We held back on the campaigning, and this site, for an entire year whilst we talked to our friends in Mittal and gave them time to start the project, but the merger of Mittal with Arcelor meant that responsibility for implementing the project passed to the newly formed Mittal-Areclor Foundaton. On May 30, the Dutch OPTIMISTI 2004 foundation formally wrote to the European CEO who was responsible for the purchase of the Omarska site notifying him that we expected the implementation process to proceed more quickly.

We are due to meet with Mittal people soon to agree the implementation, but we feel that enough time has passed now, so we shall revive this site and provide more regular updates just in case we experience further delay.

Also, we have seen some disturbing signs of a failure on the part of the mine company to honour its commitment to leave the White House untouched. Visitors last month reported that some of the artefacts in the building (a desk and chair that were used during the torture at the camp) have been removed and/or broken. This suggests we may need to take a more active approach to ensuring the memorial starts to take shape, but we still have faith in Mittal to follow through on the public commitment it made in 2005, so watch this space...

In the meantime, please help generate as many signatures as possible the petition.

Chris Kuelemens has published an article in Dani about Omarska and the project to create a survivor-led memorial in the White House.

See full text of the article na bosanskom or in English

Apologies for the lack of updates, but we have been engaging in some quiet consultations with people and organisations involved in the project. Here is a quick summary of where we are:

• In February 2006, we wrote to Mittal Steel offering an analysis of the project and some constructive ideas on how to create a more sustainable survivor-led memorial project. Download a copy of our briefing

• On February 20, 2006, partly in respons to our criticisms of the previous phase of the project, Mittal Steel suspended the work of Soul of Europe and announced that they remain ready to implement a solution that has wider agreement among the community.

• Since that time, we have consulted with the local organisations who have been working on the concept of a memorial at Omarska and they have all signed up to a joint letter to Mittal Steel pointing out that there is indeed agreement among the local community about how to proceed. Download a copy of the letter in English

• Mittal Steel are now consulting about next steps and we await their decision to continue the project.

• The petition now stands at over 2,000 names (2056 as of today, if my counting is correct!) in support of a survivor-led memorial project.

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

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.

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

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!

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.

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.

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...

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.

"Dovoljno je samo citati ovu listu potpisnika pa da se oci napune suzama...toliko bivsih komsija, neki od vas meni poznati, opakim, nicim izazvanim genocidom 1992. razbacani sirom svijeta. Omarska i drugi koncentracion logori nisu imali utjecaja na moj zivot kao sto su utjecali na vase zivote, ali taj dan, 25. august 1992, kada sam sa ITN-om uspio uci u Omarsku i Trnopolje, ostace u meni zauvijek. Imao sam nesrecnu privilegiju da pronadjem i razotkrijem to zlocinacko mjesto o kome su zapadne sile znale, a da nista nisu poduzimale, mjesecima. Vi, prezivjeli i ozalosceni, vi ste "moj" narod. I vi, samo vi, ne Mital, ne "Dusa Evrope", nego vi, treba da dizajnirate i vodite ovaj memorijal i projekat. Volio bih da je svaka prokleta zgrada na tom nesretnom mjestu ostala netaknuta, nakon svega, ovo je posveceno tlo, ili je bilo posveceno do dolaska Mital-a, bas kao sto je Birkenau ostao nedirnut, kao da su ga nacisti juce napustili. Sokira me i zaprepascuje da takozvana "medjunarodna zajednica" nije smjesta preuzela ovo mjesto iz ruku fasisticke drzavice koju je uspostavila 1996. Ali ne, izdali su vas u miru bas kao sto su vas izdali u vrijeme genocida. Mjesto ubijanja postalo je komercijalno preduzece. Osim tog jednog ugla, Bijele Kuce...koja mora pripadati vama i samo vama, u cast i sjecanje na brutalno ubijene za kojim zalite. Ovo je cin sjecanja, a ne cin pomirenja. Da se razumijemo. Uostalom, kome treba izmirenje prije nego se svedu racuni...prije nego pocinitelji ovih zlocina, i oni koji ih stite sutnjom i prikrivanjem, priznaju sta su pocinili, nadoknade stete i zamole za oprostaj. Oni treba da se pomire, ne vi. Oni treba da podignu memorijal, ne sebi, kao sto su to besramno ucinili u Trnopolju, nego vama. Spomenike u Berlinu nisu izgradili Jevreji nego Nijemci, trazeci oprostaj. Vi sami treba da izgradite ovaj (memorijal), razgovarat cemo o izmirenju samo onda kada oni izgrade meorijal onima koje su sami poubijali. Bezrezervno podrzavam ovu izuzetno odmjerenu i razumnu peticiju, i cestitam svim onima koji su to vec ucinili. Bosnjacki narod ne moze i ne smije biti ponovo iznevjeren."

We just passed 600 signatures this evening, which is humbling in just 10 days since the petition was released.

Some people claim the Bosnian diaspora is full of "spoilers" whose views do not count when it comes to commemorating their own loss. The humanity, humility and reason shown in the comments so far prove what we knew all along: this is wrong. We have nothing to fear from open, democratic consultation and debate.

Among the many wonderful messages of support we received today from Bosnia, Serbia and many other countries was this one from Ed Vulliamy, the journalist who first reported on the horrors of Omarska:

"Reading this list of signatories is enough to bring tears to the eyes...so many of you former neighbours, some of whom I know, now scattered across the globe by the viscious, unprovoked genocidal assault on your people and community in 1992. Omarska and the other concentration camps have not affected my life in any way that can compare with their devastating effect on yours, but that day - August 5th 1992 - when ITN and I finally made a way into Omarska and Trnopolje will remain with me for ever. It was my accursed honour to find and try to expose that evil place, about which the Western powers had known about, but done nothing, for months. You, the survivors and bereaved, are 'my' people. And it must be you, and you alone ... not Mittal Steel, not the 'Soul of Europe', who design and manage this memorial and project. I only wish every accursed building in that vile place had been left untouched - it is, after all, sacred ground in a way - as it was until Mittal arrived, just as Birkenau has been left untouched, as though the Nazis had left only yesterday. It staggers and appalls me that the so-called 'international community' (which betrayed Bosnia during the war) did not immediately commandeer the site from the fascistic statelet it established, in 1996. But no, you have been betrayed in the peace, just as you were betrayed during the genocide. The killing ground has now become a commercial enterprise. But for that one corner, the White House ... which must belong to you, to you alone, and to the honour and memory of those brutally murdered, whom you mourn. This is an act of commemoration, not of 'reconciliation'. Let that remain clear. And anyway, why should there be 'reconciliation' until there has been RECKONING ... until the perpetrators of these crimes and those who protect them with silence and denial, admit what they did, make reparations, and apologize. It is for THEM to reconcile, not you. In a way, it is for THEM to build a memorial too - not to themselves, as they do so brazenly, even at Trnopolje (ugh!), but to you. The monuments in Berlin were not built by the Jews, but by the Germans, by way of apology and reckoning. You should build this one yourselves, and let's talk about reconciliation only when they have built their own memorial to those they themselves killed. I unreservedly support this most moderate and reasonable of petitions, and salute all of you that have done likewise. The Bosniak people cannot and must not be betrayed yet again. Ed Vulliamy, London."

The Daily Telegraph reports that Lakshmi Mittal is on a charm offensive to smooth the way for the group's audacious €18.6bn bid for rival Arcelor, which would give Mittal Steel an astonishing $69bn in annual sales - more than 4 times the revenues of its nearest competitor:

"Mittal Steel is holding talks with European governments before deciding whether to increase its audacious €18.6billion (£12.7billion) hostile bid for rival Arcelor, whose board yesterday rejected the offer unanimously."

"Mittal Steel chairman Lakshmi Mittal has said that by 2008, a merger would deliver $1billion of synergies

Lakshmi Mittal, the steel group's chairman and Britain's richest man, faces stiff political opposition after the governments of Luxembourg, Belgium and France voiced concerns over the weekend about any deal involving job cuts."

See : full story
See also: Arcelor plays anti-globalisation card

It has been heartening to receive signatures and messages of support from people in Serbia, notably the wonderful Sonja Biserko who has courageously campaigned for human rights and truth in Serbia for a very long time. This helps reinforce the message that this is not about "Serbs" or "Bosniaks" or "Croats" - it is about truth, justice and human dignity, and their role in any future reconciliation process.