Healing the Wounds: Grassroots Effort Rebuilt Trust Between Croats and Serbs After Balkan Conflict
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A collaborative initiative launched in March 1996 aimed to prevent further displacement and foster reconciliation between Croats and Serbs in the aftermath of the Balkan conflicts. The Coordination of Peace Organisations of East Slavonia, Baranja and West Sirmium, comprised of three Serbian and eight Croatian organizations, focused on reintegrating communities and addressing deep-seated trauma.
The Challenge of Reintegration
Following the withdrawal of the UN mission, a perceived loss of protection threatened to trigger a new wave of emigration from eastern Croatia. Recognizing this vulnerability, the newly formed coordination group prioritized rebuilding confidence and establishing pathways for reconciliation between the two communities. The effort centered on addressing the psychological and emotional barriers preventing peaceful coexistence.
Confronting Deep-Seated Trauma Through Dialogue
A key component of the program involved facilitating dialogue between women directly impacted by the war. One particularly poignant example involved separate groups of Croatian women displaced by conflict and Serbian women remaining in areas under UN and Serbian control. According to a program participant, the goal with the Croatian women was to “prepare them to go back to their villages in a peaceful way and how to face the situation on the spot when they arrived and how they could be an ambassador of peace there.” A similar objective guided the work with their Serbian counterparts.
However, the process quickly revealed the profound extent of the trauma endured by both sides. When asked about the conditions necessary for peaceful reintegration, the responses were stark.
“The Croatians said: ‘We can’t imagine even listening to the Serbian language’,” a senior official recalled, “because during the war there had been complete segregation. You did not even hear Serbian speech. And if you heard it, it was immediately connected with aggression, suffering, and war crimes.”
A Radical Exercise in Empathy
To address this deeply ingrained aversion, facilitators devised a challenging exercise. Croatian women were asked to read text written in the Cyrillic alphabet and in the Serbian language. The reaction was visceral.
“Their instinct was to vomit,” the official stated. “That was really the level of psycho-organic distress – how they felt at that time.”
The trauma wasn’t limited to one side. Serbian women revealed they had been isolated from each other by paramilitary forces, living in fear and unable to communicate even within their own communities.
“They hadn’t had an opportunity to even talk to each other because the Serbian paramilitary forces kept them in fear in their houses, not meeting each other. They were afraid to even talk,” the official explained.
Relearning to Communicate
The program then shifted to basic communication skills. Participants engaged in exercises designed to help them relearn how to speak to each other without fear. “We trained them, we exercised with them – about just speaking,” the official emphasized, highlighting the fundamental difficulty of the task.
The initiative underscores the long and arduous path toward lasting peace. While the initial groundwork was laid in 1996, the process of reconciliation remains ongoing, a testament to the enduring wounds of conflict and the vital importance of grassroots efforts to heal them.
