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Revenge Fantasies

16 July 2008  Experts believe that Bosnia and Herzegovina could face serious consequences if people who suffered war trauma in their childhood do not receive adequate help.
 
By Nadzida Cano in Sarajevo

Experts in Bosnia and Herzegovina believe that individuals who were held in detention during their childhood or adolescence could develop “revenge fantasies”, with dire consequences for society as a whole.


Doctors say that torture inflicted at an early age can leave lifelong scars, and those working with victims are calling on the state to produce and implement a plan for providing support and medical assistance to those who are affected.   
 

However, 13 years after the end of the war no comprehensive data exists on how many minors were held in detention camps or prisons during the war; nor is there data on the number of people who have sought medical assistance as a result of wartime abuse. These and other problems mean that it will be very difficult to develop a workable plan for treatment and support.  
 

“It is necessary to open trauma centers where people who were detained when they were children can come for help,” said Dr Esmina Avdibegovic, Head of the Trauma and Stress Disorders Section at the Tuzla Psychiatric Clinics. “At present they avoid going to psychiatrists for help, because they are afraid of being 'labeled' so early in their lives.”
 

Avdibegovic said that victims run the risk of developing problems of low self-esteem, lack of confidence, and post-traumatic stress disorder, as well as a number of other illnesses, including diabetes and disorders of the  thyroid gland.
 

Lifetime trauma
 

During the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the number of children held in detention camps controlled by different military groups is believed to have run into the several hundreds. Many of those who were detained claim to have suffered abuse, torture and maltreatment.
 

Tadeus Mazovjecki, Special Rapporteur of the UN Human Rights Commission for the former Yugoslavia, described children being detained in “frightening conditions”.
 

“Children as young as four years old were beaten or sexually abused in a detention center set up by Bosnian Serbs near Zvornik,” a report published by Mazovjecki in 1994 stated. “Girls were raped, while others watched as their mothers were raped or harmed. Twelve or 13-year-old boys who were released from detention centers in Dretelj and Gabela in western Herzegovina claim that Bosnian Croats forced some of them to beat their own fathers.”

 
The Ministry of Human Rights and Refugees of Bosnia and Herzegovina does not possess any data on minors held in detention camps. The Ministry says that any existing data is “partial” and does not therefore represent “an indicator of the actual situation”.
 

The results of a survey conducted by the Bosnian Association of Detainees, published in a book entitled “Torn Rosebuds of Podrinje”, suggest that the practice of holding minors in detention camps together with adult detainees was widespread. The survey covered two thousands respondents from the Podrinje area, most of whom were surviving detainees. Of those polled, 415 said that they were children when they were detained.  
 

Sacir Srebrenica, deputy president of the Bosnian Association of Detainees, says that, on the basis of available data, the Association may be able to produce data next year on the number of child detainees. This would be possible if enough people work on consolidating existing data, Srebrenica said, though he added that the figure would not be a final one because many of those who were detained have never been documented.  
 

Verdicts issued against individuals charged by the ICTY and the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina confirms that children were held in detention camps.   
 

In its indictment against Nikola Andrun, the State Prosecution claimed that boys of 16 years old or younger were held in Gabela detention camp in Capljina Municpality. Nikola Andrun, former deputy commandant of the camp, was sentenced to 13 years in prison for crimes committed at the camp.  
 

Holding minors in detention camps is cited in the indictment against Marko Radic, Dragan Sunjic, Damir Brekalo and Mirko Vracevic, former members of the Croatian Defence Council, HVO. The Prosecution claims that they participated in detaining 76 civilians, “including women, children and old people” who were held in inhumane conditions in Vojno, a village in Mostar Municipality.
 

Ratko Bundalo, Nedjo Zeljaja and Djordjislav Askraba are charged, among other things, with setting up detention camps in Kalinovik Municipality, from which members of paramilitary groups took underage girls and raped them.
 

The State Prosecution contends that Nisvet Gasal, Musajb Kukavica, Enes Handzic and Senad Dautovic, former members of the Bosnian Army, were responsible for running the “Iskra” detention camp in Bugojno. The indictment against the men alleges that at least two minors were detained in the camp and that they suffered the same torture as nearly 300 other civilian inmates.
 

Meanwhile, the Hague Tribunal has charged former Herceg-Bosna leaders Jadranko Prlic, Bruno Ostojic, Slobodan Praljak, Milivoje Petkovic, Valentin Coric and Berislav Pusic with creating the conditions in which detention and abuse took place. The trial of these individuals is still ongoing.
 

At this trial a protected witness spoke of how he was detained for 236 days in the Dretelj, Gabela and Heliodrom camps.  
 

“This was a silent killing,” the witness, who was 17 years old at the time, told the court. He said that there were other minors in these detention camps and that they were treated in the same way as all the other prisoners.
 

Former detainees speak  

 
“I came to the detention camp when I was four. I still have bad dreams. But, I do not even have to fall asleep. It is enough to close my eyes and I can already see those corridors and halls,” says Armin Kaknjasevic, who was detained in Dubrave camp, as were his mother and his sister, also a minor at the time. The camp was controlled by the National Defence of the Western Bosnia Autonomous Region, ND WBAR.

 
Kaknjasevic is on a list of child detainees prepared by the Association of Detainees from Velika Kladusa.
 

The WBAR was formed in 1993 by Fikret Abdic, who was at the time the General Commander of the ND. Abdic, who has Croatian citizenship, was tried in Croatia and sentenced to 15 years in prison.
 

Eight members of the Icanovic family from Velika Kladusa were held in detention camps controlled by the ND WBAR. Nermin Icanovic was ten at the time. His five sisters were detained in the camp as well. The youngest was 17 months old. During their detention they were separated from their parents.  
 

In an interview with Justice Report, Nermin’s mother, Nure, said that after the war her son attended a drug rehabilitation program. She said the doctors told her that her son’s drug abuse problem was “a consequence of war trauma”.  
 

Nure Icanovic said that her daughter, who was eight years old when she was detained, still experiences difficulty in interacting with other people.
 

“She keeps saying that her life is over and that they destroyed her. She is too aggressive. Her school results are very poor. However, she does not want to speak about the events that happened in the detention camp. I made her visit a doctor, who determined that she was suffering from the consequences of trauma,” Nure said.
 

Bakira Hasecic, Head of the “Women, Victims of War” Association, said that underage girls were often held in isolation and “often offered to soldiers as a special reward for their battlefield achievements”. 
 

Hasic said that the available data suggests that between 500 and 600 underage girls were raped during the war. “Many of them delivered babies after that. Most rapes happened in eastern Bosnia,” she said.
 

The data, contained in the verdicts issued by the Hague Tribunal and the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, suggest that detainees held in women’s detention camps in Foca and Visegrad were 12 to 20 years old. Some did not survive.  
 

At the trial of Gojko Jankovic, who was sentenced by the State Court to 34 years in prison, witnesses described how they were detained in apartments and houses in the Foca area, where they were used as sex slaves during the course of the war.  
 

There were child detainees in detention camps in northern Bosnia as well. Mirsad Duratovic, current president of the “Prijedor 92” Association of Detainees, was one of them. He says he was 17 years old when the International Red Cross visited Manjaca detention camp and registered detainees, but that children were hidden elsewhere during the visit.   
 

“Tadeus Mazovjecki visited Manjaca together with the Red Cross. We were told about it only after the visit was over,” Duratovic said. “They told us, minors, to come out of the stable where we stayed and go to another building. We sat there with guards until the delegation left.”
 

Duratovic said that children were not exempt from the inhumane conditions at the camp because of their age.    
 

“We used to receive the same amount of food and water. I remember how I fainted due to hunger or thirst,” he said. “We were taken for interrogation, where they beat us up just like everybody else. I do not understand why they asked me to give them data on party members and things like that? At that time I was focused on school and nothing else.”
 

Dr Avdibegovic, who treats former child detainees, said there is no strategy in Bosnia and Herzegovina to give direction on how best to offer mental health treatment to people who were abused in detention camps as children.  
 

“There is a torture victim’s center in Sarajevo, as well as a few other organizations in other parts of Bosnia, but I do not think that this is enough,” she told Justice Report. “We should have more trauma centers. They do not necessarily have to be formed within an official system, though it would be good if they were part of the system because their financial sustainability would be ensured in that way.” She added that those who were tortured as children often need psychological help more than others.  
 

“We need to remedy the consequences, but we also need to make sure that the suffering experienced by these people is recognized; this would be some kind of a consolation to those people, because others would begin to understand what they have gone through. However, this is still not the case,” Dr Avdibegovic said.
 

Nadzida Cano is journalis for BIRN – Justice Report. Justice Report is weekly online BIRN publication.