With three-year project “How to Reach Truth?” that the Forum of Tuzla Citizens implements with the support of IKV Pax Christi from The Netherlands, on December 7-8, 2007, in Vukovar was held the round table “With Understanding towards Trust – Post-war Renewal of Living Together in Vukovar”.
The basic aim of the round table was to perceive the issues of the post-war renewal of the living together in Vukovar from the perspective of the local politicians, representatives of the religious communities, media, civil society organisations, and citizens. Besides the participants from Vukovar, the invitation letters were sent to the guests from Zagreb, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia.

The total number of 63 participants were invited and 52 of them participated in the round table. It was evident from the presence list that the representatives of the local authorities were absent Having in mind the topic of the round table, it send clear message about the relation of the local politicians towards renewal and improvement of life of the Vukovar citizens. In contrary to that, the respond of the representatives of the religious communities from Vukovar should be praised (Catholic, Orthodox and Islamic religious communities had their representatives). They responded to the invitation and participated in the session dedicated to the contribution of religious communities in establishment of inter-religious and inter-ethnical understanding and strengthening of trust. In addition, media gave very good contribution to the work of the round table. The projection of the movie “Final Cuts” by Dragan Hedl and Marija Molnar was singled out. After projection, the authors of the movie had lively discussion with the participants about the theme of the movie. Representatives of the non-governmental organisations were the most numerous and again, as many times before, they showed that they are the most responsible ones towards the problems that their citizens are faced with.

The introduction to the round tables was given by Mr Ljubomir Mikic on behalf of the host organisation “Centre for Peace Vukovar”. He briefly explained the reasons for holding of the round table.
On behalf of the organisers, welcome speeches were given my Mr Vehid Sehic, the president of the Forum of Tuzla Citizens and Mr Jack Borges from IKV Pax Christi. In his introduction speech, Mr Sehic pointed out that the truth is not part of everyday life and that telling the truth might be life-dangerous. Due to this reason, the idea behind this round table is to try to encourage people to tell the truth, especially in the places, as Vukovar is, where the most terrible crimes happened, no matter how hurtful the truth might be for someone. It cannot be let that the same thing that happened after the World War II happens again, when many truths were hidden, which created the myth that someone in 1990s used to start the war again. Mr Jack Borges said that IKV Pax Christi, as many other peace groups, is trying to support people and initiatives that they believe they have the most chance to involve different people and different sides into the dialogue. That is not always easy, but most of the courageous people stand up and offer help to their neighbours on the other side. That path cannot be found if the obstacle called the speech of truth is not crossed since telling the truth is actually exchange of the opinions of what really had happened.

The introduction to this round table was prepared by Prof. Zlatko Modalek. In several topic clusters, Prof. Modalek gave the overview of what makes the everyday life of Vukovar citizens and difficulties that they meet. “The worst time of xenophobia is behind us. We have reached peace, but peace is more than a moral conviction or a religion that needs to be preached, peace is one hard developing and civilization task that needs to be achieved”, said Prof. Modalek. “Some expected that the moment war ends and peaceful reintegration takes over all things will fall into place, that everyone will live happily. However, that is a long process, because aside physical reconstruction that is being finalized in the sense of building’s reconstruction, the reconstruction of economy is at its beginning. But, more important is the reconstruction of social life, creation of mutual trust among those who have been deeply wounded. History will judge the war and the crimes but what we have to strive for is that coevals judge war criminals. Perpetrators should be held accountable for their crimes, together with those who supported it and those who did not prevent them although they could, i.e. they had to. Unfortunately, only some are brought to justice for crimes committed, no one is held accountable for supporting crimes and the question of responsibility of people who were in a position to prevent crimes remains to be asked. Scars of the recent war could again bring to some new explosion. Any nation that holds more strength to deal with evil committed by an individual belonging to that particular nation will in fact fulfil one key assumption for the future life.”
Through national structure of pre-war Vukovar, Prof. Modalek depicted the specificity of this city. “Before the war, Vukovar was a multi-ethnic town with all its advantages, where 23 different ethnicities resided, out of which, two – Croats and Serbs were equally numerous, but there were also others. Neither back than nor now, there was no ethnically pure family in this town. I personally hoped that this multi-ethnic structure of this town would prevent what eventually happened, but I was wrong. In 1990 it was easy being a Croat in Zagreb and a Serb in Belgrade. Tensions were brought up in Zagreb and in Belgrade, and us in Vukovar suffered the consequences. Vukovar was declared “a victim-town”, but I, as a Vukovarian, would call it a sacrificed town.
Even so, we all agree that we need dialog. But, there is a positive and negative approach towards communication. When we meet someone and say: “What did you do to us?” it ends all communication. Positive approach would be: “It happened, we are both losers, let’s see where we can go from here.” Positive approach achieves communication.”

Speaking about the improvement of common life, which was the topic of the round table, Prof. Modalek pointed out several important domains:
1. Existence
As long as there are a large competition and a struggle for very small recourses within a community, the struggle will be ruthless and people will be joining groups for which they believe would help their existence. At this moment it still seems that grouping according to ethnicity is profitable
2. Traumatised persons
It is very important to work on helping people who lost so much, those who are deeply wounded, in order for them to find that inner peace after all the war atrocities. Traumas cannot be erased, but one can help to prevent them from being used as a “fire-starter” for future conflicts.
3. Non-governmental organizations
The role and responsibility of non-governmental organizations in a capacity of a democracy controller is important. They need to influence international organizations, their own government and local self-governments to systematically resolve reconstruction and status issues such as the health and pension rights, right to work, right to safety and equality.
4. Religion and religious communities
The church as well, should not act only as a force in creating a sense for an individual person and provide comfort in crisis situations, but also as an assisting hand in reconstruction of civil society. The church must fight hatred language and develop language of tolerance, justice, forgiveness and trust.
5. Education
I appreciate and respect the wish of every nation to protect and develop its ethnic identity, but I am not convinced that the best way was chosen when children are being separated one from another right from kindergarten. Other countries have solved it with remedial lessons or in some other ways.

The introduction speech was very stimulating for the participants, so there was discussion right after. The representatives of the non-governmental organisations mostly participated in the discussion. Representatives of the associations of the captured and missing Croatian soldiers, citizens of Vukovar that went through horrors of concentration camps, representatives of women association Vukovar, representatives of returnees’ associations, national minorities, individual citizens of Vukovar, coming from two major ethnic groups, former and present neighbours met face to face, talked to each other and presented their opinions probably for the first time at this round table.

Two topics dominated in the discussion:
1. how to reach truth about the missing persons
2. education model

Several participants, representatives of association “The Mothers of Vukovar” and several more participants of Croatian nationality believe that although the tragic events in Vukovar happened almost 16 years ago, still it is difficult to start a positive dialogue.
For instance, Mrs Marija Molnar said: “Why is it difficult to start a positive dialogue? Because whenever you ask someone something, they say – I do not know… About what, then, we can start positive dialogue? There should be good will on both sides for positive dialogue. As long as there is no good will, and we all pledge that we love Vukovar, it is difficult for us to talk about anything…
The pain for the nearest and dearest is still very strong, which might justify some of the contradictory attitudes, as the attitude of Laslo Landjel is, a person who is determined for Croatian corpus, as he declared himself, however, he is also the president of The Council of Hungarian National Minority for Vukovar city, who said: “…These are very difficult problems, and do not push us to make some kind of quick togetherness. These two men (two participants of the round table) were in the concentration camp, and today they see their executors in the city. That is the naked truth of Vukovar city. Therefore, we will not cry anymore… We forgave to the ones that we wanted to forgive, and we will never forgive to those to whom we do not want to forgive. Never.”
However, there were more tolerant attitudes and opinions. For instance, Mr Glasnovic, representative of returnees’ community of Vukovar-Srem Canton claims: “I live with people, returnees that are everyday with me. They knew to which city they are coming, among what people they are coming, people they lived together before the war, and no one came with an intension for revenge. They came back to the place they previously left. That is natural wish of all people. Today, we work, co-operate, live together, in the factories and in the offices, both Serbs and Croats. There are no incidents and I have to tell you: reintegration was not made by politicians, it was made by people of both nations. He also blames media who, according to him, in the period of peaceful reintegration very often had negative role. Very often sensationalistic headlines could be read in the newspapers, like “Little Serb is not allowed to play football” or “fight among children: Serbs and Croats”. The real image of Vukovar today is that there are conflicts between nations, but significantly less then in any other Croatian city”, concluded Mr Glasnovic.
Speaking about the truth, Mr Glasnovic added: “It isnot shame to tell the real truth. I asked a journalist from Serbian television if he knew about Ovcara in 1991. He said that he knew. I asked him how he reacted. He said that he drank several glasses of alcoholic drink and that he was very confused when he heard that someone had killed 200 ustasha. I asked him if that was the chance to send the message to media, to the whole world, so they know what had happened, so that a Serb in Vranje, Leskovac, Zrenjanin is disgusted over those people who did something that is not at the level of human behaviour. He replied: “How could I publish that, I might have consequences, I might carry the burden of what I said, and I was concerned about my security”.
This reveals another dimension of the quest for truth, the one we face on every step we make in constant search, and that is fear. Fear of punishment, fear of our own people, fear of disgust, and finally fear of truth, although it is paradox that only the truth can provide shelter from fear.
Similar attitudes were presented by Mrs Ruzica Madic, association of women Vukovar and Ms Ana Kvesic, a citizens of Vukovar, who claims that she is in a way hostage of this topic, since the life goes on and with due respect to the dead and the missing that should be found and that someone should be trailed for, some kind of better future must be built.

Problems initiated by the ethnicity that returnees, especially the ones of Serb ethnicity, were also present in the discussion. They cannot be neglected, although those who presented them expressed high level of tolerance, at least in their speeches. For instance, Mr Slavko Bubalo, who’s son was beaten in one of the incidents, told his son: “Son, do not hate anyone, hatred s illness and make sure you avoid it in life.”

In the introductory part of the round table, the education model was just started and it was constant topic of the discussions during two days.
In one of the first discussion about this topic, Mr Bubalo gave proposal that the official language in Croatia should have one name, as it was before. If someone cares about that children go to school together, the reason of the problem should be removed from the very beginning, said Mr Bubalo.
According to the opinion of Mr Zivorad Kovacevic, the important guest from Serbia, who was one of the speakers at the round table, who is also lexicographer, we are speaking one and the same language. His opinion is shared by all serious linguists. Once Krleza gave the formulation that Croato-Serbian is one language that Croats speak Croatian and Serbs speak Serbian… There are bigger differences between British English and American English that between Serbian and Croatian…
The discussion about the language and education was continued in other sessions of the round table.

Two-day work of the round table was continued in four topics:
1. The role of political parties in revitalisation of the local community – moderator: Mr Zivorad Kovacevic
2. The contribution of local media in post-war revival of togetherness in Vukovar – moderator: Mrs Marija Molnar
3. The contribution of the religious communities in establishment of inter-religious and inter-ethnic understanding and strengthening of trust – moderator: Mr Jaroslav pecnik
4. The experiences of the organisations of civil society in implementation of the peace activities and work on establishment of inter-ethnic understanding and strengthening of trust – examples from practice – moderator: Vehis Sehic

1. The role of the political parties in revitalisation of the local community
The short introduction into the first topic was given by Mr Zivorad Kovacevic. It should be pointed out that the representatives of the strongest local political party (HDZ), which are in power in Vukovar, have not participated in the session, i.e. they did not respond to the invitation. Their absence provoked negative reaction of most of the round table participants. They believe that it is good indicator of their relation toward revival of togetherness in Vukovar. Mr Kovac, representative of Society of Intellectuals of Vukovar said: “As much they are interested as much they are present. If the elections in Croatia were not over, they would have been here posing for the photographers. Therefore, we are theirs instrument, they need us only as voters”. The same opinion was repeated by other participants, like Prof. Modalek, Mrs Ruzica Mandic and others.
In the first, short addressing to the participants, Mr Bogdan Rkman, representative of the second strongest party in Vukovar (SDSS) briefly discussed the topic of truth, saying that his presence at this round table is the indicator that his party does not want to neglect some things, but wants to openly talk about them. Also, on behalf of his party and Serb population in Vukovar that party represents, he expressed regret and sympathies for the victims and families of Ovcara victims, but also with the victims and the families of the victims of all those who were killed in Vukovar and Danube banks or some other locations during the summer 1991, and they were mostly citizens of Serb ethnicity.
The statement that SDSS represents Serbian corpus was disapproved by some participants, so, for instance Mrs Ruzica Mandic said: “Both sides (eaning HDZ and SDSS) are right wing parties, which represent part of the Vukovar population, meaning – not the whole population, since part of the ethnic group for which they claim that they represent disagreed with their policy. I am one of them.”
Most of the participants expressed dissatisfaction with the work of political parties on revitalisation of life in Vukovar. For instance, Aleksandar Ilic, a citizen of Vukovar, said: “People in Vukovar , in the settlement Borovo and all other surrounding places, are dissatisfied with life and relation between people and generally with the policy that is being implemented since reintegration onwards. The ruling parties are the same all the time – HDZ and SDSS. There is no progress there. That is how we, ordinary citizens, perceive policy management”. The negative role of policy was confirmed by Mr Kovac, who pinted out that politicians are satisfied when the things are in contradiction “because as long as there is conflict , mine will vote for me, against him, his will vote for him, against me. If there is no such conflict, mine voters will say – it does not matter, that is the same”. Mr Rkman tried to explain dissatisfaction with political parties saying that actually it is about the lack of citizens’ courage, because if the citizens are dissatisfied, then how to explain that the same parties are winning the elections for ten years in a roll. “At the elections that wee just held was around 3,800 potential candidates for Croatian Parliament. On one hand, that is great number, on the other hand, that is less that 1 percent of total election body in Croatia. It means that only 3,800 people was using both active and passive voting right. That is lack of the citizens’ courage”.
Most of the time in this session was dedicated to education. The opinions are contradictory. Some participants believe that it is not needed and that the children should not be divided at the schools. Mrs Ruzica Madic believes that the consequences of “ten lost generations of children” will be felt much longer than we think it will be now and that division should not be accepted. Mrs Marija Sestan believes that the parents have to decide on the faith of their children and she is against two kindergartens, against two schools. According to Mr Glasnovic, it represents gethoisation of Serbs. Some participants, as Mr Bubalo, belive that it is not such a bad solution. He gave the example of Istria, where schools on Italian language exist and it functions very well. According to him, the main problem is the name of the language.

Mr Miroslav Keravica from Joint Council of Vukovar Municipalities brought a bit of optimism, who believes that the situation will be better for sure. Mr Keravica doesnot have anything against that schools and kindergartens are unified and finally to end this issue when people finish school that there is no validation of diplomas, so they can get employed. Mr Rkman, from the position of SDSS representative, said that the party will struggle for implementation of the constitutional law on education on language and script of the national minorities. Croatian Parliament has passed such law, it is legal, legitimate and SDSS will support implementation of that law, as long as it is the interest of the parents. “We do not advocate a priori that there should be “Serbian schools” in Vukovar, but we simply follow the opinion of certain group of people, citizens of Vukovar, and that is relatively high percentage”, said Mr Rkman. He continues: “It could be understood that “separate education system”, division of children in two shifts, deprives democratic foundations of the state in some future perspective. However, I as a parent do not think that it is a problem, if we really live in democratic society. That can only be advantage. It is another issue if these are the same languages. So, I do not see it as a problem of gethoisation, I see it as a problem of the scond door, second chance, two chances”, concluded Mr Rkman.

The conclusion on the role, and one could say on the importance of political parties in revitalisation of togetherness could be seen from the summary of discussion of Prof. Modalek. He said: “…We were all very happy when the Prime Minister wished Merry Christmas to the Orthodox population. One man changed the situation drastically in the field, because he is high-ranking politician. Suddenly, from the hatred speech we moved towards tolerance speech… Therefore, the public opinion is significantly depended on politicians and their approach. We can talk about the tolerance here, but when politicians from the top say that the tolerance is needed, there will be tolerance.”

2. The contribution of local media in post-war revitalisation of togetherness in Vukovar
The introduction speech was given by Mrs Marija Molnar from Croatian radio Vukovar. Speaking about the post-war role of media, Mrs Molnar does not avoid her part of responsibility, but she pointed out that journalists have ethical codex of their profession, which obliges them to be objective. Objectivity, unfortunately, cannot be easily defined, or applies, claims Mrs Molnar. How to be objective journalist in Vukovar and talk about war crimes in Ovcara or talk about missing Serbs before siege of Vukovar. Can journalist be completely disconnected from the story about the tragedy of war crime?
“Vukovar, and now I talk about it as divided community, which it still is, expects from us facts, disapproval, research, publicly expressed attitude, which is according to the oral tradition the attitude of one or another group. Vukovar expects from us almost everything, but we do not have that strength and we cannot take that responsibility only on our back. Part of the responsibility – yes, the whole responsibility – no way.” “Local media have to talk about division openly. But politics, religion and other segments of society have to do that as well Media are just part of the society, true, attractive and available, but the things do not depend only on them. Media also need support of the community, the community that is ready to face the past, reveal the truth, apologise and say where are the missing persons from both sides of conflict. Without that, we can hardly do anything, except arid reporting about the community that you still do not see as such”, concluded Mrs Molnar.
Mr Janos Kery from Croatian radio Vukovar talked about the role of media as well. He pointed out the presence of topics that are important for all citizens of Vukovar. “When we started to talk about the things that Serbs and Croats are interested in – reconstruction of houses, solving of pension issues and other things, then we noticed that our radio is being listened by all citizens in Vukovar. That is where I see the role of radio in togetherness, since we were gathered around joint topics”.
There is another radio station in Vukovar, Radio Danube, led by Mrs Sanja Vukicevic. She claims that her team tried to contribute to revival of togetherness. “I think that we made huge progress comparing it to the beginning, so we need to work on that more. We can say that we are on the good way, if we have not reached any particular aim.” Speaking about recovering and togetherness, Mrs Sanja Vukicevic believes that time plays important role. “Generally, it is about time in all segments of life in Vukovar. For us who live here that goes very slowly, but maybe it does not have to be like that. There is simple reason for this – the wounds, which are painful for long time already, and in order to heal them, the time is needed. It might be reflection of the media image. We are talking about “Serbian” and “Croatian” journalism. No matter if we like it or not, that is the part of the city we live in, since Vukovar is still divided community. However, we moved away from the years when their radio was saying that they are attacking Serbian, Chetnick gang, but also in my radio when we were saying that Ustashas are attacking us. This means that today we have completely different story.”
Mr Mathieu Hermans from IKV Pax Christi joined the discussion and warned that Croatia is going towards EU and that there are very strict criteria for future EU-members. Every year, the European Commission makes report about the situation, and each of these reports is related to the EU candidate countries. The progress report for Croatia was published on November 6, 2007. He proposed to the participants, media representatives, to make serial of radio shows that would be related to different topics that report covers (among other things unemployment, media, education and all other issues that were discuss at the round table). “I would present Brussels conclusions to the people and used it to relate it to all the things that have happened in Vukovar”, proposed Mr Hermans.

The conclusion of this session could be that media should make more joint effort to make positive influence on citizens of Vukovar. Joint work still does not function in the best way. As Mrs Vukicevic said: “I am sorry that my colleagues and I are not in the possibility to sit together and say that would should make some joint programme. Let’s do a project where my listeners would not mind when you say “gde” (where said in Serbian) a not “gdje” (where said in Croatian) and where show can be done normally, at my radio, where you can speak Chinese if you like, and no one will be bothered by that, except the interpreter will be needed, unlike Croatian where it would not be needed. So, it is just small obstacle, the bridge that is not built yet”.

3. The contribution of the religious communities in establishment of inter-religious and inter-ethnic understanding and strengthening of trust
The introduction to this topic was prepared and explained by Mr Jaroslav Pecnik from Croatian Helsinki Committee Osijek. Speaking about the tolerance and understanding, Mr Pecnik pointed out that we have to understand each other as believers and as people, but also we have to accept that there are different people, especially in religious matter, as for instance atheists, because they do not negate God, they “believe” that here is no God, they are believers of their own kind.
Speaking about relation between religion and religious institutions, Mr Pecnik pointed out that “the distinction should be made between faith and church, since faith is one and churches are different. The problem is not in the faith, but in the interpretation of the faith in churches. As Christianity is not one, and due to that it is rich and interesting and special, Islam also is not one and we cannot proclaim all the Muslims as members of Al-Quaida, terrorist, etc. We are mostly unfamiliar with Islam, and due to that we do not make effort to get familiar with it, because we believe that we are better and they are worse, since they are different that we are. That is where misunderstanding is created. Of course, it goes the same for the members of Islamic community where they are majority”, said Mr Pecnik.
So, the dialogue should be promoted. That is the only way to reach tolerance and we have to admit that no one has right, no one has concession on truth , no one has concession in God. Openness towards diversities, towards others is presumption of the dialogue.
Unlike the session dedicated to the politics, where the part of the political scene of Vukovar have not responded to the invitation, it should be pointed out in this part that representatives of all three confessions were present. It shows that they took this event seriously and they showed responsibility towards the role that they have in revitalisation of togetherness in Vukovar.
Mr Ante Perkovic spoke on behalf of Roman Catholic church. Answer to the rhetorical question – what churches can do and what they have done for togetherness, Mr Perkovic finds it in Gospel, which has to be the starting point. Due to that, each Christian has to accept another man, not only as a brother, but as Christ himself. There was one person, non-Croat, who showed how it is done. Mother Theresa. She won Peace prize for excellent serving to the Gospel.
Jovan Radivojevic, archpriest of Chruch Dobra Voda and deputy of Vukovar archpriest, opened up his discussion with the question how to reach the truth? At the first sight, it is very difficult; however, it is very easy, claims Mr Radivojevic. Christ’s Gospel is the way to truth, and we know that the truth is the God himself and Saviour of our destiny. Jesus Christ said for himself: “I am the way, the truth and the life. The one that walks with me, they will live in the light of eternal life, the darkness of earth will not seize him.” Therefore, Mr Radivojevic offers same respond as Mr Perkovic, the way out is in persistent practice of Gospel. Discussing the topic further, Mr Radivojevic asked rhetorical question “How will I live tomorrow, as a man at first place, and then as a priest of Jesus’ church? Will I make the same mistake again? The smart man learns from the mistakes of others, the fool learns from his own mistakes… “A man should be revived, a man as a personality, as divine personality. A man was created according to the God, so it means we should revive the God within ourselves. We should work on salvation of our souls, since our soul is our front yard, and each of us has a broom and when the front yard gets dirty, we have to clean it up. It means that we have to clean up our souls. The God wants us to have clean hearths and souls, and the Gospel says the same. That path of Gospel, the path of truth, which means the path of Christ is our programme of work and our endeavour to save our souls at the first place, and then to save our bodies, since the body is the habitat of the soul”, concluded Mr Radivojevic. “Our path towards truth and how to reach the truth is the Gospel of Christ, which we should live upon in order to save our soul and our people”.
The representative of the Islamic religious community at this event was Imam from Gunja, Mr Idriz Besic. He gave pragmatic proposal how religious communities can contribute to revival of togetherness. “We, religious leaders, should give contribution to revival of togetherness. Let’s put on our uniforms, have a coffee together and walk through the open market in Vukovar, have a coffee in hotel ‘Dunav’, and then in hotel ‘Slavuj’ in Vinkovci have another coffee. That is our contribution”, said Mr Besic. “Mr Radivojevic and I already did that and that had positive reflection… The real thing and the real life is happening in the base down there. Even when the countries are in war, presidents, ministers, prime ministers are shaking hands, smiling, negotiating, etc. And the real thing is happening down there, among the people… We have to work at the level of neighbours and that is the real and basic phase where everything starts and that is our activity and our contribution”, concluded Mr Besic.
The discussions of these three religious had very positive reflection among participants of the round table, and Mrs Marija Sestan summed it up in one sentence: “I would like to thank to the gentlemen for showing us the faith in the right way, which made the life easier for us during the difficult times.” She also added that “I am sorry that in such difficult times not all the people had faith in God and faith in a man as our brother, so they committed severe crimes. Where was the faith then? Were these crimes done only by atheists? I do not believe so. Why that faith was not present in all of us? But, I guess we will get that answer once, why all the people did not recognise our brother in a man?”
Mr Mirko Kovacic, representative of Association of families of captured and missing Croatian soldiers, used the presence of the religious leaders and asked the question why religious leaders during past wars blessed soldiers that were going to the war.
Mr Radivojevic on behalf of Serbian Orthodox Church answered the question. “We have to know that these were defensive wars. I do not support blessing of arms, but sometimes a word can be more powerful weapon then gun or cannon. Any blessing of the arms is sin, but we as priests of Serbian Orthodox Church did not blessed arms, there is no prayer for blessing of the arms, but there is a prayer for those who are going to the war, and it is assumed that they are going to defend the truth. Unfortunately, if the truth has to be defended by arms. However, if we want to go on with our lives, we have to deal with those things. We cannot continue our lives if there are stereotypes that are 200 or 500 years old… The life and the history was such in certain times and circumstances, but I want the future to be better. Why? I may not be alive, but I want my child to walk freely in his town, because I was born in Vukovar, I live here and I have no intention to leave Vukovar and to go anywhere, even though I am Serb, nothing attracts me to live in Belgrade, or Nis, or Leskovac. I was born here and I want to stay here. My grandfathers and my great grandfathers have been buried in Borovo, and I would like to be buried there.”

The session on the role of religion in revitalisation of togetherness in Vukovar was held in the spirit of tolerance and mutual respect. It can be claimed that all participants positively marked the efforts and acts of religious leaders, which gives good example to the citizens of Vukovar on how to build togetherness.

4. The experiences of the civil society organisations in implementation of peace activities and work on establishment of inter-ethnic understanding and strengthening of trust
“Representatives of civil society and NGOs did the most and were the first to establish the contact between people, even between those people who in certain period of their life were in each other rifle range”, said Mr Vehid Sehic at the beginning of his speech. Mr Sehic is the president of the Forum of Tuzla Citizens, “the NGO which was established with one and only aim that as civic and human movement rise our voice against war, insanity, hate and wish for revenge”. Speaking about the war crimes and victims, Sehic believes that NGOs should build the same critical approach towards those who committed war crimes, no matter from which ethnic groups they are coming. The victims should not be divided according to the ethnicity, since the victims are only human beings that should be helped to reach the truth about theirs. Understanding and trust is the best defence against hate and revenge. But, at the same time, no one has the right to give the amnesty and to be silent, since in theory of law it represents complicity. It is needed to tell the truth, no matter how painful it is, having in mind that it is unreachable aim, but that is our obligatory assignment, concluded Mr Sehic.
Mr Sasa Popov from Centre for Regionalism from Novi Sad spoke about the role of NGOs. Corpus of Novi Sad is not remembered by good in Vukovar, although not so many people from Novi Sad were part of it, claims Mr Popov, but that was one of the ideas of Milosevic’s regime – to discredit this city, which was the only multi-ethnic city, which has long tradition of tolerance and togetherness and which was the favoured city in the territory of former Yugoslavia. “We cannot return the victims, but we can make steps so it does not happen again”, said Mr Popov. “And the real thing is if a man feels a need to express regret and ask for forgiveness, as Willy Brandt did”.
The other representatives of NGOs participated in the discussion and presented the work of their organisations. Mrs Ruzica Mandic, representative of Association of Women from Vukovar, pointed out that the association has members from all three ethnic groups and that organisation is specialised in the work in three areas: stamping out of domestic violence, stamping out of human trafficking and corruption.

Mrs Dijana Antunovic spoke on behalf of the European House Vukovar. She believes that several NGOs in Vukovar are working on achieving the same goal – revitalisation of togetherness in Vukovar. However, achieved results are lagging behind the effort that was made. According to Mrs Antunovic, the reasons for this are in the prejudices and she pointed out three of them:
- the belief that the rightness and firmness of our character is reflected in firmness and unchangeable attitudes
- the belief that all of them are the same, that only we are right, while they are not, that only we are victims, while they are not…
- the belief that Vukovar community is impossible to revitalise, at least not in short term, and that several generations of our descendants are doomed to uneasy and anxious life in Vukovar or to leave Vukovar and live in some other place where the life is easier.
With the wish to overcome mentioned misconceptions, the European House Vukovar implemented many different activities in four areas:
- work with individuals within self-help workshops
- holding of lectures, round tables and conferences aimed to motivate the citizens on active participation in positive shaping of joint future
- work with the representatives of religious communities and teachers of religion aimed to affirm traditional ethical and moral values as foundation of togetherness in Vukovar
- work with young people.
The citizens also took part in this session and we would like to point out some of them, which consist personal stories, but also very tolerant attitudes. For instance, Mr Stanko Zadro said that he personally experienced so much pain that he believed that he would never come back to Vukovar or that he would never see Serbian movie or that he would never use Serbian product. “However, I could not run away from myself, from my education, I tried and I am glad that I succeeded in that, that I understood that our reality is this place where I live. Different people with different religions and different nationalities live here. With such attitude, I came back to Vukovar with my family in 2000 and I live with neighbours who are Serbs and I try to make tolerant relations with them. I am successful in doing so”.
Similar attitude was presented by Mrs Mata Patko, who was captured in a concentration camp together with her husband, and they were taken for execution. An officer of Yugoslav National Army (JNA) saved them from execution, but her husband was taken to a concentration camp, and since than she does not know anything about him. “I do not hate anyone, I did not hate before the war, but still the soul is in pain, because we who have not found our missing ones, 1991 is still in front of us, since we are still looking for them, now just for bones, so we can bury them, so we have a place to light a candle, put the flowers…”
“Listening to all these stories, it might be noted that associations of citizens has ability and advantage in relation to other institutions, which is that they can work and react faster and that they can work on the improvement of quality of life in each of the community, therefore in Vukovar community as well. They are less bureaucratically burdened and they are less submissive to binding unlike political parties. The significance and role of the civil society organisations is great and in Vukovar it is visible in last two to three years.
Mrs Milena Jurisic from Centre for Peace Vukovar shares this opinion, since an event like this one was impossible 10 years ago. Without support of NGOs, it would still be impossible.
At the end of round table, we would like to point out two opinions. The first one was presented by Mr Jack Bogers from IKV Pax Chrisi. He said “The conference was very fruitful, many experiences were exchanged, we heard many voices and many opinions were exchanged… I think this is the first conference where people said exactly what they think and what they think about the future. My understanding of contribution is spirit, courage and strength. Certainly, you have spirit, you have courage and you have strength and you showed it at this conference.”

The round table was closed by Mr Vehid Sehic. “Our main assignment is to open taboo topics, to talk about them sincerely, since we believe it will help us in the best possible way. This will not be done by many and there will be many opponents. Speaking about media, today they live on business base, they are much more interested in sensation, which is not the case only with our media, that is the case with great media as CNN and BBC. I am sure there will be time when they will follow us, and their influence is huge. I know that at the end of 1990s, media were the greatest creators of hate, prejudices and now they should come back to their profession and have completely different role”.