Injustice is built into the system

Two years have passed since the mass murders in Vladislav Ribnikar Primary School and Dubona and Mali Orašje, six months since the canopy fell. No one accepted responsibility, and the regime's actions were reduced to defending their own seats. By both action and inaction, too much pain has been caused to the families of those killed in two mass murders and to the families of those who died under the canopy, too much carelessness for the wounded, too many wounds for society. What changed - because of the student protests - happened in spite of the authorities, not because of the authorities.

For months, one of the few people who persistently help the families of the murdered, who do what the state and society should do - from concrete help to memorialization - is Veran Matić, a journalist. As is known, Matić is also the president of the B92 Fund, engaged in a large number of known and unknown humanitarian actions, he is the president of the Commission for Investigating Murders of Journalists in Serbia, a member of the Permanent Working Group for the Safety of Journalists, winner of many awards for journalistic and humanitarian work...

We are talking about the attitude of the state towards the victims and their families, about whether the government could be expected to investigate why the crimes happened, about irresponsibility as the cause of the chain of tragic events, about the society of violence, and about whether he would again accept to be in the Commission established for the time of Aleksandar Vučić, and the envoy for the missing, as well as what the students brought to this society.

Where are we today, after the second anniversary of two mass murders and six months after the fall of the canopy, when 16 people died?

VERAN MATIC: In each of these cases, we are only in the next day - May 4th and 5th and November 2nd are still going on. Political elites, as well as social elites that are primarily connected to the government, refused to seriously deal with these topics, as if they were isolated incidents. We knew there was a high degree of irresponsibility, but now it has shown its unfathomable proportions. That irresponsibility led us to a situation where today, two years, that is, six months later, we have an equally vivid sense of loss, as well as sympathy for the families of those killed, but with the added feeling that everything that was not done in the meantime is a prerequisite for it to be repeated tomorrow, to be repeated every day.

"WEATHER" And what should have happened after the first mass murder? How could that streak of suffering be ended?

Often here, things come down to court processes - which have their own legal framework and role - but that's only one part of the story. In both cases (May 3 and 4, 2023), the executors were immediately arrested and very quickly we were able to get a narrower, family framework, which served the institutions to say that everything necessary is being done.

At the same time, the leading political and executive elites tried to cover up and hide the context, the wider framework, in which such crimes take place, which is important for discovering the causes. Damage control was already on May 3. Due to one game, the declaration of mourning day was postponed! Everything that happened after that is the expected consequences of such irresponsible behavior and favoring a certain population, which is by no means part of society that serves as an example, but on the contrary - that promotes hooliganism, violence and the context that led to mass murders. And when you get on the wrong train, all the stations are wrong. Dubona and Malo Orasje followed more than 24 hours later, which means that there was time for the authorities' reaction to prevent that mass murder. Instead, the message that followed encouraged the killer - and he was a winner and not a loser with his violence many times during his life - to commit a new crime, that is, to kill nine young people and injure even more.

If what was needed had been done after the mass murder at the "Vladislav Ribnikar" school, the murder of the boy with a knife in Niška Banja and a series of other crimes would probably not have happened.

The fall of the canopy falls under the same context of irresponsible governance.

Ninela Radićević and Milanka Negić, Ana's mom and Sofia's mom, last year they said that Serbia had to stop 3rd. maja, that it was the last chance for society to make a breakthrough. Unfortunately, it was not settled then, but it happened six months ago.

I think that the student rebellion is the result of a mass murder in the elementary school "Vladislav Ribnikar", regardless of the fact that the students did not react at the time. The phrase "Serbia should stop" was difficult to understand immediately, especially since the protests after May 3 and 4 were without clear profiling. "Serbia against violence" was formed, but the role of the opposition in that series of events was understood as a nuisance and mistrust of it diverted attention to the other side. If the student protests had happened then - when there was really a lot of desire for change and energy - I think that those protests and society would have gone in a much different direction in the following months. Instead, we witnessed the shameful attitude of the state towards the victims, all activity and responsibility was transferred to the families and the school, which could not cope, and the principals were changed every few months. By refusing to manage the crisis properly, the state showed itself to be an accomplice to the crime.

What would responsible behavior look like, the one that wouldn't put her on that side?

Politicians were not allowed to make decisions in relation to their ratings, but to empower the most expert to assess what is necessary to do in the first moments after the crime, how to end the school year, how to start a new one during the summer, what programs are needed and how to implement them... And not to change decisions from day to day according to what public opinion says, which offended not only the families of the victims but also all citizens. I was invited to two or three meetings in the Government, where programs for the new school year were always discussed, and at those meetings there were very few people who could make a quality contribution, precisely for political reasons, because the experts were excommunicated from the life of managing the country. Everything I presented at the time was accepted as a good idea, but later it appeared absolutely nowhere.

In short, everything was done amateurishly and politicized, and it was getting worse and worse. There was no talk of empathy, of processing the horror that happened in order to create the conditions for the prevention of future ones.

When we look back, do you think it was possible to do that with this kind of government? And how could they force themselves to look in the mirror like that?

This government did not even try and yes, it was not even possible with it because the promotion of violence is in its essence. When Brankica Stanković and I once received police protection, it was known that we were threatened by extreme fans and thugs originating from that criminal milieu. Years have passed and it is impossible to determine who is still threatening us. Then we said: "OK, cancel this for us, because it is impossible that no one has been punished." We only received information without explanation that we are no longer threatened, although nothing has changed in the structure of society. Some of these people were convicted, some were not, but after that they all became richer and the same songs are still being sung.

The structure of society includes violence and, as another important element, relativization. The relativization of the 3s was already embedded in the system, but now we have it in relation to the mass murder on May XNUMX, so through the media with national coverage it is treated as a terrorist act and a conspiracy, which is the pinnacle of concealing the real causes and obscuring the desire to discover what really happened.

photo: marija janković

And if we go deep into the causes, How far would we get??

When we talk about the rootedness of violence, the system established by Milosevic in the nineties laid such strong foundations that they still rule today. Those foundations are connected to the power centers, which are in turn connected to the secret services. We have a number of paramilitary formations, which were formed by the DB during the wars, and it is frightening what was done already in the first year of the war in the territories of the former Yugoslavia. The perpetrators of those crimes are celebrated here as heroes, even though some of them have served their sentences, and the perception of the political elites is that those sentences were unjust.

Today, we live in a situation that was not cleared up after October 5, there was no constructive, healthy break with the past, through educational, legal and other processes. That is why not only the sensibility of the nineties returned to the scene, but the nineties also returned institutionally.

It is unnecessary to remind that Vučić was the Minister of Information when the murder of Slavko Ćuruvija took place and when the Law on Information was passed, when he justified everything that was done, which is the substance of the violence and evil we live in.

When Milosevic was extradited to the Hague Tribunal, we realized how he became their problem, but he wasn't, it was our problem. And very quickly there was a boomerang: we were broadcasting the trial in The Hague, hoping to confront the past, and it became a platform to preserve those ideas. The prosecution and the state did a bad job, the trial was not contextualized, and thus each subsequent political generation gave up on confronting the society of violence. And the society of violence has remained the central place of Serbia in the past 30, 40 years.

The best example for its preservation is the trial for the murder of Slavko Ćuruvija. We had about fifteen years of inactivity in the investigation, then the establishment of the Commission for Investigating the Murder of Journalists, which encouraged the investigation process, led to the filing of an indictment, two verdicts of 100 years in prison each, and then their complete annulment. And DB won, as, after all, in all the processes that happened and those that did not happen. There are a number of political murders that have not been touched upon, even though there is a lot of evidence, which has created the basis for future violence and the impunity that stimulates it.

Would you like to today?, with this experience, accepted to be the president of the Commission for Investigating the Murder of Journalists?

Yes, I asked for that. My motive is always the same - something must be done. Until 2011, we would gather every year on the day when Ćuruvija was killed, about thirty of us, and send a proclamation to the authorities. I thought we had to get involved. I proposed it to Boris Tadić in 2009, with the idea that we, journalists, can help by creating a context, activating those who might know something. But it didn't take off. I suggested the same to Vučić and he accepted it.

If that commission had not been established, so much evidence would never have been discovered, the indictment would not have been brought, the first-instance verdicts would not have been obtained... In the end, the system was exposed, and the judicial spirit in which everything takes place is also illustrated by the fact that one of the members of that panel subsequently sued KRIK and asked for a ban on the work of journalists. But I see the verdict that acquitted the defendants as a stage in the process, not the end. We must not give up on it, just as we must not think that someone else will do the job for us. Tomorrow when, God forbid, the students win the elections, the question is who will be ready to tackle this story and push it to the end. As contemporaries, we have to resolve the political context, to present to the public all the documentation we have collected during the nine years of the trial. Otherwise, the whole story will remain that the accused, now acquitted, will receive a trial against the Slavko Ćuruvija Foundation, i.e. his children. That must not be allowed.

There is an attitude that any cooperation with such a state, or power, in a certain way it compromises.

When I asked for the establishment of the Commission to Investigate the Murder of Journalists, my condition was that I would not have any privileges or compensation. I financed my own trips, including the trip to The Hague, where we brought evidence for the murder of Dada Vujasinović. The same is true for the missing persons (the position of Special Envoy of the President for resolving the issue of missing persons with Croatia). (Milorad) Pupovac, (Drago) Hedl, the mayor of Osijek Ivica Vrkić and I were sitting, desperate, talking about how nothing works. We agreed to propose, Ivica Vrkić and I, to President Kolinda Grabar Kitarović and Vučić to help work on finding the missing, but also without privileges and the cabinet. To be a bridge between the families of the missing and the institutions. It took me three years to organize a meeting with the associations of missing persons from Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo, so that Vučić could receive them. Only Serbia still does not have a law on missing persons.

I think it would have been nicer and easier for me if I had stayed on the sidelines. I get sick from those funerals, from so much sadness, from reading what happened in Glina... But I have no doubt whether I should have done it, I have my standards and values, as in the case of the mass murders on May 3 and 4. You can choose to distance yourself and run away from that horror, or you can choose to be involved, to try to make it even a little easier for the families.

And what is it all? (bilo) needed by the families of the victims and the wounded?

To begin with, there was no point that would help the families, whether it was economic, health, psychological problems... I remember that at one point, when we realized that the victims of Dubona and Mali Orašje were completely neglected, Saša (Mirković) and I decided to go there, on our own, and I called the Prime Minister's office to ask for the phones of the families, and they told me "we don't have it".

We managed to get in touch, we went there, with the initial idea that the parents of the murdered children from "Ribnikar" and from Dubona and Mali Orašje would meet, so that through joint mourning, they would find the strength to move forward. That's what happened, which was a very poignant, cathartic moment.

In Dubona and Mali Orašje, no one visited them for months, no one asked them how they were feeling, but two psychologists were appointed to the school in Dubona, so they had to go there if anyone wanted to talk. Of course no one left. We only realized when we went to them (October 2023) that there were 12 wounded. More precisely, of course we knew that there were wounded, but we had no idea what kind of hell it was, how much help those people needed.

But in general, this is the picture of the attitude towards the victims here, towards the victims of the wars of the 1990s, veterans... Injustice is built into the system, and towards the most vulnerable. It is the same now - the mother of the person killed in the fall of the canopy had to leave the country a few days ago.

When we talk about empathy and solidarity, about the feeling for others and the search for justice, what the students brought and changed? And how to preserve it?

Empathy appeared to them as a basic idea, not as a product of the political process. The entire student boycott is based on empathy, firstly towards the victims, and was initiated as a reaction to the attacked FDU students. It was precisely the fact that the values ​​- solidarity and compassion - were in the foreground that encouraged so much support and trust from the citizens of Serbia.

And with the students, I recognized everything that I had heard about the children and young people killed in Ribnikar, Mali Orašje and Dubona from their parents, teachers, and friends, and what I admired and tried to publish. Those children lived the values ​​that we neglected, that the government and the social model completely suppressed - these values ​​are also lived by the students.

I think that the persistence of students and the expansion of their demands is precisely the maturation of values. This is very important because it does not always happen in this way, free from political and corporate influences. This is recognized by people in Europe, not only ours, but also the citizens of European countries, and that is why there are so many tears among them, because they are not only tears because of what is happening right now, but also because of what has been missed and not done.

We are now, through student action, experiencing catharsis, each on a different level, whether it is about the wars of the nineties or the current tragedy. A confrontation is at work that we have not experienced before on such a massive scale, and which would produce an avalanche of compassion. That is why the meetings in Novi Pazar or Croatia, when our students ran, are important.

Many years of building stereotypes have passed without us even noticing that they were built, because in our family or our school this was not the case. But a context has been created that creates dangerous stereotypes about diversity, whether ethnically or sexually diverse, even in children who have tolerant parents. Exclusions based on these stereotypes are a terrible basis for violence. That's why I really believe that what the students are doing is a way that could be a way to heal our societies.

In order to, when that time comes, truly paid back the victims? Is that possible??

Not without a complete change of the social model. Without understanding the evil that has been done in our immediate history in the last three, four decades, it would be partial and hypocritical. It's too late for what happened six months ago, everything now is compensation. If we don't get to

serious confrontation with the past, with a strong program of creating a non-violent society, changes will have a short duration.

And in that change, the parents of the murdered children could be ambassadors of the normalization process of this society. They are ready for that role and it would be good if the students also included them in their debates, to understand what happened and what are the ways of coping.

Accomplices in the murders

"For several days, I had to convince my colleagues from the tabloids 'Republika' and 'Srpski telegraf' to take down a series of photos with the open coffins of a brother and sister killed in Dubona. This goes beyond the violation of the code of ethics, it is about the basic definition of humanity. Such behavior of the media makes them accomplices to murder. And in the last 20, 30 years, they have experienced a kind of insanity to the limit and without any punishment. Leading people in the media they factor it into the business model. It used to be thought that you should protect the community and the public interest, but now the direction is reversed. We have the pink culture of the nineties, which is a broader concept than the media culture, which we saw in the recent visit of the president to the United States."