Deadly Detention Camp Forgotten

Each year fewer and fewer former detainees visit Omarska, a synonym for the suffering of Bosniaks and Croats from Prijedor. As hopes fade among resigned detainees and their families that a worthy monument will ever be erected at the eerie site of the former concentration camp, Prijedor municipal authorities, as well as Bosnian authorities in general, are accused of arrogance towards the camp’s victims.

Sadik Pasic was held in Omarska from the very establishment of the detention camp to the official closure of “the collection centre”, as it was known by the Bosnian Serb authorities” who forcibly took power in Prijedor in 1992.
 
Today, nineteen years after the closure of the detention camp, Sadik and members of his family visit the place of their suffering. The public may never have learnt about Omarska had journalists from Britain’s ITN and The Guardian not made the tragic discovery in August 1992.
 
“I weighed 105 kilograms when I came to the detention camp and 70 when I left. That is the way it is… I watched people being tortured and killed. I watched intellectuals, professors, doctors and the well-to-do from Prijedor disappear one by one. I thought that the same thing would happen to me too,” Sadik says.
 
As he spoke, he tried to point to sites in front of a huge hangar, better known as “the red house”, and a small building in front of it, which is known as the notorious “white house”, where beatings and murders took place. So much scaffolding in such a small place!
 
“We were detained in the hangar most of the time, so we could not always see what was going on, but we could hear the victims screaming in agony. We knew what was happening,” Sadik says and explains:
 
“I once went to the restroom. One of the guards, who stood close to me, approached me and told me in a mild, almost friendly voice: ‘I would hit you with this stick!’ It seemed as if he was joking. I did not know what to say. I remained silent. A beating then followed. I was hit once and then again and again…Other guards joined him a short time later. They beat and slapped me. The worst thing that could happen was for me to fall down, as they would have beaten me to death in that event. I do not know how I managed to stay alive…”
 
Today Sadik is not sure whether surviving Omarska was a good or unfortunate turn of events for him.
 
“I did not know what had happened to my wife and children who had been taken to Trnopolje, until they transferred me there after the closure of Omarska. I did not even recognise my own son when I saw him there,” said Sadik, unable to hold back his tears.
 
Bursting into tears, he waved with one hand and wiped the heavy, large tears that rolled down his face with the other.
 
“At night we would hear ear-splitting screams from the victims. When there was electricity in the camp, the screams would be silenced by loud music. We prayed to God to cut the electricity, because the beatings were most brutal when the music was playing. Even today, when I hear Ceca [a Serbian folk singer] singing, I shudder and remember what happened…” said Sadik. He now lives in Prijedor on a pension he earned in Slovenia before the war as well as financial support from his children who live abroad, like many of the Prijedor residents who have been displaced.
 
During the course of its existence between 3,500 and 6,000 Bosniaks and Croats from the Potkozarje area were held in Omarska at some stage. Data made available to The Hague Tribunal suggests that more than 700 of them were killed.
 
Detainees were tortured and beaten on a daily basis. Testimonies by survivors suggests that the “torture” at Omarska was different from that of the Nazi detention camps during the Second World War.
 
Forced to rape
 
The ICTY verdict against Milomir Stakic, the wartime President of Prijedor municipality, mentions a testimony describing sexual abuse that took place in “the white house” on June 26, 1992.
 
“Guards tried to force Mehmedalija Sarajlic to rape one girl. He was begging them: ‘Please don’t do it. She is young enough to be my daughter. I am an old man’. The soldiers then told him: ‘Try doing it with your finger’. A scream and beating were heard. And then there was silence. A minute or two later a guard entered the room and asked two strong men to come with him. They went to pick up Mehmedalija Sarajlic’s body. Later, his dead body was seen in front of the white house,” the verdict against Stakic says.
 
“The suffering of the detainees cannot even be described,” says Sabiha Turkanovic, one of the five female detainees, who lived to see the closure of the detention camp. She said that she was the only survivor among five people selected for execution. Sabiha said that 37 women were held in Omarska, although the Red Cross registered only five of them.
 
Sabiha was detained in the Keraterm camp before being transferred to Omarska and finally to Trnopolje. Her husband, brother-in-law, son, two daughters and three-year old granddaughter were held in detention camps in Prijedor while their property was destroyed and pillaged.
 
While she was held in the detention camp, the pre-war owner of the “Crvene ruze” (“Red roses”) restaurant in Prijedor was forced to clean bloodied rooms where detainees were beaten every day. Later, she was tasked with distributing food to prisoners.
 
“Food was distributed once a day only. It was usually rotten or very bad. It was made of water and some boiled beans or cabbage. Detainees had to take the food, eat it and return the plates within three minutes. They were often beaten during meals. The toilets were clogged. Faeces lay all over the place…” Sabiha said.
 
“A small yellow truck used to drive the bodies away in the evening. Blood often poured out of it. W could also see bloodied limbs hanging off the side of the truck…” Sabiha recalls.
 
She is filled with even more horror when she speaks about her personal tragedies and the rape by Mladjo Radic, known as Krkan, the guard shift leader in Omarska. Before the war, a policeman, Radic was a regular customer at Sabiha’s restaurant. After the war, The Hague Tribunal sentenced Radic to 20 years in prison.
 
Politicians uninterested
 
Fewer than 2,000 detainees and members of their families and friends attended the ceremony marking the nineteenth anniversary of the closure of the notorious detention camp, which Human Rights Watch has described as a concentration camp. Fewer visitors come to the detention camp each year. No high-level state politicians, or even local officials, attended. Representatives from the Cabinet of Zeljko Komsic, the Chairman of the Bosnian Presidency, and the Office of Valentin Inzko, High Representative to Bosnia and Herzegovina, were the only senior figures who attended the commemoration.
 
Numerous detainees said that the scandalous lack of interest could be explained by the fact that this is not an election year, unlike last year when the then Chairman of the State Presidency, Haris Silajdzic personally came to Omarska, accompanied by an entourage of his colleagues and fellow politicians. No politicians attended the commemoration this year.
 
“I would like to thank all those who have not come here this year, and particularly Bosniak, Croat and Serb politicians. They should be ashamed,” Satko Mujagic, a former Omarska detainee who is calling for a memorial centre, said in a resigned voice.
 
On the pavement in front of “the white house” we saw Azra Pasalic, President of Prijedor Municipal Council, who told us that she had come to Omarska on a private visit and not as a representative of the municipality. She justified her move by the fact that the Municipal Council had failed to give her trip legitimacy.
 
“My father Idriz Alic was detained in Omarska until its closure. After having been released, he was slaughtered in his own house, just like my stepmother Badema,” Pasalic said. She shrugged when asked why the municipal authorities had been neglecting the case of detainees for years and even obstructing discussion on the construction of a memorial centre at the site of the old detention camp.
 
“The management team of the AcelorMittal Company, a majority stake owner at the nearby Omarska mine, promised that a memorial centre would be established. The project was even presented in Banja Luka, but they are now denying all this,” Azra Pasalic claimed, adding: “The local authorities’ stand towards the things that happened in 1992 has not changed over time. All newly-recruited workers in the Omarska mine are Serbs, although they keep saying that they are employed on the basis of ‘their skills’ only. That is the way it is.”
 
You can read more about the marking of the Omarska closure anniversary at the following link:Bosnia Marks 19 Years Of Omarska Camp Closure.

Eldin Hadzovic is a BIRN – Justice Report correspondent. Justice Report is an online weekly publication of BIRN.