by Emir SULJAGIC
Until then, people would wait with backpacks or ordinary bags gathered around fires lit above the town. First, one would hear the sound of a huge container and the crowd would scatter and hide under trees. Then, after a series of thuds, which meant that the containers had started to drop, a total melee would ensue. Everyone ran in the direction in which they believed the containers were, not paying attention whether all of them had fallen. Several persons died like that, crushed under the weight of containers weighing several hundreds of kilograms. The containers, as if on purpose, fell in the most inaccessible spots. It was not easy to pass without injuries while clambering in total darkness through ravines, and then somehow find a path out from the forest.
Sometimes MREs were dropped individually, perhaps in hope that they would reach more people that way, which was true. However, that was a tiresome job. Under a veritable shower of food packages wrapped in plastic people greedily dove into the snow, collecting them and keeping their heads down for hours. Sometimes, after a big drop they walked for days through forests with long sticks and dug through snow searching for those packages that were too deep or in too inaccessible spots to be immediately scooped up.
Demilitarization: In the Spring of 1993, the enclave was supposed to be demilitarized, which meant that all soldiers were supposed to "turn over their weapons or leave the enclave". Canadian soldiers established in the villages and the town several checkpoints and fenced them off with barbed wire. Then the turning in of weapons started. Demilitarization was not successful. No one wanted to give up his rifle. Mostly old, useless weapons, lacking ammunition, and many hand-made rifles were the only weapons to be turned over. These hand-made rifles were contraptions made of, for example, a water pipe and a usually massive shooting mechanism. The user could never be sure whether he would survive the use himself. Two tanks and one cannon of 105mm caliber, all of which lacked ammunition, were turned into the UN, as well as a armored troops-carrier with two recoilless cannons, mounted by the Serbs before capture, which lacked both fuel and ammunition. Then the contraption known as "small multiple rocket launcher": a helicopter rocket launcher which was also mounted by the Serbs on wheels and used as an artillery piece, and several malfunctioning hand-held rocket launchers. Canadian soldiers sported cynical smiles, knowing that that was not everything and that "the enclave could not have been defended with such weapons", but the local officials kept repeating that that was all the weaponry in the enclave.
Military units stationed in Srebrenica kept several anti-aircraft cannons, one hill-terrain cannon, and several mortars. They also kept several thousands of rifles, although the exact number was not known (between two and three thousands) for the obvious reasons and the military command continued to function after the reorganization that took place that year. International troops also treated them as if they were existing and functioning and kept regular meeting with officers of what was at first the 8th operational group and then the 28th division. The international troops requested assistance when they needed it, asked for concessions, believing that the enclave contained more than enough weaponry. Unfortunately, it turned out that that was not the sufficient, not the amount of weapons needed for successful resistance.
The only change with respect to the war was that weapons had to be hidden from the UN soldiers who would otherwise confiscate then. Only the Police had the right to bear arms, but that referred to handguns. "Long barrels" were outlawed. In some parts of the "safe zone" (Suceska) soldiers maintained their lines of defense, sitting in trenches without weapons and watching the Serb positions. At least, that was what the Canadian and Dutch patrols could see. Just in case, weapons were hidden nearby.
Evacuation: In March 1993 thousands of people left the town in UNHCR convoys. Piled up in trucks, on top of each other, wearing all the clothing they possessed and with several bags in which they were supposed to stuff their complete lives, they started on a several-hundreds-of-kilometers long journey. Exposed to insults and curses of Serb soldiers and civilians, evacuees left in open and dirty trucks the town whose end could almost be felt in the air and left behind their loved ones. Only women and children younger then 18 were allowed in trucks, although a few individuals dared challenge the fate and send older children from the town in that way. Serbs carefully searched the trucks, frequently forcing everyone to get off and allowing them to get back on after the search. Civilians threw stones on passing trucks while inside the evacuees were engaged in a veritable fight for survival. People literally sat and lay on top of each others, and several kids suffocated during the journey.
The town was in panic and everyone wanted to take his or her place on the trucks. The authorities tried to organize the evacuation. Every village and part of the town, respectively, was allocated certain trucks and only the women and children from those villages and parts of the town could get a place on those trucks.
"Are these the Bratunac trucks?"
"No, these are Zulfo's. Bratunac trucks are down by the school!"
Such and similar conversations could be heard every morning before the departure of the trucks. The crowding was indescribable and no one could have been sure of being able to "fit" the family on the truck and in a way get rid of a burden, too heavy for that time. That meant staying alone and being happy because of that, knowing that you sent some of your loved ones to safety.
In the total chaos, the first victims of the evacuation fell. A local commander killed a woman who ended up on "his" truck by mistake by throwing her off the truck on the frozen concrete. Translator A.S. was arrested under charges of receiving bribes to arrange that someone be "loaded" on a truck. He denied that but a policeman found $100 in his pocket during the search. He claimed that some woman had simply pushed that money to his pocket, but it was too late. He got a special treatment in the jail. He was kept in solitary confinement and mercilessly beaten. Partly out of jealousy, and partly because they despised his action.
In spite of that, the evacuation continued. There was increasingly less order and sleepy Swedish truck drivers were additionally confused and scared by the armed escort that would wake them up. Soldiers first took care of their families, then for the families of their relatives, friends and acquaintances. Some lifted women and children off the ground and others picked them up on the truck, until they fell from exhaustion.
"Mevlo, can my lot go up?"
"No problem, bring them here."
The young man first lifted his mother on the truck, then a young woman who appeared to be his sister. They waved at him from the truck, he sent one glance in their direction before leaving and then, a few seconds later turned around to see them for the last time. However, the truck awning had been pulled down and he went home.
Enclave: By definition a small part of one state surrounded by another state; or ethnic, linguistic, or any other group separated from its main part, a land plot surrounded on all sides by the land owned by a different owner. The definition of the term enclave given in every dictionary of foreign words and expressions still does not correspond to the reality of a town kept under siege for three years. It was named enclave because the word ghetto or concentration camp sounded too rough for gentle ears of the western public. True, comparison with a ghetto also does not work. One could leave the ghetto, at least at first and there was a possibility of free movement outside its borders.
There was no barbed wire in the enclave, no watchtowers, armed guards and dogs, gas chambers, as in concentration camps. Its border shifted all the time, it was not permanent or stable, and the fear came from the fact that the side that was more powerful at the moment was moving the border to its advantage. The danger was not as visible as in a camp, where it is embodied in a frowning guard in a black uniform. On the contrary, people we could not see decided who would live, not wanting to know who their victims were, not seeing expressions on their faces, not giving them a chance to get ready.
Serb cannons were too far from the town to be seen, but close enough to provoke fear and force us to think at every moment, regardless of whether we were in bed, eating, sitting, walking, laughing, or talking, about the piercing sound and death it brings faster than thought. It was not like in, for example, Sarajevo, where grenades sometimes fell for hours every day. They pierced the skies and fell following their own rhythm, where and when they wanted, as if they had developed their own habits independent of those of Serb artillery crews and their cannons. Exactly the sudden arrival of the grenades, the fact that we were unaccustomed or the defiant denial that they had become parts of our lives, took away most lives. Remains of a woman killed at the beginning of the war while, with a bag in her hand, she was returning from the market were stuck to the walls of a nearby building and a kiosk at a small square in the town. Thousands of people passed daily through that square and no one paid attention to the flash that had rotten away after a while. We got used to the death more easily than to the instrument that delivered it.
I saw him for the first time in the Summer of 1992. He left a very strong impression on me, with closely cropped hair, beard that gave him a mysterious air, and big muscles that filled in the battle fatigues with the "Delta Force" sign on the right shoulder. He was charismatic and the group of people gathered around him in the town park looked upon him as some sort of a deity, while he, obviously enjoying the situation, seemed rather disinterested. I got to know him better much later, after the demilitarization of the enclave. I even managed to get close to him. He is not someone you'd like to strike a conversation with. Actually, very few people ever talked to him. He only issued orders, others obeyed and he did not tolerate objections except in extreme situations. Aware of the power at his disposal, when he was talkative he did not refrain from prying into the most private parts of other people's lives. His eyes were eyes of a cat, almost yellow, and stared the interlocutor down as if he were trying to paralyze him. When I started working as a translator I met him more often, although even then we did not talk that much. He would come to the Post Office, where the "blue helmets" were stationed, only to attend infrequent meetings, usually stayed very briefly and quickly left the building.
However, at the age of 18 I inadvertently got in his way and had a chance to get to know his dark side. It was the second month of my employment with the UN, at the time when intensive negotiations about the borders of the "safe zone" were still conducted. Once or twice a week helicopters would land at the local soccer pitch bringing officers of the Second Corps [of the Army of BH], Serb officers or those representing the UN. They would be quickly taken to the town and the negotiations, which, if that is at all important, ended without any results, would start. The significance of these visits was that letters, packages and money were sent in helicopters from Tuzla to Srebrenica and the other way round, and the intermediary was usually Zaim Civic, at the time a major and now a colonel of the FBH Army.
Not knowing that a new round of negotiations was scheduled for that day, I requested in mid June a free day, and got it. I decided to visit my friend S. who lived in Potocari, but I did not find her at home. Her mother sent me to the neighbors, to one of their relatives and one of the SDA leaders in Srebrenica before the war, late Hamed Efendic. I noticed, while sitting with them in their garden that a light blue Renault 5 had passed on the road leading by the house. This car was usually driven by Oric. I did not pay attention to that. Soon, I went back home and about half way to Srebrenica I saw the car approaching me from the other direction. When the car was close enough for me to recognize the driver, I realized that he was driving straight at me and, at my horror, was not reducing his speed. That was the same Renault, which came to a stop about a foot from the front wheel of my bicycle. Oric hastily jumped out of the car.
"Are you spying for Hamed?", he asked
I had no idea what he was talking about and somehow managed to stutter:
"What are you talking about?"
"Do you think that I do not know that he gets news and instructions from Tuzla through Zaim and that you were relaying them from Zaim to Hamed?" he said, obviously angry, holding his hand threateningly on his handgun.
"I went to see my girlfriend," I managed to say, feeling that blood was draining from my head and I was about to faint.
"What girlfriend?"
I explained to him what had happened, that I had been given a free day, that I did not know what had been happening in the town that day, whether anyone visited or not, who said what...
He was enraged and saw in me a part of some sort of conspiracy against him, openly saying that I was "finished" if it turned out that his suspicions were well-founded. Only then, one of his bodyguards got out of the car. He was my neighbor before the war and said: "Let the boy go, I know him! What's up with you?" He managed to push Oric back in the car. I do not know whether they were playing the "good cop, bad cop" routine but on the way home I could not dispel his threatening appearance and I was really scared. I realized that I got involved in something serious only the following day. Early in the morning I got summoned to the second floor of the Post Office where the phone exchange and the divisional communications center were located. Oric, his chief of staff, late Ramiz Becirovic, police chief Hakija Meholjic, and mayor Fahrudin Salihovic were waiting for me. The questioning went on for almost an hour, and I had to tell them everything about myself and convince them that I really was not interested in their or anyone else's power struggles. They let me go, but I had the feeling that I had been branded forever.
For the reasons I never figured out, Oric decided after this incident that I was "his man" in the UN. However, all the translators were that to a certain extent. In spite of a bad experience, I respected what he did during the war, and he definitely "bought" me with one action of his, about which I learned much later.
When Morillon finally and victoriously returned to Srebrenica after the Security Council declared the enclave for a "safe zone", Morillon wanted to meet Oric one more time. Oric, even though he hated meetings, showed up. The meeting was a long one, the General talked about the borders of the enclave, UN resolutions, respect for international law etc., and his subordinates unfurled maps, and drew red and blue lines on them. Naser was bored and at one moment, while the General was talking and not looking in his direction, he turned to Morillon's attractive female translator and, flexing his chest muscles under a tight T-shirt, asked: "Can you do this?" When I later asked him whether that was true, he confirmed, laughing.
Besides everything that can be said about him today, I am sure that he cared about Srebrenica. While he was there, he did everything in his power to save it. In the winter of 1994 he even made a deal to buy weapons from the members of the Ukrainian UN battalion in Zepa. $1 million was needed. The money was already in Zagreb and someone had to bring it to the enclave. A Pakistani major, who was serving that winter in Srebrenica, was chosen for an intermediary. They discussed the way in which the money was to be taken to the enclave several times, but it never happened because the Pakistani major suddenly got transferred.
Many of his soldiers are today convinced that he sold them out, left them behind, and above all criticize him for getting rich while they, if they want to survive, have to leave the country. He does not feel too good about that either. In one conversation, in 1997 in Sarajevo, when I offered him an interview for Dani he told me, casting suspicious glances around us: "It is always easier to blame me than anyone of the generals!" I took that as a "no", but I also realized that peace is not his natural state, that someone as suspicious as he, with his experiences, sees too many enemies around himself. His natural state is war and he functions best when the positions are clearly demarcated.