We passed 800 earlier than expected today with the usual selection of messages and statements of support from all over the world.

This one (number 803 according to my rough count) from Damir in Canada is typical of the views of many:

This memorial should have been opened a long time ago. Unfortunately the local government, and the government of RS in general has obstructed this idea. I hope that Mittal Steel together with the support form the international community, Camp prisoners organizations, and other government and non-government organizations will be able to see this project through. The world, and more importantly the local communities of Omarska and Prijedor, need to recognize and be reminded of what happened (what they did) in Omarska. The victims deserve to be remembered and respected.

I hope that Mittal Steel will now feel they have the support needed to implement the project correctly and then get on with the business of re-vitalising Bosnian industry.

The 900th signature came in today. We should hit the 1000 mark soon, so keep on working people! Then we will see whether the people running the project are prepared to listen...

Mirsad Tokaca, Director of the war crimes research and documentation centre, today added his name to the growing list of people who believe that the commemoration of the Omarska camp is too important to be rushed through by a handful of people without consultation.

Mr. Tokaca was in Prijedor this week to present the interim results of his project "Losses in BiH 1992-1995" that has been collecting data on wartime deaths since 1993. He stated that the civilian losses in Prijedor were second only to Srebrenica as a proportion of population. However, as he told Emir Suljagic in an interview with Dani published in December 2005, "genocide is not a matter of numbers."

"These numbers only strengthen my belief that 1992 was the decisive year, that genocide took place then. Genocide is not a matter of numbers, especially following the conviction of Radislav Krstic. The Convention on Genocide likewise does not specify numbers, but speaks of the intention to destroy or kill a specific group, or indeed to expose it to conditions leading to its demise. Such demise, moreover, does not mean that the victims must be physically exterminated, but that they are forced to leave their habitat. In other words, that the citizens of Bosnia-Herzegovina cannot live in their homeland, that inhabitants of Zvornik no longer live in their town, and so on. This indeed was the intention of the aggressor. The figures only encourage me in the conviction that genocide is not a question of numbers: it is a matter of the identity of the victims, the way in which they died, and when they died. Take, for example, the question of Zvornik. Our research shows that the crime occurred over the period of April to August 1992, that the killing reached its peak in May-June and the population's disappearance in June-July, and that the two phenomena wholly fit together. The same picture is repeated not just in Srebrenica, but also in Bratunac, Vlasenica, Sarajevo and Prijedor. I am speaking here about civilian casualties, which occur in inverse proportion to the rising resistance: as resistance grows, the number of casualties declines."

(Source: Bosnian Institute News)

This all supports the fact that the ethnic cleansing of the Prijedor region in 1992, and the network of camps established to support the process, was a key moment in the Bosnian genocide. If one place can symbolise what happened in 1992, so that we can all learn from one of the darkest episodes in Bosnia's past, then it is the camp at the Omarska/Ljubija mine.

We have reached our first major milestone with the petition: 1000 voices (actually 1025 so far, and increasing all the time).

Thank you all for helping people understand just how important the principles are to progress in the Omarska Memorial Project.

I have added some questions and answers to the FAQ section in response to queries from visitors, and we will update the site again when we have received a reaction from the key project stakeholders.

The Observer newspaper today ran an interesting profile of Mr. Lakshmi Mittal, which did a good job of communicating his motivation and vision for his modern, high-growth global company.

The profile also explains just how ambitious the current proposed takeover of rival firm Arcelor really is:

"There's certainly plenty of support for Mittal's view that the merger makes sense. He is undoubtedly a brilliant businessman, one who understands the nooks, crannies and fluctuations of a fragmented industry. He spots value, acquires companies at good prices, sometimes direct from national governments, and then makes them work better."

"But the size of the deal and its political backdrop make business logic no more than a subplot in a Tartuffian farce of global industrial intrigue. 'Mittal's gone from the back pages of the national press to the back pages of the international press, to the front pages of just about every leading newspaper in the world. This is the sexiest M&A deal of all time,' says one industry observer. 'It's not just size, it's also about innovation. The only thing to rival it would be AOL and Time-Warner. It's a positive deal by a UK-managed company and it adds a new dimension to the world of finance.'"

Let's hope that some of this innovation and entrepreneurial spirit rubs off on the Bosnian economy!

Update: We now have over 1,200 signatures, including one from a member of the Belgrade human rights group 'Women in Black'. Thanks!

The Bosnian Institute have reported a story in the German newspaper die tageszeitung about the Omarska Memorial:

According to a prominent German journalist, Mittal Steel has won the acquiescence of local Serb nationalist authorities to a memorial for the victims of the Omarska concentration camp by agreeing to give Serbs priority in hiring for new jobs created by the reopening of the Omarska mines

As reported in the article below reproduced from Berlin's die tageszeitung, Mittal Steel, the world's largest and richest steel company, agrees to a memorial for the victims of Bosnia's most notorious concentration camp - but no jobs for the survivors and their relatives. In order to buy the acquiescence of the local Serb nationalist authorities, who have strenuously objected to any memorial, Mittal has agreed to give Serbs priority in hiring for the new jobs created by the reopening of the Omarska mines. Muslims and Croats may be hired at some future date (2009?), when the ore production expands, according to Mittal's representative Willie Smit.

The full story re-printed in German here: http://www.bosnia.org.uk/news/news_body.cfm?newsid=2140.

Clearly, if this allegation is true, which we do not know, both RS and Mittal Steel would be acting illegally and the new High Representative Mr. Schwarz-Schilling would presumably need to consider the situation carefully.

Poštovani prijatelji, Od danas možete citati pojedine tekstove na ovoj stranici koji su prevedeni na bosanski jezik. Ove stranice možete naci na lijevoj strani Peticije iznad samog teksta Peticije. Kemo