Dangerous Investigation

Dani, Sarajevo, Bosnia-Hercegovina, July 9 1999

"The Srebrenica investigation" by the U.N. has again demonstrated that Bosniak politicians, diplomats and soldiers become suddenly too busy or forgetful when the clarification of their role in the tragedy of their own people comes into focus. Even when the top Bosniak politician is shown documents which clearly show that he negotiated about the exchange of territory, for example Srebrenica for the suburbs of Sarajevo, he denies his participation or blames the International Community

At the session of the General Assembly of the United Nations held on November 30 last year, Muhamed Sacirbegovic, as the chief of the Bosnian U.N. mission in New York, amended the proposed resolution about the situation in Bosnia-Hercegovina with a specific demand for an investigation of the Srebrenica tragedy: "It is demanded that Secretary General provide, by September 1 1999, an all-encompassing report, including an assessment, about the events since the establishment of the safe heaven in Srebrenica on April 16 1993, until the imposition of the Peace Agreement by the Resolution of the U.N. Security Council on December 15 1995."

Of course, it is impossible to find out two months before its end how this belated investigation is progressing. But, the very fact that this investigation was demanded by Mohamed Sacirbegovic has already determined its reach: one of the leading Bosnian diplomats demands an investigation without expressing readiness to respond to accusations against himself.

On the day Srebrenica fell, Sacirbegovic was in Strasbourg. Several minutes after the news about the Serb conquest of the town was announced, he met the new representative of the EU for Bosnia-Hercegovina Carl Bildt. Describing Sacirbegovic's reaction to the news about the fall of Srebrenica, Bildt seriously accused the present advocate of "the Srebrenica investigation". "It seemed that the news had more effect on me and that I was more upset than he was. His peaceful reaction and his calm reasoning are some of, for me, still mysterious mosaic pieces of the Srebrenica drama," wrote Bildt.

According to his testimony, Sacirbegovic said "that Srebrenica had always been a huge problem for them. 'In a way, this event will simplify the situation,' he openly said." Sacirbegovic hasn't reacted publicly to this Bildt's description of their meeting in Strasbourg on the day when Srebrenica fell.

There is no doubt that Sacirbegovic put the request for an U.N. investigation of the fall of Srebrenica in front of the General Assembly in agreement with Alija Izetbegovic, a member of the Bosnian Presidency.

Manipulation with Documents

"The Srebrenica investigation" of the U.N. has again demonstrated that Bosniak politicians, diplomats and soldiers suddenly become too busy or forgetful when the clarification of their role in the tragedy of their own people comes into focus. Even when the top Bosniak politician is shown documents which clearly show that he negotiated about the exchange of territory, for example Srebrenica for the suburbs of Sarajevo, he denies his participation or blames the International Community and its plans.

Documents about the negotiations of leading Serb and Bosniak politicians are undoubtedly in the possession of the U.N. investigators, but it is still not certain how the documents will be presented. Every investigator of "the Srebrenica tragedy" is facing the same dilemma: how can the results of his investigation be used? The U.N. investigation will perhaps, in spite of the dedication of the investigators to the truth, result in another shameful outcome. There is no doubt that there are powerful international bureaucrats in New York who are hoping for another shameful outcome of this investigation. For them, the blue U.N. flag, without military might and mandate, ended up in the middle of the Balkan dirty games and exchanges of territory and population. According to this theory, neither the Dutch peace-keeping forces nor the international military and diplomatic mediators could have done anything to save the people: unscrupulous Bosniak and Serb politicians have already finished a trade, the Serb officers broke all promises not to take Srebrenica, and the U.N. had neither the strength nor the mandate to do anything.

The crucial obstacle for every investigator of the fall of Srebrenica is the silence of the Serbs. Most rational among the Serb analysts of the events in Srebrenica portray the tragedy as a reprisal of the Serb paramilitary groups for the crimes committed by Bosniak military groups. The silence of the Bosniak authorities again does not help in the quest for the truth. Bosniak politicians cannot expect answers from the Serbs if they keep quiet about who committed war crimes against Serbs in the area around Srebrenica or who killed the Serb wedding guest [in April 1992 in Sarajevo] or numerous Serbs in Sarajevo?

As far as crimes are concerned, it is not possible to respond using the scale of numbers, by counting graves and victims. If the goal is to protect one's own people from accepting Nazism and to preserve the chance for a common state with other nations, then there cannot be "our" and "their" victims. Every victim is an individual, with a name and a surname. Every criminal also has a name and a surname. There are no "our fools" and "their criminals". For the future of Bosnia-Hercegovina, it is less significant whether, for example, Ramiz Delalic Celo and Naser Oric are "criminals" or "mafiosi". For Bosniak-Serb relations which, according to Izetbegovic, are crucial for the survival of Bosnia-Hercegovina, it is of crucial importance how the two of them will respond to Serb accusations of alleged crimes against Serbs in Sarajevo and Srebrenica. Will the Bosniak authorities ever ask them about that? The silence of one side is fed by the silence of the other.

Modification of Karadzic's Indictment

The first Srebrenica indictment in the Hague, issued on November 14 1995, dealt with the command and control responsibility over the Army of the Republic of Srpska by Radovan Karadzic, the president of the Republic of Srpska, and Ratko Mladic, the Chief of Staff of the Army of RS [VRS]. In the indictment against Radislav Krstic, issued on October 30 1998, it is claimed that the forces of VRS were under the command and control of Ratko Mladic and Radislav Krstic. Karadzic is not mentioned at all in this, most recent, indictment for the genocide in Srebrenica.

Is the lack of mention of Karadzic's influence of VRS only an omission of political influence in the indictment against VRS generals, or does it represent a partial acceptance of Karadzic's defense even before his appearance in the Hague? Karadzic's defenders, as for example Dr. Kosta Cavoski, claim that at the time of the fall of Srebrenica, the then president of the Republic of Srpska, was in conflict with Belgrade and VRS Chiefs of Staff and was completely isolated in Pale.

The indictment against Krstic claims that on July 12 Ratko Mladic in hotel "Fontana" in Bratunac "explained that he would oversee 'the evacuation' of the refugees from Potocari and that he would like to see all Bosniak-Muslim men aged between 16 and 60 in order to make sure that there are no war criminals among them".

Therefore, the responsibility for the selection of men has been for the first time pinned on Mladic, but still there is no explanation of who ordered the evacuation of the inhabitants of Srebrenica and with what motivation. Why was the genocide in Srebrenica ordered: because of the religious hatred, revenge because of the events from two centuries ago or a few months before, or because of the cleansing of the territory in order to prepare it for the annexation by Serbia?

In the similar manner as in Srebrenica, military age men were gathered and incarcerated in camps in many other parts of Bosnia-Hercegovina, starting with the Prijedor region in 1992. However, a crime on a similar scale had not taken place before Srebrenica. We shall have to wait for an answer to that question.

The indictment against Krstic for participation in genocide is based on the accusation of organized killing of Muslim men between July 11 and 18 1995, in numerous locations around the Srebrenica enclave. The indictment claims that later units and agents of VRS, under Krstic's command, participated in an attempt to hide their crimes by moving the bodies to new mass graves.

Such development of the indictment for the genocide in Srebrenica prompts speculations about the withdrawal of the indictment against Karadzic in this case. However, there is still no indication of the responsibility of Slobodan Milosevic, the president of Serbia at the time, and general Momcilo Perisic, the Chief of Staff of the Yugoslav Army, for the crime in Srebrenica. The chain of command of military forces (Milosevic-Perisic-Mladic-Krstic) has been established long time ago by various investigators of the Srebrenica tragedy, but it is yet to be specified in the Hague.

Without doubt, most of the investigators of the Srebrenica tragedy would agree about the distribution of guilt for the fall of the town: undoubtedly most of the guilt should be allocated to the Serb military and political leaders; military and diplomatic representatives of the U.N. and leading Western members of the Contact group are in second place, while Bosniak political and military leaders come last.

Why is it necessary to establish the truth about the fall of Srebrenica and genocide against Bosnian Muslims in that protected U.N. zone? Above all, it has to do with the future of the inhabitants of Srebrenica who survived the genocide. Today, they have settled in towns and villages that used to have Serb majority or mixed Serb-Muslim population as, for example, Cejrcic, Vozuca, Srnica or the suburbs of Sarajevo. International bureaucrats in Sarajevo characterize Srebrenica today as a "moderate risk" location.

Place of Dangerous Implementation

"A lot of time was needed to achieve this but, by convening the first session of the local council, Srebrenica has achieved a new start," said chief of OSCE mission Robert Barry while chairing the first session of the "multiethnic council" of Srebrenica. "What is most important at this moment is that the isolation of Srebrenica by the International Community is over," said Barry. And he was right in saying that. Srebrenica should not be isolated, but reconstructed: true condemnation and punishment of crimes should abolish "shared poverty of Serb and Muslim inhabitants of Srebrenica that keeps them apart"(Tom Hundley, Chicago Tribune).

For the western observers in Bosnia, Srebrenica is perhaps "only a small spot in Eastern Bosnia, three hours by car from Sarajevo". However, its significance is incomparably larger. Bosniak and Western political factors have two choices. One is to try to destroy the symbolic significance of Srebrenica with their silence or passivity, in order to quiet their bad conscience and justify passivity. The second option is harder. Today Srebrenica has great political and moral significance in speeches of leading world statesmen and Bosniak politicians, but their support for the reconstruction of Srebrenica and the return of its prewar population is negligible. Only when, in place of suitable rhetoric about Srebrenica's symbolic significance, we see equally dedicated actions directed toward identification, arrest and trials of criminals, identification of the dead and the return of the living, the inhabitants of Srebrenica can believe that compassion is sincere. While the investigations are demanded and led by those who should supply answers to nagging questions, such a turnaround is impossible.