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The morning after his 45th birthday, Zeljko Kopanja stepped out of his
home in Bosnia, started to walk to work, reconsidered, and headed to
his car to drive instead. Kopanja, as he later told the Associated Press,
got in, but "when I started the car I felt this horrifying explosion.
And I looked to my right -- I did not feel any pain, I was in kind of
a half state of shock -- I saw my right leg was on the front passenger's
seat."
The October 1999 car-bombing left Kopanja, the Bosnian Serb editor
of Nezavisne Novine, without either of his legs. Kopanja and
others believe he was targeted for his newspaper's documentation of
killings of Bosnian Muslims by Bosnian Serb authorities during the 1992-1995
war.
Despite his injuries, Kopanja is still the editor of Nezavisne Novine,
the Banja Luka-based paper he co-founded in 1995, now the largest independent
Serb daily in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The international community has helped
the former professional soccer player receive state-of-the-art prostheses
and medical treatment in Austria.
Kopanja started the paper soon after the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords
were signed. That agreement ended the war among Bosnian Serbs, Muslims
and Croats, and created two entities that comprise Bosnia-Herzegovina:
a Muslim-Croat Federation and the Serb Republic. Since then, NATO peacekeepers
have been stationed in Bosnia to diffuse ethnic and religious tensions,
encourage rebuilding and help resettle refugees. The stabilization force,
SFOR, now includes 20,000 troops from over 30 nations.
The paper's role, Kopanja said, is to foster improved relationships
among Serbs, Muslims and Croats in Bosnia. He told the AP Nezavisne
Novine is "primarily an informative newspaper. But in its concept,
we develop this thesis… that we have to build tolerant, civilized
relationships in Bosnia-Herzegovina." His sincerity was evidenced
in the support -- and outrage -- from Muslim, Serb and Croat journalists
alike in response to the car-bomb attack. While recovering from the
bombing, Kopanja released a statement saying his paper would stick to
its goal, and his own, of promoting a "free and happy country."
Part of that goal meant exposing corruption, making government more
transparent and addressing the issue of war crimes. To that end, Kopanja
made Nezavisne Novine the first Bosnian Serb paper to acknowledge
Bosnian Serb atrocities against Muslims. Until then, the press in the
Serb Republic had only reported crimes committed by Croats and Muslims,
and the Muslim-Croat Federation press had likewise only exposed Serbian
offenses.
Kopanja's decision to open files on his own people prompted accusations
of treason from fellow Bosnian Serbs, telephone threats and then the
bombing. But Kopanja argued his newspaper "stands by the thesis
that no nation is genocidal or criminal, but individuals from certain
nations are. I think that the Serbian people do not deserve to carry
this burden…. I do not allow anyone to commit war crimes in my
name or in the name of my people, nor does anyone have the right to
do that."
While Kopanja's documentation of Bosnian Serb war crimes was a breakthrough
for Bosnian Serb newspapers, Kopanja emphasizes that he does not want
Nezavisne Novine labeled a Serbian paper. Echoing his goal for
tolerance, he said, "We don't want to say that we are a newspaper
of Republika Srpska; we are a newspaper of Banja Luka and Bosnia-Herzegovina."
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