New graffiti on the sports hall “Sokolski dom” in Zvornik glorifying and calling Ratko Mladic, a convicted war criminal, a hero, once again disturbed returnees in this municipality, and the lack of reaction from official institutions further reduced the sense of security.
On the wall of the “Sokolski dom” hall in Zvornik, Ratko Mladic‘s name is written in two places, with the word “hero” below it. For former camp inmate from Divic, Amir Efendic, inscriptions like this are the worst memories of what he experienced during the war.
“When I see that inscription, I get a weird feeling inside me, it’s actually a mix of feelings and memories of all the traumas from the war, of all the lost family members. I can’t describe to you that everything I went through passes before my eyes in this case. I no longer see Ratko Mladic, I see blood and horror, the camp, graves,” he told.
He says that the returnees are in constant fear because of everything they have experienced since they immigrated. Attacks that he himself witnessed, threats, but also inscriptions in various places around Zvornik, affect the lack of a sense of security.
“Intimidation and beatings have become common now in Podrinje, you have seen the recent cases in the vicinity of Zvornik, all this affects us. Institutions do not react, there is no strong system to prevent these people. How can I know that they will protect me here,” said Efendic.
Namely, the returnees interviewed by journalists say that the wall of this hall, as well as the one that separates the parking lot from the football field, is regularly used to write such and similar messages, and their crossing out or removal was never done systematically. The women who returned to the surroundings of Zvornik, where they live alone, did not want to speak publicly for fear that it could further endanger their lives in this town.
Until the publication of this text, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republika Srpska (RS) and the Zvornik Police Administration did not respond on whether this incident had been reported, and whether they had found and punished the perpetrators. Efendic does not believe that they care to do this, nor does he expect that they will act, even if someone reports the case.
“In the police itself, there are people who took part in the war, they work and earned a pension, and they are proud of this now, and I, as a victim, could not get a job,” said Efendic.
The Mechanism for International Criminal Courts in The Hague sentenced Ratko Mladic, the former commander of the Main Staff of the Army of RS, to life imprisonment for the genocide in Srebrenica, persecution of Bosniaks and Croats, terrorizing the citizens of Sarajevo and taking UNPROFOR members as hostages.
The office of the City of Zvornik wrote to journalists that they would provide an answer after checking the information, but until the text was published they did not answer whether they planned to remove the graffiti, Detektor reports.
E.Dz.
