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New Drama for Expelled Residents of Srebrenica

Residents of Srebrenica Leaving in Large Numbers From Vozuca to America

by Vedrana ZIVAK

Oslobodjenje, Sarajevo, Federation Bosnia-Hercegovina, B-H, June 28, 2001

Expelled residents of Srebrenica who found shelter in Vozuca are leaving in large numbers for America. Poverty, arrogance of the local authorities, and unemployment are some of the reasons that prompt them to leave Bosnia-Hercegovina(BH). At one point there were more than a thousand of them in Vozuca, but today many have already left. During the last few days the Police has been hastily carrying out evictions. Many are convinced that such attitude is only a continuation of torture of the survivors from Srebrenica. They claim that not a single representative of the authorities has ever visited them, nor did they show any interest in how they live; obviously they did not show any interest in whether they needed assistance. "There is no life here": After arriving in Vozuca we encounter a house with the sign "Center for Women from Srebrenica. On the first floor we encounter several persons. They agree to talk to us. They say they are working on the second book about the identification of the victims. Many could see the first book recently at a promotion in Sarajevo. We introduce ourselves. Our collocutors Senaid (80 percent disabled) and his brother Husein Music plan to leave BH soon. The two of them are among the few surviving men. Senaid intends to fly overseas by July 7 at the latest. He does not want to reveal details, who and under what conditions gives them documents and papers for departure. He says that the Catholic Church is sponsoring him. We ask if he knows where he is going? He does, he says. "I have been informed thoroughly. I am going to the US, Iowa. I will have both an apartment and a job, because relatives of my wife already live there. They are doing well." Senaid says that he is not sorry that he is leaving Bosnia. Hajrudin is also bitter. "I think that Police would do better if they hunted war crimes suspects instead of evicting widowed mothers." Nevertheless, even though he is obviously disappointed in all sorts of things, Husein regrets that he is leaving BH. He does not want to return to Srebrenica. "I feel sorry for my people. My brother, who disappeared, and we could not even bury him. My father was buried here in Vozuca. If I leave, I won't be able to visit his grave..." Both brothers were in Srebrenica after the war. However, memories of the calvary they went through are still fresh. They say that the neighborly relations are not like before the war. They claim that humanitarian organizations which rebuilt their houses in the villages near Srebrenica insist on evictions. They say they need to do that in order to justify the invested funds to the international community. They are convinced that everything would have been much better if humanitarian organizations acted differently. This way they built one house here, two there, and so forth. Hurija Hasanovic (49) and Hajrija Ahmetovic (28) from Srebrenica, also live in Vozuca. Both of them live in Serb-owned houses, awaiting evictions... Hajrija is married and has four children. She cannot explain how they survive. On intermittently delivered humanitarian assistance, seasonal work in other households... Her husband is disabled. Three of their kids attend school. To the question how they will buy textbooks, notebooks, pencils, and other school supplies, Hajrija responds: "Put yourself in my position and you'll figure it out." A married couple, they do not want to introduce themselves, tell us that they already have all the necessary documents, but that they nevertheless decided not to leave for the US. The man is a policeman. They have two children, aged 12 and 14. "We gave up because we are afraid of flying. Also, we could not deal with uncertainty," the woman says. Isn't it more uncertain here? "Yes, it is, but there is no place like Bosnia. My brother lives in Virginia and he told us that they are not doing that well over there."

No assistance: From Nura Planic, we find out that the expelled residents of Srebrenica hardly receive any humanitarian aid in Vozuca. "We get assistance, but only when someone feels sorry for us. Or if we buy something on our own. We would like to return to our homes, but we cannot live the way other want us to live," she says. Muniba Trlic, like most of them, widowed mothers, will rather say that her husband wasn't there than that he was killed. Hope dies last... She lives alone with two daughters. When we ask whether she also planned to go to America, she responds that there is no point going there as she is unable to work. Muska Tursunovic also wants to stay in BH because she wants to return to Srebrenica, but not under the current conditions. "Although my house has been fixed, I am afraid to go back. We have neither water nor electricity. I lost many relatives in Srebrenica. I had a 22-years-old son and he did not come [to Vozuca]. I cannot go there now, return, even if I had to live under a tent," she adds. The policemen came to evict them but the owner of the house, a Serb, told them that they can stay. She starts crying. "Everything would be fine if only my son were alive. No one can heal that wound. He disappeared. I cannot sleep at night without dreaming about him". How do they live? They don't! With sorrow in their hearts, still grieving for their loved ones, they wait to be evicted... They went through a Calvary in Srebrenica, and today say that torture and genocide of all sorts against them continue.


Bosniak Dialogue and Bosnian Reality

Tripod Needs Only Two Legs?

by R. KOLAR

Oslobodjenje, Sarajevo, Federation Bosnia-Hercegovina, B-H, June 30, 2001

Saying that the gathering and discussion were invitations to purely intellectual engagement with the goal of reaching the truth about ourselves, at which point it will be much easier to find the way to make sure that that truth is an active factor of our political, spiritual and general historical fate, academician Muhamed Filipovic opened yesterday the science conference "Bosniak dialog and Bosnian reality."

Bosnia never in worse situation: Emphasizing the need that wise men finally say relevant things about the topic of Bosnia and Bosniaks, Prof. Filipovic emphasized that we are "tied to this land by the truth; we cannot exist without this land, just as it loses its historical substance and justification if we disappear from its soil and are turned into a curious decoration and a local folksy addition to the prevalent cultures or some sort of globalist culture, advocated by many among us, even though they haven't even the slightest idea what they are taking about". Prof. Filipovic said that many are still working hard on wiping Bosnia off the map of Europe. He made four assertions. First, he asserted that "Bosnia never in its history was in a worse and more serious situation, nor was it as an idea and political reality and as a cultural-moral project ever more endangered than at this moment. It is true, and this is radical in its meaning, that Bosnia is divided as a state and that it is not clear what will be the final outcome of its division to two, perhaps even three states." In his second thesis Filipovic stated that BH was never before endowed with such competent political representatives, as well as forces and politics openly hostile toward Bosnia, so that this can be viewed as an introduction to the final solution of the Bosnian problem, "which some influential circles have announced... towards the destruction of Bosnia as a multilateral and multi-ethnic state." In the third thesis Dr. Filipovic emphasized that the foreign factor never had so much influence here and so little responsibility for very little progress in the reintegration of the country and progress in economy, while the population is increasingly impoverished and is loosing all hope. Additionally emigration of Bosniaks is systematically encouraged. "The only possible way out from the current situation is the development of political will that will be clearly and precisely defined and which will be able to bring back the basic historical, political and human rights to these people, and above all their sovereign right to rule over this country and its future, i.e. the right to decide on our won in what sort of country we want to live and what it is," academician Filipovic emphasized. He continued: "We must tell the whole truth to everyone. Above all to our incompetent politicians who destroyed our lives and are now working on finishing their job by destroying our country as a whole and especially its future as a normal country."

Izetbegovic signed a capitulation: Musadik Borogovac, who started to introduce himself, but never finished (he said he works for international organizations) talked about the effects of the Dayton Agreement and causes that brought it about. He concluded: "We have the strength to say no to Dayton. We must try all those who destroyed Bosnia-Hercegovina, those who abolished the Republic of Bosnia-Hercegovina... If necessary, we should split it into cantons, anything just to annul the Dayton Agreement." "I am haunted until this day by three images. One, when a father, holding in his arms his child to whom an aggressor's grenade had cut off one leg, says that if he could meet the man who fired the grenade he would drink coffee with him; the other image is from the London conference in 1992, when Carrington taps Milosevic on the shoulder as if they were best friends, and the third one in Dayton, when Alija signed capitulation between Sloba and Franjo," Zaim Muzaferija, an actor and poet, was poetic in his speech. Why do Bosniak intellectuals keep quiet, Zilhad Kljucanin wondered in his speech, answering in the end that he also kept quiet. But, before that, heretically, according to him, and critically, he addressed all the existing Bosnian institutions, which, according to Kljucanin, make it impossible for Bosniak intellectuals to be heard. "A Bosniak intellectual cannot recognize national institutions as either Bosniak or intellectual (for example 'Preporod' has been turned into a private company, ANUBiH and the Writers' Association only make announcements when they need to appoint new officials, just like the Academy recently included a lousy social-realist writer who faints whenever he hears the word Bosniak); similarly he cannot recognize as Bosniak the authorities that controlled those institutions, the SDA until the limit of decision-making and the Alliance or doing the same. Kljucanin averred that the SDP attitude towards Nijaz Durakovic is the same as that of SBiH towards Enes Karic". After returning a few years to BH, Izmet Pezo, a heart surgeon, was recently fired from a job in the Kosevo hospital. Yesterday he said that he knew what foreigners were like, because he had lived for 20 years abroad. "We do not need foreigners. They want to destroy us, to take us the little money we have. We have Turkish capitalism here, the worst possible. And we should develop the true [capitalism?] in health care; that is a salvation. We should not be inferior in that sense with respect to Zagreb and Belgrade, because we are better than them, if only we got organized."

Return to the ideas of ZAVNOBIH: Jasmin Jaganjac, former military advisor to Alija Izetbegovic talked about the strategic and political developments in the sphere of globalization. "This war was not fought by Serbia. Serbia was only a tool of the new world order. The goal of the West is to occupy Bosnia and America is in Europe only to destabilize it. A secret world government was created in 1970 and today it is led by Zbigniew Bzezinski. All of this started earlier. For example, at the time US ambassador, Eagleberger, took Milosevic to the US, and they together opened a company and thereby financed the war here. Jews promised Milosevic the role of Israel in the Balkans. BH is blocked both via satellite and computer, and we must not still exclude warfare. As far as Dayton is concerned, Izetbegovic had to sign, although we should reject that now." The appearance of Dr. Nijaz Durakovic was expected with a lot of attention. He justified the expectation with his proposal: "I agree with the views of Prof. Filipovic. I was the only member of the parliament who at the time opposed the signing of the Dayton Agreement, which rewarded the aggressor and introduced a system that cannot function and divided BH based on ethnicity. However, the question is what now? My proposal is, although I could hear in the corridors that we should work on setting up a small Bosniak homeland, some Muslimania, which is crazy and a catastrophe, that we should not touch our well-known tripod. Bosniaks do not have the exclusive right to Bosnia. We should go back to the ideas of ZAVNOBiH, because that is the only basis for our future. Otherwise, only naïve individuals could believe that some sort of Muslim enclave can have future and survive. Bosniaks and intellectuals must advocate reconstruction of the Dayton Agreement, at a new conference, but on precise foundations, on the basis of cantonization, but the cantonization we advocated in 1993 and 1994, not Ante Jelavic's cantonization." In brief terms Bahrudin Bijedic portrayed the current situation and stressed that "we must not depend on the changes of political relations in the neighboring states, but must be organized for all possible options of endangerment. Cooperation with the US is of strategic importance for BH". Other more or less distinguished Bosniak intellectuals and public personalities also took part in the gathering, but it was also noticeable that many of those who had a lot to say were missing.


Translated on April 8, 2002
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