On the occasion of May 9th – Victory Day over Fascism and the Day of Concentration Camp Detainees of Bosnia and Herzegovina – the DECLARATION OF ANTI-FASCIST STRUGGLE’S CONTINUATION (below) was initiated by Women in Black, Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia, Center for Women’s Studies, art collectives Grupa Spomenik (Monument Group) and Working Group “Four Faces of Omarska”. The Declaration is supported by the Association of Concentration-camp Detainees “Prijedor 92” and the Association of Concentration Camp Detainees in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Declaration will be publicly read on May 9th at 12.30 p.m. at the site of the former concentration camp in Omarska (1992), currently the ArcelorMittal mine, and at the site of the World War II camp Banjica, in front of the Musem of the Banjica Camp at Veljka Lukica - Kurjaka 8 in Belgrade.
The act of its simultaneous reading in Omarska and Belgrade is our way of showing both solidarity with and respect to the victims of fascism. Declaration’s reading in Omarska, still an unmarked atrocity site, is an act of active support and participation in the memorial’s establishment.
We invite you to support the Declaration with your signature or to partake in its reading in Omarska or Belgrade and thus confirm your commitment to anti-fascism.
On the occasion of May 9th – Victory Day over Fascism and the Day of Concentration Camp Detainees of Bosnia and Herzegovina, to the public of the Republic of Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina we address the
DECLARATION OF ANTI-FASCIST STRUGGLE’S CONTINUATION
By means of this Declaration we indicate the contemporary politics of the Republic of Serbia which negates war crimes and concentration camps’ existence during the Nineties. This politics annuls the main World War Two heritage – all nations’ equality in the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
National institutions, extreme right-wing organizations and hooligan groups produce and implement this politics of negation, denial and impunity for war crimes thus encouraging violence and hatred.
The history of World War Two is being revised through the political rehabilitation of the Chetnik movement and Draza Mihailovic which leads to equation of fascism and anti-fascism.
Despite understandable cultural and economic needs for linking and affiliation, we condemn the association of the Republic of Serbia and the Republic of Srpska apart from the Bosnian and Herzegovinian context. This association directly undermines the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and hinders the rapprochement of all its nations.
We welcome the public statements addressed during the Karadjordjevo Summit on April 26th, 2011, since they emphasize the necessity of reconciliation, stable relations and normalization in the region.
Our conviction is that no reconciliation can be reached unless we deal with out wartime past. Thus,
We invite the authorities of the Republic of Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Republic of Srpska and Prijedor Municipality – as well as the public of Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and throughout the former Yugoslavia – to support the initiative of the former Omarska concentration camp detainees to establish a memorial centre on the location of the ArcelorMittal mine. The mine is situated in Bosnia and Herzegovina at the site of the former Omarska concentration camp which was established in 1992 by Prijedor’s municipal authorities. More than 3300 citizens of that very municipality were imprisoned and tortured, while it’s estimated that more than 700 were murdered at this camp.
We deem that the civilian suffering at the Omarska concentration camp, and all other concentration camps established during the Nineties’ wars, must be worthily marked on the road to renewed shared existence in the region of the former Yugoslavia and thus become a part of public memory.
In its decision dated December 1st, 2005, ArcelorMittal gave support to the establishment of a memorial centre within the mine. Through their backing of this very initiative, the Republic of Serbia and the Republic of Srpska would clearly show readiness to actively and critically define themselves in relation to the mass crimes systematically committed against non-Serbian civilians.
Additionally, we invite ArcelorMittal to reverse its current discriminatory policy of employment based on ethnicity. This practice represents the post-war continuation of ethnic cleansing through other means.
We demand from the Republic of Serbia to ban and prevent activities of extreme right-wing organizations and hooligan groups which incite and commit violence and promote hate speech in public and media space.
This Declaration affirms anti-fascism of all of the former Yugoslavian nations’ as a common value, a contemporary European society’s achievement and a basis for equality and normalization of human relations in the region.
This Declaration was initiated by:
Women in Black
Working Group "Four Faces of Omarska"
Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia
Art Collective Grupa Spomenik (Monument Group)
Center for Women’s Studies
This Declaration is supported by:
Association of Concentration Camp Detainees in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Association of Concentration Camp Detainees "Prijedor 92"
