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Date: Mon, 07 Sep 1998 12:12:15 -0700 (PDT)
Reply-To: Conference "zamir.chat" 
From: Dolores Gunter 
Subject: FOR work Camp in Bosnia
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THE FOR WORK CAMP IN  BOSNIA, by Doug Hostetter and Dolores Gunter, August 1998 

In late July and early August, a FOR work camp of 12 persons created a
community in northwest Bosnia which crossed all ethnic, national and
religious boundaries in a deeply divided area which had experienced some of
the most heinous crimes of ethnic/religious hatred during the war.  The work
camp taught English on both sides of the Bosnian Serb/ Bosnian Government
border and worked with Bosnian Muslims to clean rubble from their destroyed
homes in the Serb controlled part of Bosnia in preparation for return to the
town from which they were ethnically cleansed 6 years ago. 

Last winter, parents of 3 Bosnian students asked the FOR to bring a work
camp of US Muslims, Christians and Jews to this area where the families live
as refugees to work with Muslims, Serbs, and Croats who want to rebuild a
multicultural society. We recruited people ages 16 to 66 to work in
reconstruction and teach English to teachers and students in the town of
Sanski Most on Bosnian Government side and the town of Prijedor in the
"Republik Srpska" on the Bosnian Serb side. 

On Saturday, August 1, the work camp joined 500 Muslim former residents of
700-year old  Kozarac in the Bosnian Serb controlled part of Bosnia to clean
their streets and burned homes and work for the healing of their town.  In
May 1992, Bosnian Serbs, helped by the Yugoslav Army, surrounded and
attacked this town in the Prijedor District. There was no Bosnian army in
the area. After 2 days of shelling 7,000 people were killed, Kozarac was
occupied, and the non-Serb inhabitants were sent to 5 concentration camps in
the area, sites of some of the worst atrocities of the war.  

We were invited to particiapte in this cleanup by parents of students in the
BSP, who lived in Kozarac before it was "cleansed" of it's Muslim
inhabitants.  This work was not organized by the UN, SFOR, or either
government, but by Kozarac citizens, most of whom are refugees. After a day
of clearing rubble, we and all others (former residents and the few Serbs
who live in Kozarac) were invited to a big meal prepared by part of the
returning group.  Former residents continue to clean and rebuild; they
expect to return and live in their homes this fall. This is the first large
scale return of refugees to their former homes in a region where they are
ethnic minorities. We were privileged to be a part of the effort by these
courageous people to rebuild a multicultural society in Bosnia after such
brutal ethnic and religious hatred. 

When the FOR  English classes were announced on the Serb government radio in
Prijedor, 240 Serbs asked to register.  The Middle School principal accepted
137 students for the daily classes from 9:30am-12:30 pm.  Dolores recruited
three additional English teachers from  the FOR work camp and worked with 2
local Serb translators (we had brought 2 Muslim translators), to form 4
classes. Students and teachers, hungry for friendship, anxious about meeting
us and our Muslim translators, cautious of a world presented in their
propaganda as hating and irrationally blaming Serbs, came every day. They
found us to be people who refuse to have an enemy, who work for peace with
justice and accountability.  We remembered we came to strengthen people who
had a good life with their neighbors before the war and want to live like
that again.  

Results? Beyond out greatest hopes...Serb students in Prijedor learned,
talked with us and our translators, and made plans. After the 3rd day of
class, several students asked us to take them to Sanski Most (on Bosnian
Government side) so they could see where they had lived.  At the end of our
stay, the FOR organized a party in Sanski Most for all those on both sides
with whom we worked.  Seven Serb students and a retired teacher came from
Prijedor.  About the same number of Muslims, though traumatized by
overwhelming losses and abuses during the war, came from Sanski Most. The
teachers from Prijedor did not come, but they had a wonderful party with
gifts the next day. Prijedor students came, ate, sang, talked and walked the
town with Muslim and US youth. As they left for Prijedor, they said, "Thank
you, thank  you. This is astonishing. Our friends will never believe that we
sang both Muslim and Serbian songs in Sanski Most."  As we left Sanski Most,
Kozarac, and Prijedor, we were no longer giver or receiver, but people
reaching across all barriers to build a world of justice, peace, and
reconciliation where individuals are judged not by their ethnic nationality
or religion, but by their actions and the quality of their character.   

Dolores Gunter  (doloresg@igc.apc.org)
Fellowship of Reconciliation
Box 271 (521 N. Broadway), Nyack, NY 10960 USA
Phone (914) 358-4601    Fax (914) 358 4924
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