Paras Indonesia, September, 28 2005 @ 07:41 am
A Road Toward Reconcialition
As the world commemorates the Srbenica massacre that happened 10 years ago
(July 11, 1995) many people are still trying to heal the mental wounds inflicted by that
massacre, restore damaged relationships, and secure reconciliation. A decade of
Bosnian war had finally come to an end traces of hostilities are still visible on both
sides. Within this kind of social atmosphere there are many people who keep
searching their soul, scrutinizing their conscience, trying to erase whatever feelings of
guilt are still in their minds, a feeling generated by a consciencne that accuses one of
failure to do something that could have helped prevent that inhuman massacre.
On that day, July 11, 1995 Bosnian Serbs massacred more than 7000 Bosnian
Muslims, men and boys, in the town of Srbenica, a town that was declared by United
Nations as a "save area", and was protected by a Dutch contigent of 400 lightly
armed soldiers. This small contigent was totally powerless when it was facing a
Serbian military onslaught led by General Mladic. Requests for air support from NATO
were completely ignored.
Two very important questions arise in this regard, i.e. first, Is there anough admission
of individual and collective guilt on all sides? And second, How can reconciliation be
secured?
According to William H. Montgomery – he was consequtively former ambassador to
Croatia, and later on to Serbia and Montenegro – there is not enough admission of
guilt and indication of remorse on the part of the big parties involved in the conflict.
There is not a single statement of apology, admission of guilt or expression of regret
from those occupying leadership positions within UN Security Council, the
UNPROFOR (the UN Protection Force), or the powerful member states within the UN.
(See William H. Montgomery, "There's enough blame for us all," in International
Herald Tribune, July 12, 2005, p. 6). But there is more than enough pressures on the
parties in former Yugoslavia to admit their guilt and scknowledge their mistakes. This
is unfair and lamentable, since the share of guilt and mistakes on the part of the
international community involved in the conflict is in my understanding not less than
that of the Serbs, the Bosniaks, the Croats, the Montenegro's, and the Albanians in
Kossovo
There are many stories, though, on both sides of the conflict, telling of individu-als
who acted bravely and humanely during and after the conflict. There are also stories
about the humiliations suffered by members of the peacekeeping force when they
were forcibly anarmed by the Serbs and treated as war captives. The story of Lutke
Theo, a Dutch peacekeeper, as told by David Rohde – reported in the International
Herald Tribune, July 11, 2005, p.10 – is very moving.
For Luke and his friends, the humiliation started when after being unarmed by the
Serbs they volunteered to act as unarmed escorts for Muslim women and children
who were expelled from a conflict ara. During the trip he and his friends were forced to
take part in "Muslim hunting" and trick Muslimis into surrendering. This campaign was
led by Serbian soldiers dressed in stolen UN peacekeepers' uniforms, complete with
stolen blue helmets. Lutke and his friends still had to face humiliation when they
returned to Holland. Ths Srbenica massacre created political anger in the
Netherlands, and the Government of the country was forced to resign. Luitke and his
friends from the Dutch peacekeeping force was constantly yelled at by the crowd as
"cowards".
Lutke's unit is now deployed in Southern Iraq. But now it is heavily armed, and has
more autonomy in its actions. And what is more, it is now backed by four Appache
attack helicopters. According to Lutke, "it is nice to feel like a soldier again".
The story about attempts to reach reconcialition is filled with repeated failures,
disappointments, and unfulfilled hopes. It is a story about human efforts to conquer its
own feelings of hatred and prejudices, and to build anew an intergroup relationship
based on trust and personal empathy. A significant achievement in this regard is
reported to be accomplished by two Dutch film directors, Eric van den Broek and
Katarina Rejger. They created "videoletters".
This accomplishement was discused by Alan Riding (International Herald Tribune,
June 8, 2005, p. 2, "Videoletters: Knitting loose ends in Balkans"). The videoletters
project is intended to promote reconciliation among people who had been friends and
then separated and alienated by the bllody nationalist conflict. Tis project seeks to
demonstrate that reconcialiation is possible. In explaining the nature of this project
van den Brook said that "it is about people, and not about politics."
In this project people were offered to send greetings and messages to people once
closed to them, but are now separated. When a person agrees to accept the offer,
then a video recording is made. The next step is to inform the would-be recipient that
there is a message for him or her, but the sender is not disclosed. Only when a
person agrees to see the message then the sender is identified. In many cases these
video message create heart tearing scenes, followed by a request to reciprocate.
Trough these videoletter many people were reunited. Ivana Nicolic, a Serb, was
reunited with Senad, a Muslim boy with cerebral palsy, whom Ivana adopted in a
hospital in Belgrade before the conflict broke out.
Nenad and Rudjer, a blind boy, were inseparable friends in Belgrade. When Rudjers
family was threatened – they are Croats – they moved to Croatia. Ten years later
Nenad sent a videoletter to Rudjer, who is now an organist and composer. Deeply
touched, Rudjer responded and included a brief organ recital in his reply. They are
now reunited.
There are still other stories told by this videaletters project. Not every effort made ends
in a success. There are also failures, and endings that are not so rosy. But the
project has been growing and on the whole it is acclaimed as a promising
undertaking.
Upon reading these stories I cannot help wondering why we can not try to do the
same in our country. The many conflicts that have been taking place recently and in
the past have created so much pain and deapair in the mind of the nation. The
Semanggi case, the Trisakti case, the June 1997 case, the Tanjung Priok case, and
many other conflict cases in Poso, Ambon, and West Kalimantan, have created
dormant feelings of hostility and prejudice in the harts of many people. And these
negative feelings remain unattended. No one admits publicly that he or the group
where he belongs made a mistake in any of those conflicts, and that he or the
organization regrets it.
Shall we always have to limp with our tarnished psyche in our endeavor to make our
society and our culture more humane?
Copyright (c) 2005 - PT Laksamana Global International. All rights reserved
|
