectuals, and politicians in northern Bosnia and Herzegovina (Prijedor municipality). The camp held over 7,000 innocent Bosnian civilians as prisoners for more than five months during 1992. Several hundred people died due to constant abuse by the Serb forces including mass executions, starvation, beatings, repeated sexual abuse, and horrifying living conditions. The camp guards frequently cut the throats of the Bosniak captives. Prisoners ate spoiled food found by scavenging for it.

The Republika Srpska governing bodies of the area rejected the idea of building a memorial. Mirsad Duratović, president of the Association of Concentration Camp Prisoners, Prijedor 1992 and the Regional Union of Detainees of Banja Luka, is actively campaigning for a memorial. Survivors of the camp protested at the ArcelorMittal Orbit tower (Property of The Mittal Steel Company) and called it the “Omarska Memorial in Exile” as the company refused to build the actual memorial. The tower is tragically connected to the war crimes in Omarska, as the survivors claim that the bones of the victims are mixed with the iron ore being mined at Omarska. Instead of using its considerable power to heal communities that have helped ArcelorMittal succeed, they chose to play political games and support the regressive local nationalism of Republika Srpska. Susan Schuppli (Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths’ College in London) confirms that ArcelorMittal took a political stance that worsened the persecution and injustice in the Omarska region.

Bosniak civilians were forced to flee their homes due to the constant shelling and army attacks by May 1992. Most of the civilians were taken as prisoners or surrendered to the Serb forces. The residents were then gathered and moved to the prison camps operated by the Serb forces in the surrounding area. Within 3 weeks of the hostile takeover of the government entities, the Serb forces mounted large scale military offense and subsequently started rounding up civilians and moving them to the Omarska camp. The Bosnian Serb forces operated the Omarska concentration camp to torture, murder, rape, and abuse captured Bosnian civilians, intellectuals, and politicians in northern Bosnia and Herzegovina (Prijedor municipality). The camp held over 7,000 innocent Bosnian civilians as prisoners for more than five months during 1992. Several hundred people died due to constant abuse by the Serb forces including mass executions, starvation, beatings, repeated sexual abuse, and horrifying living conditions. The camp guards frequently cut the throats of the Bosniak captives. Prisoners ate spoiled food found by scavenging for it.

Who wouldn't go fight when-according to Milosevic-they are killing Serbs here like flies. Here, the Serbian people is fighting for its survival. True, in the struggle to save their own skin, the Serbs have obliterated one Bosnian town after another. Defending their age-old hearths, they have conquered seventy percent of this country's territory. In order to save ourselves from this imaginary danger, we have made a dozen concentration camps for Muslims all over Bosnia and Herzegovina. Nothing short of a magic wand will erase the poison that Milosevic poured into the heads of the Orthodox people in the Balkans. And the dose is big enough to take us all down by collective suicide.

Pero la Virgen dice: «Empezad a agradecer y decir: Dios, te doy gracias por este don también, y si tienes algo más para darme, lo acepto, pero dame la fuerza para poder con el corazón y con el amor, llevar el don de la cruz».

La Virgen María nos pide que ayunemos, cada miércoles y cada viernes, a base de pan y agua.

«Queridos hijos, con la oración y el ayuno podéis conseguirlo todo. Se pueden detener hasta las guerras». Para eso sirve el ayuno.

Virgen dice: «No podéis ni imaginar qué importancia tiene nuestro sufrimiento en los ojos de Dios».

The Dark Cloud Is the amount of time you spent crying because of the evil you saw in people’s hearts Is the cynicism of people in your past that tried to throw darts Is the darkness of war criminals that wanted to cut you down the middle Is the method that you utilized to solve the very wicked riddle

The Dark Cloud Is the loneliness you go through because isolation is common and friends are not Is the story of 50,000 raped Bosniak women which history forgot Is the intense pressure of being crushed under a pile of mental weight Is the backstabbing ex-boyfriend who took you for granted and compelled you to question the integrity of your relationship, including the first date

It seems relatively uncontroversial that the extra-legal rationale for a right to the truth is strong, as evidenced earlier, precisely because time and time again, specifically in post-conflict situations, the demand for truth has been voiced. Its universality is thus predicated on ordinary victims’ need to know – whether they live in Nepal, Argentina, Lebanon, Bosnia and Herzegovina, or Cambodia. In other words, whilst the need for truth emerges from culturally and politically very diverse situations, it transcends this diversity and stands out as a universal feature of post-conflict societies.

The Russian wars in Afghanistan and Chechnya, the Serbian/Croatian attacks in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the massacres against the Muslim Rohingya in Myanmar, the first Palestinian uprising—these were all cited as proof of a widespread, international conspiracy to exterminate Muslims.