By Kevin C. O’Brien
Adopt-A-Minefield
Marketing Manager

 

Radosav Živković takes a call in his STOP Mines office as he allows us see his prosthetic leg.

FROM THE FIELD: Bosnia

A Survivor

Helps Survivors

“The first sentence in my head was, ‘I have to survive… I have to survive,’” Radosav Živković.

 

A landmine survivor himself, Radosav Živković, or Žika (Gee-ka), knows firsthand, in order to help survivors they must be willing to help themselves.

“It gives me some kind of credibility,” Žika said of surviving the blast that took most of his left leg. “People know that they cannot play with me.”

In 1999 Žika founded STOP Mines in the Republic of Srpska, Bosnia. Adopt-A-Minefield supports the non-governmental organization's program giving small loans to landmine survivors.

So far STOP Mines has made $215,000 available in interest free loans to 58 people, who have started small businesses or taken-on construction or agriculture projects.

 

In 1992, Žika – like most men his age in the former Yugoslavia – was conscripted into the military. In 1994, he watched as a sniper shot a nearby companion. Near a minefield – and under enemy fire – Žika ran to help his buddy.
 

“We knew approximately where the minefield was, but because we were in the forest we did not know exactly where it was,” Žika said.

 

 “I was kneeling and I activated a PMA2 landmine,” he said. The PMA2 is a small, but deadly,  pressure activated antipersonnel mine.

 

“I could see my leg open up... I realized what happened right away. I didn’t have any doubt.”

Photos ©AAM by Andris Bjornson

Žika poses in his office with Prairie Summer and Kevin C. O'Brien -- AAM project coordinator and marketing manager.

Three times the sniper tried shooting Žika, but missed, he said. The landmine blast left a ringing in his ears and he could not hear. So he watched as another companion stepped on a landmine and was thrown through the air.

“It was like watching on TV,” he said. “I could see the faces… My commander yelling at me to come back – but I just saw his mouth moving,” Žika said.

 

“The first sentence in my head was, ‘I have to survive... I have to survive.’”

Knowing his only chance for survival was to stop the heavy bleeding from his leg, Žika took the cloth used to clean the barrel of his gun and tied it around his own leg as a tourniquet. Žika was later told his heart stopped twice on the way to the field hospital  – but medics revived him.

 

After a year in therapy and being fitted for a prosthetic leg in Belgrade, Serbia, Žika returned to Bosnia.

 

His first job, a mechanical engineer in a factory, paid just $60 a month – so he and two partners started their own company repairing computers and teaching people how to use them.

The computer business took off, and Žika’s first involvement assisting landmine survivors came in giving away used and rebuilt computers.

His former partners still successfully run the computer business and, Žika said – they understand why he left them to start STOP Mines.

“I had the right to be involved in this, and I am capable to do something like this,” he explained.

STOP Mines loan recipients are given an initial five month grace period where they have to make no payments. Then they have 20-monthly installments to pay back the loans — without interest.

There is a checklist of requirements and credit information is verified – but a STOP Mines loan is much easier to get than a bank loan. The program averages about 70 percent on-time repayment.

“It’s important to keep this kind of approach,” Žika explained. “We want to help you, but you have to repay. You have to do something. You have to help yourself.”

Loan recipients know that only through timely repayment can other survivors be helped by this money.

“If we just gave grants, people don’t care. They are just waiting for tomorrow for another grant,”  Žika concluded.