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On February 27 in Gorazde, the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network of Bosnia and Herzegovina, BIRN BiH, the Srebrenica Memorial Centre, and the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports of the Bosnian-Podrinje Canton, BPK, signed a memorandum of cooperation according to which the Database of Judicially Established Facts about the War in Bosnia and Herzegovina will be used in teaching in this canton.
In the Memorandum, the emphasis is put on the methodology for studying the war in Bosnia, which primarily relies on judgments of international and domestic courts as well as contemporary pedagogical principles, and such an approach allows teachers to present educational content based on factual and judicially established facts.
The Minister of Education, Culture and Sports of BPK, Adisa Alikadic-Heric, stated that history in Gorazde was not an abstract term from textbooks but part of family stories, personal memories, and collective experience, and that it was the responsibility of the education system to enable younger generations to learn about the past based on judicially established facts, professional standards and pedagogical sensitivity.
“Education must be a space of truth but also a space of empathy. Talking about the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina means talking about suffering, loss, and injustice, but also about human strength, solidarity and dignity,” he said.
“Teachers participating in this programme today bear a great responsibility to teach young people to understand the past without hatred, but also without crime relativization. Our goal is not to burden future generations with the burden of the past, but to empower them with knowledge,” Alikadic-Heric added.
With the support of the United Nations Secretary-General’s Peacebuilding Fund, BIRN BiH together with the Srebrenica Memorial Centre and the Forgotten Children of War Association, is implementing the project “Building Long-Term Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Investing in the Future”.
This aims to transform the way young people learn about the war in Bosnia, using facts, empathy, understanding and a multimedia approach. As part of the project, a database was created that served as the basis for a manual on “How to Learn and Teach about the War in Bosnia and Herzegovina”.
Denis Dzidic, Executive Director of BIRN BiH, recalled that the Database of Judicially Established Facts, which was already used by some cantonal ministries, had been supplemented with domestic and regional judgements in addition to Hague judgments.
“This is a unique platform that enables us to teach history according to a unique methodology for any of the municipalities in Bosnia and Herzegovina. And it really gives us a certain platform to try to devise a way in which we can work in an equal manner,” Dzidic said, adding that the Memorandum marks the opening of a partnership process to enable the teaching of history in a structured way.
“This is the most important part of our work. The future of this country is built on sound education,” Emir Suljagic, Director of the Srebrenica Memorial Centre, said.
For the purpose of creating the Database, several hundred final court judgments were analyzed, including decisions of the Hague war-crimes tribunal, ICTY, the Bosnian state court and other courts from Bosnia as well as in the region relating to war crimes committed in the period 1992–1995.
