Nusreta
from Prijedor

Yes, unfortunately in 1992 I was unlucky enough to be taken to one of the Prijedor camps, Omarska. I was the first woman from Prijedor in the camp. During my two-month imprisonment, the number of women in the camp increased to thirty-seven out of a total of around 3,500 prisoners.

Everything worked according to plan and program, it didn’t happen by accident, it didn’t happen overnight. Most of those who worked there were from the police. The Crisis Management Committee (CMC) took over the role of civil authority in Prijedor during this period and developed the camp structure in the premises of the former camp, with administration, shift foremen, guards, etc. Today the premises are not open to the public. They were converted into offices where employees of today’s Acelor Mittal company work. Every year on 6 August we visit the Omarska camp, but we could never go to these rooms to leave flowers for the five murdered women.

We women were accommodated in two rooms above the restaurant. From there we did our daily chores around the restaurant, mainly physical labour: distributing food to the prisoners in the camp, washing dishes, scrubbing, cleaning...whatever the guards ordered us to do. Then after this work, which lasted from morning to night, we went to our dormitories. There really wasn’t any sleep...sexual abuse and rape mostly happened at night.

During the day, these premises were used for interrogations of prisoners in the camp. Investigators interrogated detainees all day and beat some to death. So the floor and walls were covered in blood. We had to clean them to be able to stay there overnight. We often found people’s clothes covered in blood, torture devices used during interrogations. And we could hear it all in the restaurant, people were screaming, crying and crying...

So, like I said, we had to clean the rooms first so we could spend the night on that floor. On this floor, where we lived, there were all sorts of rooms, including a room for nighttime sexual abuse. Most of the time they came during the night, either the guards or other men from the camp staff. They took women out of the rooms...and weren’t really picky. The thirty-seven women were all ages, from young women, university students to women who had already retired.

The women didn’t talk to each other about what happened to them that night... There was silence. It was fear that blocked us. We were afraid that there would be listening devices. We didn’t tell each other about it. It was particularly bad when I heard others coming back... This helplessness was a terrible feeling because you can see everything but you couldn’t change anything. You could only run the risk of being finally executed. Me, for example, I set myself a task...’ (Nusreta memorised everything very specifically during the time in the camp so that she could later testify against the perpetrators in court).

There were moments when you thought you could not survive. Then you wished for an option of death, the quickest, being killed by a bullet or dying naturally. The situation changed hourly and you never knew what the new day tomorrow would bring. Then you would hope maybe someone survives this and one day will talk about it so everyone knows what happened in Omarska. Five women did not survive Omarska, they were executed and found in mass graves after the war. Their story will never be heard.

There’s trauma and fear – fear of how family members will change their attitudes when they find out about it...we’re from that type of environment. So many thought silence might be best for them... It doesn’t mean they won’t speak up after all this time. Before, it was normal not to speak, so they kept quiet.

When you find yourself in such a horrible environment every day, where you see the blood every morning and start the day counting the dead, a clear view through the large windows of the restaurant of the White House, the camp’s torture centre and the lawn in front of it – it shapes the overall atmosphere.

Later, several of us women gave information and spoke to investigators from the Tribunal (The Hague, ICTY). We gave information so they could get a more complete picture. That helped, and the work of The Hague tribunal began with the opening of files on the Omarska camp.

One day, on the 3rd or 5th of August, some women were transferred to another camp in Trnopolje. At that time, Radovan Karadžić was President of the Republic of Srpska. He was at the peace negotiations in London. CNN and ITN, Penny Marshall from the International Red Cross, Ed Vulliamy, then reporters from The Guardian in Great Britain, insisted on coming to the Omarska camp because there were rumours that there was a camp near Prijedor where people were horribly tortured and women were raped. Karadzic said it was a lie, it wasn’t true. They got permission and got into the camp...these were those legendary pictures of live skeletons that you can allegedly see behind the wire fence.

The camp administration and the CMC in Prijedor knew about the impending visit of the journalists, so we women were transferred to another camp in Trnopolje. So we were hidden from the public since Karadzic had declared that there were no women in Omarska. He had given the journalists permission in London, but did not expect that they would take the next possible flight and be on the ground via Belgrade that same evening. The videos are from 5 August 1992. It helped in a way...even though a number of prisoners had already been transferred to Trnopolje and some to Manjaca. Only a part remained in the camp and were filmed there when the International Red Cross came to Omarska with TV crews.

I don’t know exactly how many later spoke about it or testified in court, some died growing old and ill. But the number of witnesses was enough to prove that Omarska was classified as one of the most brutal camps in ex-Yugoslavia. There was a paragraph in the verdict on the sexual abuse of women. However, there was no separate charge of rape in the Omarska trial. The leaders of the Omarska camp who were accused, I don’t know exactly, fourteen or eighteen men, many, the largest number, not only the accused but also the convicts came from Prijedor.

I don’t like using dates or numbers, I’m always very careful with that...but it’s no problem to find out on the internet how many were convicted in Prijedor. Some of the accused accepted guilt before the tribunal and court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, mostly they denied...they usually deny. Many are now out of prison... Some of them have been released after serving two-thirds of their sentences. These are the rules. One of the guards responsible got twenty years in prison. The punishment...that’s what really puts the witnesses off, especially if you’re a victim witness, since the length of the sentence doesn’t reflect the seriousness of the crime being committed. But for me it is important that he was convicted. At one point this will be extremely important. I usually say it’s very hard to go back and live where you’ve experienced all these horrible things.

Neither politicians of the Republic of Srpska nor ordinary citizens or intellectuals have distanced themselves from or condemned the crimes. After the perpetrators return to their old surroundings after only serving two-thirds of their sentence, they are still considered heroes. Many there believe they have been falsely accused and deny the authority of the ITCY in The Hague. Most of the perpetrators released from prison get jobs immediately, many of the convicts were still on their old payroll, they received the salary of the companies in which they worked until the trial. They mostly have the support of the local community. But women don’t. Of course. Those are the paradoxes, absurd, terrible, but unfortunately that’s the way it is. There are many women who have chosen not to return, they don’t even want to come visit. I returned to Prijedor in 2002, ten years after the camp.

In the beginning it was terrible. I also thought that I couldn’t stand it here for long, but over time I got used to it. I’m not afraid. I was a refugee in Croatia in Zagreb and believed that the war would soon be over. Before I finally returned, I came to visit to secure my property like everyone else going through all those bureaucratic offices. My neighbours saw me coming, but once they realised that I really wanted to live here, hardly anyone greeted me anymore. You probably don’t believe it. Once someone wrote Omarska next to my door. Big letters. Luckily I didn’t have any major problems. However, the situation is different now. I got used to living here. It wasn’t comfortable at first, I really thought I couldn’t do it. You meet people who worked in the camp, interrogators, none of whom have been summoned to a trial yet...you meet them on the street...people you know what they did during the war...who killed, stole, raped. But as time goes by... I’ve been twelve years now in Prijedor. Serbs are the vast majority today, we Bosniaks are a minority. The people mostly live in the villages in this area to which they have returned.

Yes, I know of a case that was in front of the White House. What happened in Omarska during the day: they forced a respectable man from Prijedor to rape a woman in front of the White House. Both did not survive. He was found in one of the mass graves, as was she. It was horrific that day when they forced Mehmedalija Sarajlic to rape one of the female inmates, Hajra Hadzic, in front of the White House. I haven’t seen any other cases, but they probably happened.

If I was a judge, a responsible judge, I would try to be objective, to stick to the legislation. (Nusreta worked as a judge until the war). On the other hand, as an affected woman, you have an internal struggle to be objective...at work, especially when you’re a judge, you have to keep those emotions out. Unfortunately, there is no death sentence in The Hague. There is a life sentence, but as far as I know no one has ever gotten it. I would still try to be a professional no matter how I feel and what I think about it now.