Croatian singer Toni Cetinski he refused to perform in the Spence hall in Novi Sad. Although he had already sung in the same space several times before, he decided to take this step, he says, after he was invited to do so by the associations of Croatian veterans, inmates and victims of the Homeland War. They claim that this hall is after occupation of Vukovar in 1991. served as a camp for Croatian veterans and civilians, where many were tortured, abused and humiliated.
Photo: Tanjug/Media bureau/Dejan LopičićTony Cetinski's concert in Budva
The progressive mayor of Novi Sad Zeljko Micin he quickly refuted these claims and called the statements of the Croatian defenders "a tendentious and malicious spread of misinformation". Some citizens of Novi Sad, who are politically independent and socially conscious, wrote on social networks that they were not aware that Spence was a camp for Croatian prisoners during the war in the 1990s. For some other locations in Vojvodina, it has been determined exactly where people of non-Serb nationality were imprisoned and tortured during the war in the 1990s.
Marko Milosavljević from the Youth Initiative for Human Rights explains to "Vreme" that his team came across this information while they were writing the publication "War in Serbia: It Happened (1991-2001)" in May 2020.
"According to the claims of the Croatian Association of Inmates of Serbian Concentration Camps, the Spence Hall was a place of detention, which is confirmed by a statement from a camp inmate with the initials VM who is originally from Vukovar," explains Milosavljević for "Vreme". "For this reason, there are grounds for doubting that Spence, like many other locations (such as the central prison in Belgrade, military facilities in Bubanj Potok, Šid and the barracks in Paragovo near Novi Sad) was a temporary detention center for Croatian prisoners held in Serbia by the JNA after the fall of Vukovar, and later transported to camps such as Stajićevo, Begejac or the prison in Sremska Mitrovica."
There was a trial for the torture of Croatian prisoners in these camps Slobodan Milosevic and Goran Hadžić, but both died before the verdicts were passed.
If so - why is it not marked?
The Center for Nonviolent Action is an organization that has been diligently and dedicatedly listing the places of suffering throughout the territory of the former Yugoslavia for decades, and whose headquarters are in Sarajevo.
Nenad Vukosavljević from the Center's Belgrade office tells "Vreme" that the statements of the Croatian Society of Prisoners about Serbian concentration camps "are well-founded, although he cannot confirm this from other sources, because he does not have that information."
"If it is true that Spence was a place of temporary detention, it would be important to mark it appropriately and thereby give recognition to the people who experienced injustice," he adds.
Exclusive in the culture of memory
The appeal of certain associations of Croatian veterans to cancel the concerts of Toni Cetinski and other musicians is exclusive in terms of the culture of remembrance because it only applies to victims of Croatian nationality, notes the Youth Initiative for Human Rights.
"I don't remember that these associations demanded proper markings, as, for example, the Youth Initiative for Human Rights in Croatia demanded in 2018 for Pavilion 22 of the Zagreb Fair, where civilians of Serbian nationality were detained and later killed on Pakracka Poljana, for which Tomislav Merčep was responsible," says Marko Milosavljević.
And from the Center for Nonviolent Action they say that what is essentially missing in our societies is "an honest attitude towards the past that would contribute to healing the wounds of the past and being overcome, without representing a field of competition in the willingness to hide the misdeeds of one's own side."
"Such a responsible relationship would imply an indiscriminate recognition of the injustices committed, and this would essentially contribute to building trust, security and cooperation and give new generations a chance not to repeat the patterns of hatred that nationalist politics offers as a lesson from the past," says Nenad Vukosavljević. "Instead of hatred as a guarantee of repeating injustices, we need recognition and respect for all injustices in order to build a sustainable peace together, not a balance of fear."
Unmarked mass graves
This case, however, is a great reminder for the government in Serbia to change the Law on War Memorials. With it, more than 190 locations of war crimes in our country would receive adequate memorialization - including camp sites for Croats as well as other civilians such as Stajićevo or places of mass graves where the remains of Albanian victims were hidden, such as Petovo village or Batajnica.
"It would be significant for the Public Prosecutor's Office for War Crimes to launch an investigation in order to shed light on all the circumstances surrounding war crimes in the camps against non-Serb civilians in Serbia, about which there are already criminal charges and plenty of evidence obtained by the Hague Tribunal, as well as the associations of camp inmates and local associations such as the Humanitarian Law Fund," say the Youth Initiative for Human Rights in Belgrade.
