BREAKING DOWN CIVIC TUZLA OR THE EPILOGUE OF A TRAGEDY

IF THEY REFUSE TO BE DIVIDED ALIVE, DIVIDE THEM WHEN THEY DIE

AIM, Tuzla, June 26, 1995 Two of them have just been transported to Ancona. Before them, two girls were taken to a Dutch hospital. Twenty seven are waiting to be evacuated by mediation of international humanitarian organizations. In hospitals of Tuzla, another twenty five wounded are hospitalized. Most of them are heavily disabled. There was no help for seventy two, however. On that spring May 25, the artillery shell aimed from positions held by Karadzic's forces killed 72, and wounded about 150 young men and girls. The young people of Tuzla bring flowers every day to the place of the disaster. Burning candles and obituaries can be seen in the centre of the city. The citizens stop at the site with tears running down their faces, and breathing deep sighs. For days after the tragedy, however, the city was shaken by details concerning the burial of civilians, victims of the massacre.

Namely, after the initial shock caused by the proportions of the tragedy, the competent city authorities, suggested to parents of the victims to bury them in the central city park. In this way, on this sad occasion, a new cemetery would be opened to civilian victims of war, with a possibility of religious or atheist funerals, as customary in the former system. After a poll among the parents, forty seven families (mostly from Tuzla itself) decided to have a joint funeral, and the other victims - also according to the wish of the parents - were buried at local cemeteries. In preparing the proposal on the joint burial of Tuzla youth, the city authorities consulted the heads of the Islamic community and the Catholic parish priest's office (Orthodox priests have left their believers here a long time ago), which agreed with the idea about a joint burial for the victims of the massacre.

But, later, for unknown reasons, deputy Tuzla Mufti - and the Mufti's office is superior to the Islamic community of the city - informed city authorities that his institution "expresses fear about regularity of such a burial", justifying its judgement by religious regulations and customs!? According to Islamic regulations, on the contrary, there are no obstacles to joint burials, especially if an imam, an Islamic priest attends this deed.

Whether due to insisting of the parents to have a joint funeral ("Our children grew up together, let them rest in peace together"), or due to some other reasons unknown to the public, but that night at the burial services for the youth of Tuzla, eleven imams appeared, with the Deputy Mufti among them. Together with the Catholic priests, they buried most of the killed inhabitants of Tuzla according to religious customs as their parents wished. However, right after the funeral, news spread around Tuzla that the President of the Tuzla-Podrinje Canton (coalition of ruling national parties), Izet Hadzic, had refused to come to the burial. Mr Hadzic told the driver sent by the city authorities (coalition of civic parties) to bring the President of the Canton to the joint burial service of the victims: "I have no intention to be present there!"

Although this gesture made many people in Tuzla angry

• if not for humane reasons, then for lack of common protocol decency of the first man of the Canton - little has publicly been said about it for many reasons. And yet, any common native of Tuzla bluntly explains the event by general polarization between life and the wish of the ruling parties to subordinate all the processes to the wishes of their state structures, using abundantly religious feelings of the citizens as a means to this end as they go along. Since this is often done contrary to authentic religious canons and by taking advantage of the authority of religious institutions, it is not surprising that the mayor of Tuzla, Selim Beslagic (Union of B&H Social Democrats) was resented for annulling Islamic regulations and Bosnian customs with this joint funeral.

And yet, the attempt to prevent the joint funeral of the killed citizens of Tuzla even contrary to the expressly stated wish of their parents caused additional irritation of ordinary citizens. Into their mosaic formed of numberless attempts of the ruling Party of Democratic Action (SDA) to call them to order regardless of any feeling of privacy - new stones were fitted: President of the Presidency of B&H and at the same time the President of the SDA, Alija Izetbegovic, mentioned the tragedy in Tuzla on state television only after several days: expressions of condolence of some of the republican and federal institutions, but also officials of the Republic of Croatia came after numerous similar ones which arrived from European and world capitals; in media close to the ruling structures, the journalists wondered how come there were so many young citizens in the streets that incriminated May 25 - were they by any chance celebrating something (Tito's birthday - the Day of Youth)? Later, it was with bitter scorn rgar the citizens of Tuzla received the declaration of a certain Dr Kasim Muminhodzic, who after the Reis-ul-Ulema, Dr Mustafa Ceric, donated blood for the wounded in the massacre, said with enthusiasm: "Each of the wounded should be given a drop of this holy blood!". Such quantity of idolatry seems to have staggered the Reis himself, and he immediately disassociated himself from this "wish" of Muminovic's. By the way, Kasim Muminovic is a minister in the Government of the Tuzla-Podrinje Canton.

Commenting about this sad occasion is gradually dying down. Citizens of Tuzla still stop by the joint resting-place and pay their last respects to their killed youth. Consistent in the wish to have their children buried together, they have proved once more that they do not wish to be divided along national seams. Neither among the dead, nor among the living. It seems that the attempt of the ruling SDA to settle accounts with the civic Tuzla in this "underworld" conflict produced a completely opposite effect - it brought many citizens of Tuzla even closer to their city authorities.

VEHID JAHIC