There will be no monument or sign showing that the place once was the concentration camp. Omarska, northern Bosnia – the place where thousands were detained and tortured and hundreds killed. At least, not before the 20th anniversary of its establishment next May.

By Nidzara Ahmetasevic, Sarajevo

There are many reasons for this, but it may came down to one – in Bosnia and Herzegovina today there is still no collective sentiment about the events of the Bosnian war or agreement on how to face the past.  “The biggest tragedy is for those who are still alive. The dead can not feel the pain anymore,” is how Kemal Pervanic, former inmate at Omarska, sums it up. 

Business before respect
In 1992, Bosnian Serb forces ran concentration camps in the Prijedor area. Prisoners were Bosnian Muslims and Croats, children, women and men. Over 6,000 people, according to the ICTY, were held at these camps. Omarska was the biggest. It was closed down after a British TV news team discovered it and filmed starving prisoners – footage that shocked the world. After that, some prisoners were exchanged, some were released and many were just moved to other camps and detention centres. Some did not survive.

Most of the places around Prijedor which were turned into camps for non-Serbs during the war, were part of the Ljubija mining complex. Until 2004 these places were half-abandoned, until mining company AcelorMittal bought 51 percent of the complex from the Bosnian Serb Republic.

Mittal began exploiting the mines immediately, even though it was well established that the bodies of more than 1,000 people who were killed in camps were still missing. There was also the huge possibility they were, and some still are, scattered around the property now owned by AcelorMittal.

No non-Serbs
Today the company employs many local people, but according to Amnesty International, employees are rarely non-Serbs. Mittal has done little or nothing to mark the places of mass killings and imprisonment. Its biggest achievement is that it agreed to allow commemoration at the locations of the killings. First of all, only on the day the camps were established and the day they were closed down. Later on, Mittal promised there would be no restrictions to access by the public. The company also promised not to use the so-called White House, one of the buildings inside the Omarska mine that was notorious for the worst horrors that took place inside the camp.

Radovan Karadzic, former Bosnian Serb leader, on trial in The Hague, is accused of crimes at Omarska. In October, one of the protected witnesses talked about Omarska saying how her days used to start “with counting dead people who were thrown out in the front of the White House”.

However, in May this year a group of German students was stopped at the gate entrance. When asked about memorials on the property, Mittal said it was a matter for the local community and that it would do what the locals wanted.
“AcelorMittal is doing business there. We are ready to meet demands by local people, but the land is not ours. We own only objects. We are ready to facilitate whatever the local community decides,” Arne Langner, a company spokesperson said, adding that he is well aware of the “cruelties” that were committed in Omarska and other ‘objects’ that belong today to AcelorMittal.

Hope is all that remains
Local leaders are not keen to talk about memorial sites for those who were killed and tortured in the camps. The mayor refused to respond to emailed questions. The same response was received by other local and international journalists who tried to talk about this issue.
Nevertheless, former inmates are still hoping that something will be resolved and this place will one day be marked as a memorial. But they are disappointed that it will not be possible until after the 20th anniversary of their imprisonment.

Satko Mujagic, from the foundation OPTIMIST 2004, says that the fact that a memorial is not yet built is “shameful”. But he and Edin Ramulic from the association Izvor, do recognise the fact that even victims are not united when it comes to this question. “We are the huge issue here - or better to say, the fact that we are not united in demanding the memorial is the issue,” Satko says.

At the same time, Kemal Pervanic, says that the aim is not to hold the memorial on the 20th or any other anniversary, but to start the process that would lead, eventually, to the establishment of the memorial.
“A memorial of this type should serve to interpret the meaning of the memories through time, with the goal of uniting people and not making them even more distant,” Kemal said. “Nevertheless, this shows how the war in this area is still going on - only different means are being used. Arguments about memorials in Bosnia are often used as tools to create new ethnic divides,” he warned.