“We cannot forget and forgive, we have to go on living.”
– Faketa Mehmedovic, survivor.
War Crime: Tuzla Massacre
Date: 25, May 1995.
Casualties: ( 311 )
– 71 Killed.
– 240 Injured.
Perpetrators: Serb Army.
20,000 Gather to Mark the Tuzla Massacre
New Straits Times,
May 27, 1996.
p. F (World Section)
TUZLA (Bosnia-Herzegovina), Sun. — About 20,000 people, many sobbing, gathered yesterday to mark the first peacetime anniversary of Bosnia’s worst war atrocity [in this city], the massacre of 71 people by a Serb mortar bomb fired into the city of Tuzla.
Tuzla massacre memorial complex where 49 (of 71) victims were laid to rest.
Sobbing parents and kin of the victims placed wreaths and candles on the small square where the mortar bomb exploded on the evening of May 25, 1995. Former Bosnian Prime Minister Haris Silajdzic and Tuzla Mayor Selim Beslagic joined the mourners.
Roman Catholic Croat, Serb Orthodox clerics and Muslims Bosniaks intoned prayers simultaneously to evoke Tuzla’s multi-communal society which survived pressures of war.
City officials unveiled a stark, four-metre high marble monument to the victims inscribed with verse by Bosniak poet Mak Dizdar:
“Where one does not live only to live, here one does not live only to die, here one dies to live.”
Actors recited poetry as classical music played from loudspeakers in a solemn and touching ceremony.
A mortar bomb fired from separatist Serb-held hills outside Tuzla plunged into its nightlife district when restaurants and cafes were packed, slaughtering 71 mostly young people and wounding scores of others.
The Dayton peace treaty signed seven months later divided Bosnia into a Serb republic and Bosniak-Croat federation. Tuzla, part of the federation, is now th headquarters of 20,000 US troops in a 60,000-strong NATO peace force.
Tuzla was intermittently shelled by Serb forces in the war but was spared close-quarter fighting. It retained a society of multi-confessional tolerance, including moderate local Serbs, unlike other large towns in Bosnia’s war.
Tuzla’s Bosniak-led authorities have published a book dedicated to the first anniversary of the mortar massacre financed with a European Union grant of US $13,000 (RM 32,500).
This is a day of sorrow but the Bosniak people resisted revenge and showed that Bosnia is defended by humanity. The victims who fell here helped bring about the Dayton peace agreement,” said Mayor Beslagic.
“It was horrible, blood and bodies all over the place,” said Faketa Memedovic, 19, a witness.
“I remain an invalid (in mind) although my body is intact. I am haunted by the images of people that perished. We cannot forget and forgive, we have to go on living.”
“I lost many friends in the war. The world stood by and watched for three years,” said Dalida Dizdarevic, 21.
Of the 71 victims, 49 Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs have been buried in a common grave at the wish of their families. — Reuters
Filed under: Genocide Tagged: Bosnian Genocide, Genocide in Bosnia, Serb War Crimes, Tuzla, Tuzla massacre
