The commemoration of the 33rd anniversary of the death of the wartime commander of the 2nd Knight Motorized Brigade, hero of the liberation war, brigadier general of the RBiH Army and winner of the “Golden Lily” award, Safet Zajko, began on Wednesday with the laying of flowers and tributes in the Alipaša mosque.
For many citizens of Sarajevo, the name of this honorable hero has become a synonym for responsibility, courage and self-sacrifice in the most difficult days of the siege. In the collective memory of Sarajevo, Safet Zajko remained more than a military commander. For many, it represents a generation of people who took on enormous responsibility during the war and paid a high price.
Today, his name reminds us of the defense of the city, but also of the values that his comrades often emphasized: honor, modesty, mutual solidarity and loyalty to the homeland.
In the Multimedia Hall of the municipality of Novi Grad, a formal event dedicated to the heroes from Žuč: Safet Zajko, Safet Isović and Salko Musraspahić was held, where the Minister of Veteran Affairs of Sarajevo Canton Omer Osmanović addressed the attendees.
“When the name Safet Zajko is spoken today, many people think of the commander, the hero. Personally, I first think of the burden he carried. It was difficult to carry the responsibility for other people’s lives for months, to make decisions that you know will save someone’s son, and someone may not get him back. There are people who lived a long time and left behind so little or nothing. And then there are people who were given little time, but they filled it so strongly that their name lasts longer than their lives. Maybe that’s why his is “His name remained connected to Sarajevo. Not because he was fearless, but because, like many of his comrades, he believed that there are things that are worth more than his own life,” said Minister Osmanović.
He went on to emphasize that Sarajevo collectively remembers heroes like Safet Zajko.
“Our people remember these people. They don’t always remember the exact dates and they don’t remember all the battles. They don’t remember every rank and decoration. But they remember the feeling that someone stood between them and the aggressors when it was most difficult. That is perhaps the greatest monument to Safet Zajko: not a park, not a street, not a stone slab, but the fact that even after so many years, his name is pronounced more calmly than many others, as the name of a man who is believed to have given everything he had and asked for nothing in return.” said Osmanović.
Safet Zajko was born on March 1. 1959 in the village of Gaočić, northwest of Rudo, to father Salko and mother Duda. After finishing high school, as a metal worker by profession, he was employed in the metal processing company Zrak from Vogošća. He graduated from the infantry reserve officer school in Bileća as one of the most successful in his class. Until the beginning of the aggression, Safet continued to work on organizing and preparing armed resistance in this part of Sarajevo. He coordinated the work of the newly formed military units in the Sarajevo municipality of Novi Grad and worked on their integration.
On the seventeenth of June 1993, he died on Žuča, at the place where he defended his city and his country. He left behind not only military successes and decorations, but an example of a man who put his responsibility to the people before his own safety, Klix.ba writes.
