The construction of the Croat Defence Council (HVO) museum on the site of the Heliodrom camp in Mostar and the recent statement of war criminal Darijo Kordic are a painful reminder that the international community has failed to establish a transitional justice strategy in Bosnia, claims the professor of philosophy and genocide and holocaust studies at Southern Connecticut State University and member Head of the Genocide Study Program at Yale University, David Pettigrew.

He notes that within the framework of transitional justice, memorials to the victims of genocide and other war crimes should be ensured, glorification of convicted war criminals should be ended and hate speech should be prevented, in order to restore the rule of law and protect survivors from re-traumatization.

The working group for Bosnia and Herzegovina, which gathers numerous domestic and international experts, sent a letter to the Secretary of State of the United States Department of State, Antony Blinken, urging him to use “all available channels, legal mechanisms and diplomatic influence” to stop the construction of the HVO military museum on the site of the former Heliodrom camp.

They believe that this “reckless museum project” is a flagrant violation of the common commitment to preserve historical memory and human dignity and to prevent impunity for crimes against humanity.

Instead of building a museum, they proposed the installation of a dignified plaque with a written recognition that in 1993 and 1994, there was a concentration camp on that spot.