Peace, Peace, Peace—Who Is to Blame?

It is difficult to hear that metaphor without thinking of one’s own region. The wars of the 1990s in the territory of the former Yugoslavia and the conflict in Northern Ireland, which lasted from 1968 to 1998, are different in context, but they share a deep social division that has persisted even after the formal end of violence.

In Northern Ireland, there are institutional mechanisms for remembrance and for prosecuting crimes. Yet the divisions remain omnipresent. Flags, anthems, and parades serve as daily reminders of the bloody past. The so-called “Peace Wall,” two kilometers long, still separates communities in Belfast. It is decorated with murals—messages of peace, but also of hatred. “We’re not ready to tear it down in my lifetime,” the guide says, “but I believe the next generation will do it.”

The scene then returns to my hometown, Belgrade. It is February 2026. At the beginning of the month, the Youth Initiative for Human Rights marked the anniversary of the Markale massacre, amid the now customary fear of attacks and pressure from the political elite of the Republic of Serbia and from extremist groups. That crime—like the Siege of Sarajevo, whose end is approaching its thirtieth anniversary—is almost never spoken about in Serbia. On the contrary: crimes are denied and convicted war criminals are presented as heroes.

The Siege of Sarajevo lasted 1,425 days—from April 5, 1992, to February 29, 1996. During this horrific ordeal, 11,541 civilians were killed, including 1,601 children. The city was subjected to daily shelling and sniper fire from the surrounding hills. Residents survived without electricity or running water, relying on humanitarian aid and their own resourcefulness.

The Markale massacre, which preceded the end of the siege, occurred on two occasions—1994 and 1995. In those attacks, more than one hundred civilians were killed. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia established responsibility for the terror campaign against the civilians of Sarajevo. For the massacres at Sarajevo’s Markale marketplace in 1994 and 1995, Stanislav Galić, commander of the Sarajevo-Romanija Corps of the Army of Republika Srpska, was sentenced to life imprisonment, while Radovan Karadžić and Ratko Mladić were also sentenced to life terms for the siege and shelling, including the attacks on Markale. The verdicts exist. Guilt has been legally proven.[1]

And yet, three decades later, in Serbia, instead of a commemorative gathering, the narrative that the Markale massacre was carried out by the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina in order to discredit the Army of Republika Srpska continues to fuel divisions and hatred. In order to sustain this unfounded claim, even state institutions have been mobilized.

In Serbia, student protests are currently underway, sparked by the deaths of 16 people after the collapse of a canopy at the railway station in Novi Sad. The demand is for justice. But justice cannot be selective. A society that seeks accountability for today’s tragedies while refusing to confront the crimes of the past remains trapped in a half-truth, built on rotten foundations. 

Instead of a commemoration for the victims of the Siege of Sarajevo, which ended on February 29 thirty years ago, graffiti bearing the image of Ratko Mladić has appeared on walls across Belgrade. Instead of public mourning—silence from the institutions. Remembering the victims and demanding accountability for the crimes is left to a handful of civil society organizations, without political support and without any systemic will to adequately address the past. In contrast, the state leadership cultivates ethnonationalist rhetoric, the denial of war crimes, the glorification of war criminals, and revisionist policies.

Thirty years ago, on February 29, 1996, the Siege of Sarajevo came to an end following the adoption of the Dayton Peace Agreement.

And here we return to the question of peace.

What is peace? Is it merely the absence of war? Or is peace also the recognition of another’s suffering? Responsibility? Justice that is genuine only if it is not selective? The willingness to say: a crime was a crime.

“Peace, unlike a truce, cannot be imposed from the outside; it can only be the result of negotiations, mutual compromises, and a final agreement…” — Hannah Arendt [2]

The Dayton Agreement did bring the war to an end, but it could not bring about genuine peace. That kind of peace is achieved through everyday action—through conversation, listening, acknowledging another person’s pain, condemning injustice, and having the courage to confront one’s own responsibility. Peace begins at home, in schools, in public spaces, on the walls of buildings when we refuse to allow someone’s suffering to be forgotten. Every individual and every community have a role to play and bears responsibility in the process of building peace.

As Johan Galtung explains within the framework of the theory of “positive peace,” peace is not merely the absence of war or violence, but a condition in which “peace implies the presence of justice, equality, and conditions that allow people to thrive and realize their full potential.” Positive peace, unlike negative peace, means that a society not only refrains from war, but actively fosters justice, equality, and social structures in which people can truly develop. In that sense, peace is not a state that someone can impose on us from the outside; it is a process that requires active care, participation in shared civic life, and everyday actions that support equality, justice, and the dignity of all people.[3]

And are we truly building it?

Without confronting the past, without institutional accountability, and without public recognition of the victims, it is difficult to speak of a peace that has truly been built. We may be living in a time without war, but that is still not the same as peace. We cannot expect peace to be delivered to us from the outside; peace means taking responsibility, naming those responsible, and paying tribute to those who suffered.

If peace really is a flower, as the guide in Belfast says, then in the Balkans that flower stands largely left to itself, without enough water and without much sunlight. The question is—are we watering it, or are we leaving it to the drought of forgetting that leads to its withering?

Tijana Đuknić is a program coordinator at the Youth Initiative for Human Rights in Serbia. She graduated in Cultural Studies from the Catholic University of Leuven (KU Leuven) and studied opera singing at the Royal Conservatoire Antwerp.

The blog was written for a regional platform on Dealing with the Past. For more information please visit the Column section of DwP website.