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- Case Study: Kemal Pervanic
Case Study: Kemal Pervanic
Kemal Pervanic was born in 1968 and grew up in Bosnia. He was a Muslim whose school contained both Serbs and Muslims in mixed classes. Ethnicity was never an issue. However, as the former Yugoslavia began to fall apart, differences between people throughout the region were accentuated and political groups formed along ethnic lines. In March 1992, Radovan Karadzic and his followers established ‘Serbian’ Bosnia-Herzegovina and the newly named ‘Bosnian-Serb army’ began targeting Muslims within Kemal’s region. His village put up no opposition to the forces but the men were rounded up, including Kemal and his brother Kasim, and sent to a concentration camp at Omarska. He spent seven months here and in a subsequent camp at Manjaca in the most atrocious conditions, with hardly nay food and where casual murders and beatings were regular occurrences. Both guards and prisoners came from the same neighbouring towns – both Serbs and Muslims.
