THE VOICES THAT WERE NOT HEARD

Attempt at restoring communications with Sarajevo

The citizens of Belgrade rallied around the project "Living in Sarajevo" persistently demand from European Union agencies and the UN that they be enabled to go to Sarajevo.

AIM, Beograd, April 3, 1994 "Maybe I could have sneaked up to your gathering through backyards and alleys and thus pacified my conscience. However, I do not consider that proper given your sufferings and joint hopes. I trust that I am not mistaken in thinking that we could best help Sarajevans precisely through organized action. Therefore, we shall persevere in our efforts to establish direct and lasting communications. That is why we shall be persistent in our demands addressed to the UN agencies to ensure our going to Sarajevo. In this way they will show that they are seriously concerned about the vital interests of the people most affected by the war". This is what Nebojsa Popov says in his letter addressed to Ljubomir Berberovic, member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences, organizer of the Serbian Consultative Council, which was held in Sarajevo on March 27.

Vuk Draskovi couldn't go to that gathering either. He also, on that occasion said that clearance to take off was always, whenever they wanted, granted to those who had commanded the destruction of Sarajevo. "You are the greatest victims and the greatest heroes of this damned, absurd and staged war. You are the only remaining hope, enormous hope that there is, that there must be a joint life of all in Sarajevo, in the whole of Bosnia and Herzegovina", says Vuk Draskovic in his letter addressed to Berberovic.

However, the invitation to attend the Serbian Consultative Council is only but the latest motive for the Belgrade group "Living in Sarajevo" to renew its efforts aimed at finally reaching Sarajevo. Unfortunately, this time also , just as on previous occasions, they did not succeed. However, they do not give up contacting the EU and UN agencies which should make their transport to Sarajevo possible. Now, when under the deafening war noises different voices can be heard in Belgrade, and when it is possible to hear what the Serbs in Sarajevo think, and not only the unison voice from Pale, the problems with the transportation are equally insurmountable as during the fiercest battles.

READY FOR THE JOURNEY

The group - project "Living in Sarajevo" was established over a year ago, by people who wished to help this city at the time of its greatest tragedy. It comprises physicians, psychologists, economists, lawyers, sociologists, journalists, philosophers, engineers, artists. There are also members of the Civil Alliance of Serbia, "Nezavisnost" (Independence) Trade Unions, the Belgrade Circle of Independent Intellectuals, the Center for Anti-War Action, members of the editorial staff of the magazine "Republic", the Fund for Humanitarian Law, the Helsinki Parliament of Citizens, Women in Black, the Fund of Journalistic Solidarity, the European Movement, the Multinational Association for Bosnia and Herzegovina. They do not want to help the denizens of Sarajevo with food packages (although each of them has even now a prepared package in case UNPROFOR contacts them), but want to establish a more lasting communication with different groups, institutions, organizations... which resist the destruction of the city and endeavour to restore normal life to it. The group "Living in Sarajevo" does not believe that it is possible to establish peace without the participation of such people in the peace process.

And that is why Nebojsa Popov would say that it is necessary to jointly design a programme of multiculturality. That makes the communication between groups from Sarajevo and Belgrade more important. "And the condition to embark on such a programme is for the war to end, and again there are no chances for it to end if those who are most endangered do not take part in the peace negotiating process, and right now they have no possibility to contribute their ideas on how to end the war". He points out that it is necessary to hear a different voice of the Serbs in Sarajevo also, and in Belgrade, as well as a different voice of the Moslems and Croats. However, above all it is necessary to send a word to those who under horrifying circumstances have managed for two years now to organize school instruction in cellars, to supply the city with bread, to repair the installations, says Popov.

New participants in the dialogue

Milan Prodanovic, a town planner, speaks of that part of the project which proceeds from the idea that the most important thing is for refugees to return to the regions they had fled from. "We already have some experience with refugees in Denmark, where there is a project for refugees to start building their home in such a way so as to be able to take the whole house back with them to their old land" says Prodanovic. He emphasizes that the second part of the project concerns the reconstruction of monuments of culture and the intention to establish communications between experts from Belgrade and people in Sarajevo who would be rallied under a "joint address". He mentions the Children's Embassy as one of the links between Belgrade and Sarajevo to date.

"In the dialogue on peace we should give the floor to those who were expelled. We call them refugees, and there are more than a million of such persons", says Ljubo Babic, President of the Multinational Association for B&H adding that they will join any activity aimed at the normalization of life there. Jasna Bogojevic, member of the Belgrade Circle, wants to show with her going to Sarajevo that she was with that city from the first day of the war, in which, after all, her family lives. Lula Mikijelj, born in Sarjevo who has been living in Belgrade for 26 years now, talks about problems with parcels: "The parcels which were sent from Belgrade in October reached Sarajevo only in February, and those sent on December 12 were delivered in Sarajevo on March 28, and not all of them. They went so far as to count the parcels by the names on them so that it could be seen how many were going to the Moslems, and how many to other nationalities. Special "experts"were engaged for this."

Jadranka Milic from the group "Women in Black" tells how for 23 months of war they had managed to maintain contact with Sarajevo, how they sent parcels, how they trained refugee women for a new life.

Attorney-at-law Nikola Barovic wants to meet in Sarajevo with his colleagues from the legal profession and judiciary, to see how they work, what the conditions in jails are, how the accused are treated, what safety is guaranteed to the counsels and their clients... "I have information that in this respect Sarajevo is in the best position as compared to other war stricken areas". Obrad Savic, a philosopher, emphasizes that the people of Belgrade want to establish communication with the people of Sarajevo "from the other side of national identifications". The project "Living in Sarajevo" is conceived as a gesture of civic desire to show that there is another Belgrade and another Serbia which do not accept national divisions.

"Belgrade had some spectacular campaigns, but has lost heart and did not raise its voice to the heavens" says the philosopher Miladin Zivotic, President of the Belgrade Circle. He announced the session of the Belgrade Circle for April 6, the day the war in B&H started. The session shall have the character of a performance with political messages and the final one will be addressed to Sarajevo and convey the hope that this will represent the beginning of the renewal of the old links between Belgrade and Sarajevo.

OLIVIJA RUSOVAC