by Velimir CURGUS KAZIMIR
BBC's documentary "Cry from the grave", broadcast on July 11, 2001 on TV Serbia, could only be a reminder of the events from six years ago and prompt our contemplation towards the following direction - how much and what do we remember? As far as I can tell, that did not happen. People with names and surnames, adult citizens of this country have been publicly protesting because of the broadcast of this movie. According to them, "Cry from the grave" is a part of the all encompassing campaign against the Serb nation. The movie "Cry form the grave" however, is not unknown or new for the public in Serbia. It has so far been broadcast twice, on TV B92 and TV ANEM (TV B92 purchased broadcasting rights for this movie). The reaction was therefore not directed against the film as such, but against the fact that it was broadcast at prime time on the state TV channel.
These, as a rule primitive and arrogant reactions of the opposition representatives, Radicals and Socialists, prompt different reactions and associations. On the one hand, it is obvious that the prime motivation for these reactions is the defense of the policy that led this country for the last ten years and must not be questioned at any cost. Another, much more serious thing is the nominal agreement that everyone be held responsible for individual committed crimes but the strong rejection that Serbs ("the Serb nation") participated in that in any way. Of course this is naked hypocrisy. All senior officials of the Socialist Party of Serbia and the Serb Radical Party very well know that in July 1995 in Srebrenica about seven thousand innocent men aged between 16 and 65 were killed in cold blood. I do not mean to imply that the current officials (B. Ivkovic for example) participated in the executions, that was done by other services, but I do think that they from the start knew that their favorite General Ratko Mladic carried out a true massacre in Srebrenica. Both Radicals and Socialists and even some other patriotic public personalities should be today asked a simple (and insolent) question: how would they have reacted if during the war Bosniaks or Croats killed in one place that many unarmed Serbs? Would in that case they also talk about the rules of the war and that all sides committed crimes? Every lost life is, naturally, irreplaceable and valuable as such, but the number of killed and casualties is something that is very much taken into account after every war. Why is Milan Bulajic even today, more than half a century later, trying to prove that the number of victims killed in Jasenovac concentration camp is many times larger than claimed by Franjo Tudman? Sensitivity about our own victims should imply sensitivity for victims in general.
Blood ritual: One of the most moving things related to Srebrenica that I've heard about did not take place in Srebrenica. It happened on the road to Zvornik. A UNHCR convoy evacuating women, children and elderly from Srebrenica to Tuzla went that way. The first day they were driven in open trucks. A crowd consisting of mostly women and children gathered at one overpass in Zvornik. All of them brought along stones, some of them weighing as much as 20 pounds. There were injured and dead individuals in every truck. Later UNHCR abandoned transport in trucks and switched to buses.
Is it possible that no one knew about what happened in Srebrenica? The whole Drina valley knew about the stoning of the trucks with women and children. As well as about crimes Naser Oric committed in the Serb villages near Srebrenica.
Srebrenica provokes horror and dumbfoundness in the face of enormous mutual hatred and a huge lack of rationality. The question is very morbid but also very logical: why did Mladic and company allow the women, children and the elderly to leave Srebrenica alive? Why did not they kill them all and thereby remove the witnesses? As the women and children were separated from the men, they were taken into exile a day later so that they could see an endless field with bodies of dead men from Srebrenica next to the road. Some arrogant madness in all of that defies a rational explanation. What did those who decided to kill all those men have in mind? That there would be trouble for a week and then everyone would forget about this? Did they feel like messiahs who were doing a dirty job for the future generations? (Muslims in Indonesia did something similar in 1965; they did the dirty job of extermination of the Chinese community, accused of spreading Communism.)
The killing of women and children is definitely something that cannot be done easily, sort of mechanically, as is the case with men. Fighting age healthy men are a legitimate target. (Inequality of women was their best protection). The right to revenge in this region, from Croatia to Macedonia, remains a sacred right. The spirit of Leka Dukagjini is not only an Albanian mantra, and does not depend that much on religion. There is a sort of a blood ritual on all that, a combination of the worst traditions and customs that only an isolated, conservative and patriarchal society could have come up with.
As far as the "removal of human remains from the battlefield" is concerned, that is also nothing new. Only the terminology has changed.
Sometimes in 1997 I heard a story of a driver working for a large transportation company in Serbia who got the task to transport soil from a location near Srebrenica to the bank of the Drina river. Large bulldozers threw the soil in the truck and he drove silently. Until the moment he saw a skeleton "waving" at his side mirror. Then he stopped the truck, left it on the road and returned totally freaked out to his town. A lot of similar stories are making rounds in Serbia. For example, there were transports of equipment and ammunition that day and night went through Zvornik and Bijeljina. At the time of the so-called Skelane offensive citizens of Uzice and Bajina Basta could as tourists observe the artillery support coming from the Serbian side. Consequently, only an autistic person can view the war in Bosnia-Hercegovina as a war in another country (Besides, an autistic person does not notice a war in his own street. He only notices it when it reaches his own house).
Killing fields: Was the public in Serbia truly surprised by the discoveries of mass crimes, attempts to hide them and after the fact explanations? Let me remind that already in early 1996 a book of two Dutch journalists, "Srebrenica - history of a crime", was published in Belgrade, more than six months before its publication in Bosnia. The publisher, Radio B92, did not have any trouble because of this book although, as far as I know, not a single review of the book has ever been published in Serbia. When Erdemovic surrendered to the Hague Tribunal the public in Serbia learned first hand about the work on the Bosnian killing fields. Execution squads, dug out holes, powerless men waiting for their turn to die. No talk, no explanations, no blindfolds. Nothing. Ordinary, banal death. Erdemovic was himself only a small executor in that big job of elimination. He could testify only about his part of the job. Only a hundred victims, no more.
It is definitely a paradox of sorts that in Serbia, all these years, there was no conspiracy of silence regarding Srebrenica. A lot was said and written in public. The fact that the state-controlled media avoided this topic and the authorities adamantly denied that any crime took place in Srebrenica could not excuse anyone for not knowing. In the last six years there was a lot of information about Srebrenica in Serbia, let alone on foreign TV and radio programs. (Much more information than about Kosovo).
Ovcara, Prijedor, Omarska, Zvornik, Visegrad, Foca, Srebrenica... are all towns in which the Serb side without doubt committed grave crimes. However, Srebrenica stands out, not only because of an imposing number of dead, logistics and technology used to hide the crime, but also because of the explanation and laconic silence of the Serb officials that followed and was not challenged by many institutions such as the Serb Orthodox Church and the Serb Academy of Sciences and Arts. They, obviously, just like Branislav Ivkovic, did not know anything. Or, in order to "find out" something, they first expect reports about crimes of others against the Serbs. If that is the case, the first step was taken in Croatia at the Knin cemetery where the exhumation of the victims of the Croatian "Storm" is going on. (Would an indictment against Naser Oric change something?)
Shame and national loyalty: Why was, despite so much information, the truth about Srebrenica nevertheless hidden? That question demands an essential and thoughtful reply. A part of the answer can be found in a sort of shame about everything that happened, as well as in some sort of national loyalty oath. Once a crime is committed and there is no going back, the best course of action is to deny everything. This outlook is shared not only by those people who witnessed or participated in the war, but also by those who had nothing to do with the war and violence. I do not think that at this time there is a big fear of the truth about Srebrenica. There are no big mafia bosses left and the laws of cosa nostra are gone, even though some claim that "everything is the same, only he is gone". The disappearance of the atmosphere of fear and removal of all taboo topics in the society is a sufficient proof that a radical change has taken place. (It is interesting that the most radical critics that claim that nothing has changed are representatives of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia, Vuk Draskovic and certain representatives of the Democratic Party of Serbia). A statement of a senior official of the Democratic Party of Serbia from Vojvodina that the discovery of freezer trucks and focus of the media on that topic is nothing but national masochism can be viewed as regret that it is now possible to discuss that topic freely and publicly. As if that endangers the seriousness and strength of the state.
The feeling of shame and national loyalty have a very peculiar characteristic: crimes of one's own side can be discussed only among the loyal members of one's own nation. As soon as someone from the side, a stranger, shows up, the conversation dies down. The crimes become a family secret. We can only guess the long-term effect of that secret. Experiences of other generations that faced grave crimes are rather different. The German experience is definitely the best known. Ian Buruma writes about that in the brilliant book "The Wages of Guilt - Memories About War in Germany and Japan". Buruma notes that the feeling of guilt dominates among the Germans, while the feeling of shame is dominant among the Japanese. However, these feelings developed only some twenty years after the end of the war, and were strongest among those who did not participate in the war. As a rule, executioners do not feel guilt. They do not suffer from bad conscience. Perhaps nightmares, but definitely not bad conscience. Time is needed for both guilt and shame. As well as for the truth. The Polish public has only recently learned about the crime committed in a Polish village. Polish villagers, on their own, without Germans, massacred about 1600 Jews. The Polish president apologized to the Jews. 60 years have passed since the crime.
Ethical and political chaos: But what if everyone is more-or-less aware of the truth? What else is necessary for a nation to face the past events? Public trials, for example?
Why are we ashamed? Is the feeling of shame universal, something that is a characteristic of every conscious human being? Can the feeling of shame be collective? Are we born with shame, or do we learn how to be ashamed? All these questions only superficially appear to be obsolete. As if they are peeking out from the nineteenth century. Morality, ethics, tolerance, equality, then human rights... are all characteristics of the second half and the very end of the twentieth century. Shame, pride, dignity, compassion, indifference, narcissism, are all second rate emotions in comparison with hatred, the feeling of guilt and the ability to forgive. Such hierarchy of feelings is totally in accordance with the ethical and political chaos created after the collapse of communism. With the departure of communism, human psyche and human character had to give in to the demands of the time - only measurable and clearly identifiable phenomena can exist in public life. Everything else is a boring and wearisome detail.
But if we fail to leave behind the slavery of our own national shame and senseless loyalty to criminals, are we not going to fall into a new circle of autism and self-pity that can cause a next wave of xenophobia and hatred? Those who are dissatisfied with changes could at least get involved in encouraging citizens to face the truth. Or give up their own nation. Perhaps that would be the best. For both camps. In the meantime, only a public discussion of what happened in Srebrenica, and not only in Srebrenica, can help to defeat the ill-feeling of shame and sick national loyalty.
Another thing - the proposal that a special parliamentary committee be formed to investigate the Srebrenica "incident", in parallel with the Commission for the Truth and Reconciliation, seems rather silly. Is someone trying to say that the Commission for the Truth and Reconciliation is unnecessary because Slobodan Milosevic has been delivered to the Hague Tribunal? If someone really believed that the role of the Commission was to oppose or replace the Tribunal, then he is in a lot of trouble. Both morally an politically.