UNSAFE AREA Goražde is a documentary project about the Bosnian enclave of Goražde, the only city in Eastern Bosnia that was not conquered by the Bosnian Serb Army during the 1992-95 war. The aim of this project is to collect war memories, explore archives, interview war veterans and different members of the civil society who defended their city from the aggression. This project is lead by Kuma International – Center for Visual Arts from Post-Conflict Societies based in Sarajevo.
We started working on the project during the winter 2017 and made four trips there since. We conducted more than 20 interviews, and collected hundreds of text, video and photo archives from the war time.
We need your support to be able to go back to Goražde and continue with the interviews, to finance a professional translator and all the post-production work.
If we reach the goal and complete the founding we will be able to also create a website dedicated to the UNSAFE AREA Goražde project. This site aims to create an interactive database that would connect the Bosnian diaspora scattered around the world. Finally, we wish to organize a photo exhibition in Goražde’s cultural centre.
The notion of war aftermath is peculiar in Bosnia because, war never really ended there. During my first journey in 2017, I saw a country struggling to rise from ashes. Ethnical problems that triggered the war have been strengthened by the conflict, carved into the law through the Dayton Peace Agreements (1995) that are still shaping Bosnia’s political life. Thought to resolve the break-up of the three different ethnic communities, this extremely complex political apparatus is now the first impediment to a peaceful and stable resolution of the conflict.
in 1992 Sarajevo the journalist community would speak of a place which was ‘even more frightening than Sarajevo itself’, ‘once not far off but now, with the blockade, unimaginably difficult’, from which rumors of ‘mayhem and rape, of famine and even cannibalism’ would reach the Bosnian capital. While the world was mainly focusing on Sarajevo during the war, Goražde was neglected and slowly forgotten.
The city was one of the six Muslim enclaves, along with Srebrenica, Žepa, Tuzla, Bihać and Sarajevo surrounded and besieged by the Bosnian Serb Army. The population coped with the lack of food, water and electricity and engaged themselves in a fight for survival. They had to defend themselves, without any reliable support from the Bosnian Army. Therefore, after multiple Bosnian Serb offensives, the besieged city was made into a United Nation «Safe Zone» in April 1993, in which the UN was supposed to deter attacks on the civilian population. If Goražde’s inhabitants had followed UN’s recommendations, they might have ended up like Srebrenica, where Ratko Mladić’s forces slaughtered more than 8,000 members of the Muslim community, in only a few days.
At the end of 1995, Goražde was the only town in Eastern Bosnia which was not conquered by the Serbs. Since then, war-related issues – such as missing persons, PTSD syndrome, rapes and the children they gave birth to… – are still timidly broached. The mutism surrounding those issues is restraining the new generation’s wishes to understand and to move forward.
The UNSafe Gorazde Aftermath project strives to set foundations that will allow different communities in Goražde to speak about the war and its aftermath, and to build a collective memory of the war.
Because an amnesic country runs the risk of breeding its darkest episodes.
Because Bosnia’s ongoing struggle with identity might warn us on the danger embodied by nationalistic agendas.
TEAM:
- Fuad Bavcić: born in Goražde, he is a war veteran who defended his city during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.
- Enrico Dagnino : photo-journalist, he covered the war in former Yugoslavia and many other conflicts around the world.
- Quentin Fagart : french artist, he is interested in the religious and political use of images.
- Claudia Zini : born in Italy, she is the founder and director of Kuma International. Art historian and curator, she focuses primarly on artistic positions that engage with war memories and identities. She is a PhD candidate student at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London.
Kuma International is dedicated to visual arts and aesthetics in the aftermath of war and violence, war memories, trauma and identity from post-conflict societies, focusing mainly on Bosnia-Herzegovina and former Yugoslavia.
Thanks for the help you can give to make this project possible. Share it !
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- Bućo’s archive : Photo archive of the Adnan Buco family. This photo album was the only personal item which was not destroyed during the war. For Adnan, it was important to tell to his children the story of his father who fought for Tito as a Partisan soldier during WWII.
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- – Emir Avdić’s archive : Emir Avdić’s photo album from before the war. He is an electrical engineer who helped building hydroelectric power plants in the Drina river during the siege in Goražde.
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- – Old building : Goražde, a building still marked by the war. During the siege, the enemy forces pushed the front line untill the very entrance of town. Due to economic slump, many building still wear the stigmas of the war.
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- ICRC’ form : At Mirsad (Romi) Vodic’s house. ICRC letters were the only way to communicate with other members of his family who fled to Germany during the war. Despite their wish to stay in their homeland, Romi’s generation had to flee because of the war. Due to political and economical standstill, new generations now seeks a better future abroad.
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- – Fuad : Fuad Bavcić on a high ground overlooking Goražde. During war time, Serbian forces used to fire mortar shells on the city from this position. Fuad remains nostalgic of the Yugoslav time, when all communites leaved together peacefully.
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- – Goražde : Before the war, a quarter of the city was Serb. Only few Serb fa-milies came back to their prior homes. Goražde is now predominantly Muslim.
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- – Grebak : The life line trail in the mountains around Goražde. People used it to bring food supplies in, or escape the fightings. The sixty kilometers walk in the mountains through Serbian position was extremely dangerous, not only because of sniper fire or mortar shells, but also because, during winter time, cold nights claimed many lives. Today it is part of the collective war-memory. Schools bring their students there for a walk in remembrance of those difficulties.
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- – Rabia Adilović, Zorović village : Zorović village was a cross-road for refugees and soldiers getting in and out of Goražde. «On the 8th and 9th of April 1992, mortar shells started to fall. I didn’t know what a mortal shell was. On September of the same year, the first refugees arrived in the village on their way out of Goražde. They rested there before the long walk on the Grebak trail. Thousands of refugees passed by this village on their way to safety. We helped them as much as we could. I have 3 sons. All of them soldiers in the war, one of them died.»
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- – Family tomb : Merita Bavcic, visiting her grand-mother’s grave, in Goražde’s cemetery. After the war, the family reunited and settled in Sarajevo, mostly for economical reasons. Still, she often comes back to Gorazde to reflect and reconnect with her family’s past.
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- – Pelam’s rifle : Abduselam Sijerčić, Pelam, a former commander of the Goražde brigade. He’s now building a house on the hills overlooking the city. He never leaves his war-time gun too far. « The siege started in May 1992. We organised ourselves to defend the town. We called friends, collected our hunting guns and fought back, on the left bank of the river Drina. More than 700 people died during that first offensive».
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- – Pelam’s Abduselam Sijerčić, Pelam, a former commander of the Goražde brigade. He’s now building a house on the hills overlooking the city. He never leaves his war-time gun too far. « The siege started in May 1992. We organised ourselves to defend the town. We called friends, collected our hunting guns and fought back, on the left bank of the river Drina. More than 700 people died during that first offensive».
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- – Pontoon : Along the river bank, in the outskirts of Goražde. A small pontoon which served to dock small hydroelectric power plants.
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- – Safet Bavcić : He is the only surviver of an ambush that happened the 17 January 1993, while they were bringing some ammunitions via the Grebak line. Shot twice, he managed to hide until a muslim brigade saved him the next day. In Bosnia, wounded veterans are not protected by welfare measures. Recently, old veterans protested to obtain a raise of their pension up to 325 KM per month (190 $).
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- – Professor Mumanco Sijercić : Now retired, he was a history teacher in Goražde. «22 of May 1992 : I was not at home, I went with my son to buy a sheep for Bajram, the evening the checkpoint prevent me to come back home. The next day, war begins and I started to cry. At home, I left my wife, my sister, my mother. I was only able to come back two months after, walking in the mountain with my son. I found my house burnt down, my brother killed and three other family members burnt alive. The others fled. I did not hear from them until 1994, when I heard some were in Tuzla and others in Austria.»
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- – Romi’s Diary : Mirsad Vodic, Romi, a former scout from the Bosnian army. During the war, he used to take columns of refugees out of Goražde via the mountain trails of Grebak and take back food and ammunition in the besieged town. «I kept a journal for the whole duration of the war, writing also poems and songs to escape the horrors of the war.» He is about to publish his diary for the benefit of the young generations.
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- – Safet Bućo & Merita Bavcić : Both were refugees during the war. Merita was evacuated by helicopter in 1994 when she was two years old and Safet fled to Germany with his mother and sister. He is now a musician and Merita is a sevdalinka singer – sevdalinkas are traditionnal bosnian songs. The younger generations are slowly opening a dialogue with their parents regarding the war.
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- – Under the bridge : Gorazde’s ‘under-bridge’. During the war, crossing the town’s main bridge became too dangerous because of Serbian snipers and mortar shells. The citizens of Gorazde built an ‘under-bridge’ to cross the Drina river safely. At night, youngsters often come here to hang around.
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- – Bajram : Merita’s grandmother family house on the hills. During the war, her family hid in the basement for a year before fleeing Goražde.
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- – Homage to Tito : Mirsad Vodić, Romi, a former scout from the Bosnian army, built a memorial as an homage to Josep Broz “Tito” on a hill overlooking the Drina river valley. «In Gorazde, before the war, Serbs, Muslims and Croats lived together. When Tito died, all suddenly changed. We killed each other for no rea-son.» Since the end of the war, nostalgia regarding Tito’s era is the only remai-ning common ground between all communities.
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- – Trio : Fuad Bavcić, Mesha and Mirsad Vodic, Romi, on the top of the Borovać front line. They are recalling the days when they had to take the 60 kilometres walk to help their town to survive. Mesha did it 99 times during the war. After the war, each of them had to find a way to cope with their war trauma in a context of economical and political hardship.
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- Old Trench : Borovać front line, 1460 meters high. The trenches are still visible scars on the landscape. This Bosnian Army outpost was vital to keep the Grebak life line open and get food and army supplies into the besieged town of Goražde. Due to the lack of fundings, Bosnia still has one of the most severe land mines problem in the world.
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- – Trio : Fuad Bavcić, Mesha and Mirsad Vodic, Romi, on the top of the Borovać front line. They are recalling the days when they had to take the 60 kilometres walk to help their town to survive. Mesha did it 99 times during the war. After the war, each of them had to find a way to cope with their war trauma in a context of economical and political hardship.
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