The ICCP’s Governing Board has unanimously decided to award the 2013 ICIP Constructors of Peace Prize to Jovan Divjak, “for his courage, as a military man, to disobey the commands of the Yugoslav People’s Army and defend Sarajevo during the siege of the Balkan War, and subsequently, for his long-standing civic work, with various initiatives in favour of the victims of war”.
The decision was made public on Friday, 20 September, in the act of commemoration of International Peace Day, which has taken place in the ICP headquarters.
The ICIP Peace Constructors Award is an annual award consisting of a public recognition, a sculpture created by the Nobel Peace Prize winner, artist and activist Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, called the Sun Gate, and an economic endowment of .4,000. The award will take place in the Parliament of Catalonia, in the first quarter of 2014, in an event that will have the presence of the awarder.
From general to peacebuilder
Jovan Divjak was born in Belgrade in 1937 to a Serbian family originally from the Bosanska Krajina region. In the spring of 1992, when the Siege of Sarajevo began, Divjak was ordered by Belgrade to leave the city. He refused and left the Yugoslav People’s Army to serve as a commander in the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in an act of disobedience and commitment to those suffering from aggression. From this new position, Divjak oversaw and coordinated the defense of Sarajevo – symbol of multi-ethnicity – in front of the attack by Serbian troops led by General Radovan Karadzic. For this courageous attitude, he has been known as the Serbian one who defended Sarajevo, although he defines himself as a Bosnian born in Belgrade, and is considered a national hero in Bosnia.
After retiring from the military career in 1994, Divjak participated in the foundation of the association OGBH (“L.Education builds Bosnia and Herzegovina”), of which he is currently the executive director. The association works to ensure the high school of all children who are victims of the Bosnian war, regardless of ethnicity, by providing grants and material support. For his work in the association, Divjak has received numerous local and international recognitions.
International Peace Day commemorate
The ICIP’s announcement has taken place during the International Peace Day commemoration act, in which the Vice President of L.CIP and member of the Board of Governors, Alfonso Banda, has read the institutional statement marking the Institute’s priorities for the coming months. With the slogan ‘Educing for Peace, Building Peace’, the statement puts the emphasis on education as a way to build peace. ‘Educing for peace and building peace are two elements that are inextricable. Both jobs mean working in the very long term, generating empathy, shaping convictions for peace and democracy, internalising procedures, altering some very deep-rooted cultural practices in a positive sense.
In this sense, the declaration places education for peace as a key element in overcoming the difficulties of lanchox between Catalonia and Spain: #It’s necessary to close the conflicts well, be radical – going to the roots, and make all sides stronger. And this will only be possible if you are committed to securing the future, which involves democratically consulting the will of Catalan society and accepting the results.
In the next few months, L.ICIP will work on education for peace through new publications and through the holding of a seminar. At the same time, the International Peace Day commemoration act has also served to present the audiovisual project (Capasules de paup.), co-produced jointly by LICIICIP and the Contrast collective, in which peace activists and academics from around the world reflect on what peace is for them.
The project is based on a first documentary piece, ten minutes long, and will continue over the next year, with the aim of compiling, on a web space, a multiplicity of approaches to the concept of peace made from different countries, cultures, traditions and disciplines. Every week, until 21 September 2014, a capsule will be released on the ICIP website in which a character reflects on what peace is. The 52 capsules collected over the year will be available on this website and also on the YouTube channel of the ICIP.
International Peace Day was established in 1981 by the UN General Assembly with the aim of commemorating and strengthening the peace ideals of each nation and each people. Twenty years later, in 2001, the Assembly insisted, urging the international community to make September 21 a cease-fire and cease-fire day in the use of violence. L.ICIP commemorates this day since its creation with an institutional act addressed to civil society, administration and the Acad Mic world. This year, in an extraordinary way, the ICIP held the commemoration on 20 September.
