Service in a Killing Field
Dani, Sarajevo, Bosnia-Hercegovina, July 16 1999
by Emir SuljagicAfter exactly four years, about three hundred inhabitants of Srebrenica returned to the place where they had said good bye to their former lives. Before that pilgrimage, they marked the fourth anniversary of the greatest Bosniak tragedy, in exile in Vogosca - somewhere between Reis ulema Ceric's speech and Izetbegovic's absence. They faced the truth in front of containers in a parking lot in Visoko
How Srebrenica Fell for the Second Time
"Allahu ekber! Allahu ekber!", called an old man to a prayer. He wore a faded beret and after every call he would turn towards a different cardinal compass point: east, west, north, south.Behind him, men and women were falling on their knees in the grass. Unnatural silence was disturbed only by an elderly, crackling voice. The observers, who were standing on the side, were shaking with fear. The reason for their fear: all of this was taking place in Potocari, on July 13 1999, at 1p.m. sharp. A prayer at the place of a mass execution requires courage. After exactly four years, about three hundred inhabitants of Srebrenica returned to the place where they had said good bye to their former lives. On the same date, therefore on July 13 1995, buses, under watchful eye of armed Serbs, drove from Potocari towards Tuzla the last remnants of a people. Now, again in buses, this time under protection of American soldiers, they have returned. A convoy of seven buses and about ten cars, with journalists, diplomats, employees of international organizations, entered the yard of the factory of car batteries just after noon. The moment a woman, disembarking from the bus, stepped on the boiling concrete, a quiet hysteria woven from tears and impotent rage began. A mixed crowd of Serb policemen, American soldiers with helmets and flack jackets and IPTF policemen were standing at the gate. Serbs were taunting and laughing from the other side of the wire fence, from the yard of the factory "Feros". "Where is your Mujo?" was followed with loud laughter while they were trying to outdo each other. "You are not saying that to us, you are talking to yourselves," responded one of the women and continued towards the gate where the group laid flowers on the ground. Others placed carnations and messages on the iron fence: "Where are our fathers?", "What does it feel when your child is abducted? We know, do you?". On the top of the fence that separated the main factory building from the parking lot where the busses stopped it was written: "At this place on July 13 1995, UNPROFOR forces turned over more than 3,000 men and boys to the hands of their executioners". The Serb policemen watched everything with uneasy peace.
Silence of Fake Innocence
In the shade by the former reception, a woman cried leaning against the wall. Two other women were holding her and trying to calm her down: "Common' don't be like that. Look at me, I've lost my whole family, but I won't cry," said the younger woman, Mina Hasanovic. Her husband was taken away in front of her by Serb soldiers. She approached a Serb policeman and vented her grief for five minutes. She finished her lecture with the following words: "All of you have always been scum and will always be scum". She walked nervously from one woman to the next saying: "Don't cry, that will only make them happy." The women of Srebrenica were offended, but not by the heckling from across the fence, which was in any case an exception on that day. Actually, no one noticed them. Not a single passerby turned around to make a threat or raise the three-finger Serb nationalist salute. Serbs sat in cafes and there were not even curious stares at the visitors. The women were offended by the silence. And only that can be worse than "spontaneous" protests, barricades and stoning. Every outpouring of hate was a confession of guilt, and the collective silence of the Serbs hung in the air as a proof of their nonexistent innocence. The only proof. After all, the heckling stopped after the first sounds of a call to prayer.
Dayton, Dayton
Mirsada Bosnjakovic was showing to the International Policemen a photo of her husband Meho and her 13-year-old son Amer. Meho was at the time a translator with MSF and his employers did not try to protect him during the critical days in July, while her son was brutally taken away from Mirsada by Serbs who pushed her to the ground. "This is my son. He was 13 and they took him away. See what kind of people they are!", Mirsada poured without a pause. The youth who was stammering while translating all of that, a certain Stanislav from the nearby town of Bratunac, had advanced from the personal translator of colonel Vuksic, commander of the Bratunac brigade of VRS [the Army of the Republic of Srpska], in 1993, to the same position with IPTF [the International Police]. Two witnesses have confirmed to Dani that between July 11 and 13 he was seen in Potocari and Srebrenica, while one of them claims that he could be seen wearing a military jacket of the Dutch Army in Bratunac long after the fall of the enclave. He asks: "Where does he find the cheek to come here?!". Dayton truly does not have an alternative.
Stories with Soul
Most of the women (and they were an overwhelming majority of the visitors) were disappointed by the visit to the former Dutch camp. Simply, they spent their last days in Srebrenica in the open, outside the camp, on the ground, or in eerily empty factory buildings. Bare buildings, remnants of the sand bags and barbed wire left behind by the Dutch soldiers did not interest them. Emina Pasic, standing somewhat apart from the rest of the group, was visibly shaken. Four years ago, she, her husband and their daughter headed for the gate of the Dutch camp. At the gate, Serbs forcibly took her husband away and she and her daughter were sent to Kladanj. To the question how she feels four years later she responds: "I thank dear God for allowing me to come back here..." At that moment her daughter jumps into the conversation and tries to calm her down. "Please, mother, don't... Please, don't talk about that." We try to get out of an awkward situation. "It's not your fault, I know that it is better if you write that, but she will be sick for two weeks after this," the daughter cleared up all of our dilemmas. This is a "dream" of every journalist: three hundred horrible stories in one place. All of them different except in the amount of pain.
Ratko Should not be Here
Two days before the visit to Potocari, on Sunday July 11, at the exact anniversary of the fall of the enclave, a group of journalists waits for the announced protest rally of the women of Srebrenica, in front of the new OHR building in Grbavica. However, unexpectedly, the place of the rally had been changed. A procession of almost two thousand women with the sign "The International Community is an accomplice in a genocide", gathered in front of the U.N. building. One of the women who were carrying the sign, Hajra Catic passed behind the ramp at the entrance to the U.N. compound. Although Elisabeth Rehn had been informed about the gathering on June 28 and asked to meet the representatives of several organizations of the women of Srebrenica, she did not show up that day. She apologized a day later. Hajra, whose son Nihad, a correspondent of the Radio BiH from Srebrenica, had disappeared a day after the fall of the enclave, handed a protest letter to two low-ranking U.N. officials. While she talked to them, the protesters started making indignant noises about the poster with the arrest warrants against Ratko Mladic, Radovan Karadzic and Slobodan Milosevic carried by the members of several human rights organizations from France and Great Britain. "What is he doing here? I've seen enough of him already!" screamed one of the women. Suddenly all of them swooped down on the confused Frenchmen and started to pull at their posters and to tear them apart and stomp on them. Someone immediately came up with an idea to set the posters on fire. Unable to understand what was going on, the bearers of controversial posters were trying to explain that they "did not want to offend anyone, have good intentions; that they also hate these people and have been demanding that someone arrest them for a long time". However, all was in vain. Photos of criminals are too strong a reminder of crimes.
Truth is in Container
Earlier that day, in Vogosca, several thousands of people attended a public Islamic prayer [tehvid] led by Reis ulema Mustafa Ceric. After the imams, sitting on a stage built for that occasion, recited the sura Ja-sin, Reis delivered a speech. Although portions of the speech delivered two weeks before in Ajvatovica could have been recognized, Reis was this time sufficiently honest to admit "that there are no words that could be said and would satisfy either the speaker or the listeners". Izetbegovic did not show up that day. Also missing were Rasim Delic [Bosnian Army Chief of Staff], Enver Hadzihasanovic, Sead Delic, Naser Oric[war-time commander of Srebrenica]... Edhem Bicakcic [Federal prime minister], Mehmed Zilic and Nedzad Ajnadzic summoned enough courage to face the women of Srebrenica. However, when that morning two buses headed for Visoko with the intention to place a wreath on the exhumed human remains stored there, none of them was to be seen. For a moment, that seem more appropriate: the women of Srebrenica should have been allowed to pay respect to their loved ones in peace and without pomp. When they arrived to Visoko, no one was able to tell them where the two containers with the remains of 3,560 people from Srebrenica were. The policemen directed them to the employees of the "City Cemeteries" corporation, but their response was "Your men are outside in containers." Containers were in a parking lot; cars were parked around them. There was even a pile of garbage next to one of them. The women were shocked by the scene. Nevertheless, they summoned their strength and held a service. The voice of a young imam, graduate of the Zagreb Medresa [Islamic religious school] was drowned by the noise of the passing cars and trucks. The Police did not stop them and they did not feel a need to show respect. Half way through the service an elderly man got up, moved away from the group and began to shout. He was not interested whether anyone was listening to him. "Is this the image of our president? Do our dead deserve this?" he was repeating almost is if in trance and disbelief. A youth who had just joined and was observing all of that from the side told us: "You know, if I were in their place, I would fill a car with explosive and slam it into the building of the Presidency." When the religious ritual was finished some of the women started to feel faint faced with the realization that their fathers, brothers, sons were there, behind a thin layer of metal. They took their turns in front of a small opening of the container, peeking inside and looking for them. And they were inside. "We want the truth, no matter what it is," said the poster which an elderly woman shuffled in her hands. It probably did not occur to her, while she was entering a bus, that the truth will remain there, behind her, in an ordinary parking lot in Visoko.
Translated on 9/25/1999
