Bosnia: the enemies are pretty much best friends

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In the Bosnia war, they faced each other with drawn weapon, one shot. Years later, the Bosniake are Daut and the Serbian Dane friends and business partners. The story of their friendship has now been made into a movie.

In October 1992, at the Front, in Skelani, near Srebrenica: Two soldiers meet, the weapons in the attack. The Bosnian Muslim Daut Tihic is faster and shoots the Serbs Dane Vasic.

Years later, the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina is far from over. Daut has outlived him. Some of the years he spent as a refugee in Sweden. Then he came back, first bought a house in Breza near Sarajevo. Later, he returned back to his home village of Skelani. He bought a few cows and worked as a farmer.

As he sat in the autumn of 2006 with friends in the village pub, a man went to his table over. He greeted in the round, and sat down at another table. Daut couldn’t believe his eyes.

“This is the man I killed,” cried Daut his buddies. He stood up, went to the man and said: “I killed you!” The laughed and asked back: “can’t you See that I’m alive?”

Daut Tihic: “This is the man I killed”

Daut recalls: “In October 1992, I am with my family of Skelani in the mountains to the village Miljevine escape. We have heard that the Serbs prepared an attack on the villages of Josevo and Jagodnja. With a handful of soldiers, I came to the villagers to help. Suddenly, I saw a few feet away from me, a Serbian soldier. He stood up slowly and walked with the gun at me. I shot and hit him in the chest. He fell on his back. I was convinced that he was dead.”

After that, he was hurried to the village. “The fight didn’t last long. We have repelled the attack and the villagers defended. On the way back, I saw neither the Serbian soldiers the rifle. I thought that it have taken away his people, for I could see that it was an elite unit.”

At this year’s Sarajevo film festival the story of an unusual friendship, was presented

As it turned out, was the name of the Serbian soldier Dane Vasic. “To be honest, I am sincerely glad that he is alive,” says Daut Tihic in interview with DW. “So I don’t have him on your Conscience.” And so it came to us in 2006 as the official Meet – up with booze, such as in the Balkans, the usual.

“Because of the constant attacks from these villages, we have planned this action” says the Serb. “I knew the terrain and was ordered to enlightenment. It should be a routine action. Eventually, I got noise, a Crack. I turned around and saw a man who aimed a gun at me.” He had not initially known, one of which is the war party. “This Moment of indecision was crucial for him. He was faster, otherwise I would have killed him. I didn’t hear the shots. The last thing I saw was the barrel of his gun. I felt a violent blow that threw me several meters back. When I came to, I saw the piston to the destroyed gun, and the broken bullet-proof vest. You saved me. I had the incredible fortune to be unharmed,” says Dane Vasic.

Friendship and joint investments

After the encounter in the pub Daut and Dane are not only become friends but also business partners. You can even plan joint investments. Dane lives on the other side of the river Drina in Serbia. He buys and herbs, and woods sold the fruits that has a truck and is owner of several gift shops.

Dane Vasic: “Neither I nor Daut wanted this war”

“We plan to open a joint company, and my business would combine activities. We have submitted a project design, but the decision of the local administration have to wait for it,” says Daut. Dane nods: “It came to delays, I know why. But I know that we have decided to work together, and I am sure that we will succeed.”

“It seems to me that some politicians see our good relationship and cooperation. You would rather that we argue and fight each other, and that each of us lives in his ethnic Ghetto. So you can stay in Power and easier to govern,” says the Bosnian Muslim Daut.

They began to talk in the open about who, what, done, where, during the war. “I do not need to be ashamed,” said the Serb. “I did nothing wrong or Illegal. I was a soldier like him. I shot him, he on me. So the war is shoots: You, in order not to be shot. I think neither I nor Daut wanted this war.” No war – because both agree – has ever brought something Good.

The true story of Dane and Daut was shown in the context of this year’s Sarajevo film festival. The documentary film “(Ne)Prijatelji – (Not)friends” have turned the Bosnian authors Emir Kapetanović and Sead Kreševljaković in cooperation with Al Jazeera. The Sarajevo Film Festival (11. – 18.8.) is the most important festival of the Western Balkans.