In Široki Brijeg it's okay, in Sarajevo it's a problem: An activist's tank for the idea of a monument to honorable patriotic struggle!

By: Amina Čorbo-Zećo

The public has been debating for days the installation of a monument to the members of the "Bosna" Detachment, defenders known to everyone by the simple name – Vikić's Special Forces. This resistance has been ongoing for some time, for seven or eight years since an association called the Peacebuilding Network has been opposing the installation of a tank as a monument in Sarajevo!

The Peacebuilding Network was launched on February 10, 2010, on the idea and wish of several peace activists and organizations who realized that sustainable peace can only be built together.

Thus, they existed in 2019 when, in peace and to general satisfaction in Herzegovina, the last phase of the arrangement of this memorial was completed with the installation of a T-55 tank at the memorial to the stopping of JNA tanks in 1991 at the border between Široki Brijeg and Mostar (Dobrič-Polog).

This tank was installed with great satisfaction and general public approval. So why is a tank in Sarajevo a problem, but one in Široki Brijeg, which, incidentally, you cannot bypass if you travel through this part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, is not?

The most honorable struggle during the aggression against Bosnia and Herzegovina belonged to the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as established by the international judgments of the Hague Tribunal, and it is precisely these forces, as well as the pro-Bosnian forces fighting for the preservation of a unified Bosnia and Herzegovina, that have faced the highest pressures and accusations in recent years.

How is it possible that those who are the most numerous and who are responsible for the freedom we live today are so quiet, and lukewarm reactions are also coming to the fact that some non-governmental organizations can decide where which monument will stand. The association, as it says, is not against the Sarajevo special forces getting a monument, it is even an idea they support, but they focus on the form of the monument itself and its location. They have a problem because the tank will be near an educational institution.

Why is that a problem? Because that tank was not placed as a sign of attack, but of defense, and unfortunately, little is written in BiH's history about the honorable struggle for BiH, so it is extremely important to find alternative ways to learn the truth. These are also visible in the judgments.
So, if we analyze them, we will understand all the honor and courage of the Army of the Republic of BiH, but here, a tank in their honor is a 'mistake', while a tank in honor of the HVO, convicted of a joint criminal enterprise, is not?

All of this can also be read in the political circumstances prevailing in BiH. While the BiH Prosecutor's Office is trying to prove with mass indictments against members of the Army and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of BiH that we were all the same, the international community persistently gives in to Dragan Čović and Milorad Dodik, and now they want to tell us that young people in BiH must not know that defending oneself is not a sin. We remind you that Dragan Vikić was acquitted by a final verdict of the BiH Court.

The Army of the Republic of BiH, in its liberation struggle for the lives of all peoples and citizens in BiH, amazed the whole world, and now political powers want to convince us that those who defended themselves and those who attacked are equally sinful.

And young people should know and learn that we are only as strong as we are willing to defend ourselves again. That is why they kill the very thought of a will to fight from the start, inventing that a 'militant' monument can negatively affect young people, who must never forget that the independent and sovereign state of BiH is the result of the patriotic struggle of the members of the Army and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of BiH.

And as those of us who live in freedom, thanks to the heroic resistance of the Army of the Republic of BiH, said, it remains an obligation, especially in the current time of severe trials, to build a free, democratic state in which the results of aggression and genocide will not be amnestied, in which truth and justice will prevail, a state that will be capable of organized and institutional resistance to any evil.

And the tank is there, just to remind us of our obligation and debt to those who are no longer with us, and who gave their lives so that we could exist in the form we are!