by Emir SULJAGIC
In the attacks on the Serb settlements around the enclave, in the summer of 1992 and in early 1993, the Bosnian soldiers, according to the investigators, committed war crimes in Skelani, Kravica, Kamenica, Loznicka Rijeka, and Podravanj. All settlements, with the exception of Skelane, were looted and thoroughly burnt down after capture. The investigators claim that Naser Oric, Zulfo Tursunovic, and Hakija Meholjic are involved in these crimes. In the case of Skelani, they are blaming the present mayor of Srebrenica Nesib Mandzic. However, the likelihood that anyone of them will be indicted is so far negligible.
But, that will be very hard to prove. Also difficult to prove are the claims about pre-war arming of the Bosniak population in Srebrenica. It is necessary to prove or deny the assumption that the Bosniaks were armed at the same time when the YPA armed Serbs and that the latter were, however, faster. Until now Ibran Mustafic, a pre-war president of the executive council of the Srebrenica Municipality and a representative in the Bosnian Parliament, was the first suspect organizer of the arming of the Bosniak population. He was, let us remind the readers, captured after the safe zone fell in July 1995, and spent nine months in captivity. In the meantime, the Serb authorities accused him of armed rebellion, and those charges, somewhat before he was exchanged, were changed to those for a war crime. A few days after his arrival to Sarajevo, Mustafic was under the surveillance of the IPTF, until the Tribunal, allegedly, verbally confirmed that these charges were baseless.
In a conversation with Dani Mustafic said that as a municipal official he worked on the defense from "the external aggression" but, he claims, all within the framework of at the time valid laws. In mid April, when he was already attending the session of the Parliament in Sarajevo, wartime police stations were established in Srebrenica, Potocare, Sase, Kragljivoda and Sucesca following the orders of at the time Police chief Hamid Salihovic. However, soon after that, some of municipal officials in the negotiations led with the SDS in Bratunac accepted the division of the municipality. The local population opposed that decision and the war started soon afterwards. Mustafic says that the preparations for defense were relatively successful, as out of 247 rifles in possession of the local police all 247 were used in defense against Serb attacks on the town. The rest was personal armament of Serb policemen. As far as purchasing of weapons and arming of the population are concerned, Mustafic says that "weapons for Srebrenica were bought from Senad Sahinpasic," adding that the whole purchase included "less than 100 rifles".
In spite of that, or perhaps exactly because of that Srebrenica was after being captured by Serbs in April 1992 liberated. More precisely, the Serbs pulled out of the town. That happened after the murder of Goran Zekic, the leader of the Srebrenica SDS, an impressively built man with long beard, who did not hide his support for the Chetnik ideology and was one of the organizers of the attack on the town. The Serb inhabitants panicked, fighting started in the town itself and in mid-May first Bosnian soldiers entered the deserted town.
Zekic's murder is another mystery for the investigators. Although the name of the murderer is known (namely, he also died in the assassination), it is not known who ordered the murder. It seems that the investigators are not able to connect his act with any of the semi-organized groups that were at the time fighting the Serbs, but that is only a part of a bigger problem. They cannot prove that he was a member of either of the groups under Oric's, Meholjic's or Tursunovic's command, and they also have very little evidence about their mutual links at that time.
The insignia carried by the soldiers in the fighting (usually bands, whose color changed from one action to another) were, on the other hand shared, so that the investigators cannot prove under whose command different units were at the time different crimes were committed. In other words, they cannot establish whether the crimes were committed by Oric's, Tursunovic's or Meholjic's soldiers. Our interlocutor from the Tribunal says that the investigators were rather disappointed because of that and one even loudly said "Damn!" in front of the witness who told him that. However, they know for sure that each one of these units was independent during actions, there was no common weapons and ammunition dump, nor did the units share captured weapons.
Relations between different commanders were not exceptionally good. Some of them could not stand each other, other displayed open contempt, or refused to follow Oric's orders, even though he was supposed to be their commander. The relations between Oric and Meholjic are especially interesting, because the latter openly disagreed with some of Oric's moves, openly expressing his dissatisfaction. The culmination was in the summer of 1992 when Hakija Meholjic's soldiers allegedly started wearing HVO insignia and later put them even on their vehicles. Later that year the soldiers under their command almost clashed and Meholjic, it seems, decided to comply with Oric's orders for the sake of "peace in the family". In a phone conversation with Dani (on the road between Srebrenica and Tuzla), Meholjic had this comment regarding the initiation of the investigation: "They will try to sacrifice some Bosniaks, but I am prepared to take responsibility for my actions and for my soldiers." He also said that "the circumstances in which the crimes were committed, if they were committed, should also be taken into account". "When aircraft bombed Srebrenica in 1992, if I could, I would have bombed Belgrade with a nuclear bomb!"
In this phase of the investigation it is still unclear what happened with prisoners of war, although the Serb military claims that between 20 and 30 of them were murdered after surrendering and being taken to Srebrenica. There are no witnesses, and the bodies of the prisoners, if it is true that they were killed, still haven't been found. True, crimes against civilians were proven and the investigators also visited Skelane during the time they spent in Bosnia-Hercegovina. It is suspected that the only goal of that attack was to actually massacre civilians, as, from the military point of view, the attack on a town on the bank of the Drina river was suicidal. The investigators suspect that the soldiers, realizing that they could not maintin their positions in the town, out of desperation decided to fire at the civilians who in a big group were crossing the bridge between Skelani and Bajina Basta. According to the investigators, that attack was led by Nesib Mandzic, who took the soldiers to the town and led them to the position from which they had best control of the bridge. Mandzic had a very short and rather calm comment for Dani, from his office in Srebrenica: "At that time I was an ordinary soldier, a private, and that has nothing to do with the time I spent in Srebrenica. The investigation can be initiated anywhere. I want that they stop sullying my reputation and the reputation of my family. I was an honorable man, and I want to remain that way."
That much about the suspects. And what is going on with the investigation? Will its significance, let alone possible outcome, be used as an excuse for the crime committed three years later? Whatever the result of the investigation, whoever ends up indicted or not indicted for the crimes, the Tribunal's job is that much more difficult because it must avoid that conclusion. Because, this could be the investigation after which nothing will be the same, or all of us will be the same. Perhaps that is true, perhaps the only difference in this war is who had more weaponry, perhaps... Looking from the Hague's point of view, all crimes are equal, whether they were committed in defense or in attack, and there is probably no difference between Bosniak and Serb criminals, they are the same. But their victims, and the number of their victims, are not the same.