DURBAN--The name Omarska rings
with shame from the heart of Western Europe.
It is the modern-day concentration camp where
Muslim and Croat victims of the Bosnian Serb
warmongers of just a decade ago were starved,
beaten to death, the women raped, tortured and
treated as sex slaves. Many have never been seen
since. The remains of some were identified in
mass graves.
It is a place synonymous with the
signature photograph of the Balkan war, the picture
showing starving men, their faces drawn tight staring
through barbed wire. A reminder of Europe's Nazi past.
Nusreta Sivac, a judge who lived to tell the tale of
horror and later testify at the war crimes tribunal
in The Hague, told the story of what happened on June
9, 1992, the day she was detained by armed men without
explanation, and taken to Omarska.
"We were sleeping on the floor, 18 women
in one room, 18 in the other. We had to clean blood
from the floors every night because they used the
rooms during the day to torture and beat people," she
said. "I saw terrible sights of killing and
torture. Some were dying of hunger, it was dirty.
I started my day in the camp counting the dead."
Sivac, who spent two months in the camp, was invited
to address the UN World Conference on Racism at
a special daily forum arranged by UN Human Rights
Commissioner Mary Robinson to ensure that the voices
of the victims of racism and xenophobia get a hearing.
Unable to hold
back her tears, as were many in the audience
who listened to Sivac, a sad looking
tall blonde woman, continued: "Some judges,
including ex-colleagues who visited the camp behaved
as if they had never seen me before. I wondered
why I was there, what I had done. My only guilt
was that was a Muslim intellectual. The nights
were difficult for the women. They used to come
in, take us one by one. It was sexual torture and
rape. I thought they would spare me, but they didn't."
During much of the conflict in Bosnia, rape was
used as a policy of war. The International War
Crimes Tribunal was told that in Omarska, Sivac
and others were repeatedly abused in this way.
Five women reportedly died. Women who fell into
the hands of the enemy were systematically raped
during interrogation. In some communities they
were taking to detention centers, schools or sports
halls and repeatedly raped and gang-raped. Figures
on the number of women abused are considered unreliable
by UN bodies because few have been willing to come
forward and testify. In many instances their husbands
deserted them. The stigma was too much to bear.
Sivac said the
women were moved from Omarska when the International
Committee of the Red Cross brought
journalists to the camp and the images of horror
were broadcast around the world. "I thought
the war would stop then, but it only ended in 1995.
I stayed five days in the other camp, then they
released me without explanation. I returned to
my home and found an ex-colleague had taken it
over." She then spent four years as a refugee
in neighbouring Croatia where they formed the VH
Women's Group, to help one another and ensure that
eventually the tales of horror would be told. "Later
I found two friends in a mass grave. I'm still
looking for three others."
As Sivac wiped her tears away, the silence in
the hall was broken by resounding applause.
Each of the other three victims of racism whose
voices were heard on Monday also drew loud applause
for their courage in speaking out. They were Willy
Weisz, an Austrian Jew who speak of the rise in
anti-Semitism in Austria. He said Jews in Austria
today live in fear of the extreme rightwing, Austrian
Freedom Party led by Jorg Haider. He said they
had never been able to prosecute Haider for his
anti-Semitic remarks, such as saying that the most
feared Waffen SS units of the Nazi war machine
should be emulated by young people.
Lorraine Nesane, a 15-year old South African schoolgirl
spoke of racism in post-apartheid South Africa.
Last September she was accused of trying to steal
in a clothing store by a woman employee who hit
her in the chest. Her head was painted white, her
shirt removed and her upper body also painted and
she was sent packing into the street. She sucessfully
filed a complaint with the police in the small
northern town of Louis Trichardt. She said she
felt little hope for racial reconciliation in South
Africa because her classmates still teased her
and because white people still regard themselves
as superior to African people.
Creuza Maria de
Olivera, an Afro-Brazilian women spoke of a life
of servitude and sexual abuse as
a virtually bonded child servant in the home of
a white family. "Brazilian society was founded
on African slave labor. Child labour today is one
of the vestiges of that period. "Many girls
and young women in domestic service today are abused
and exploited. We don't have rights under the law."
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