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BALKANS: Tens of Thousands Mark Decade Since Srebrenica Massacre

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

SREBRENICA, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Jul 11 2005 (IPS) - Hands on their eyes, bending slowly towards the ground, in accordance with the Islamic funeral tradition known as janazah, hundreds of relatives of the men and boys executed ten years ago in the Muslim enclave of Srebrenica said a last farewell to their loved ones on Monday.

Hands on their eyes, bending slowly towards the ground, in accordance with the Islamic funeral tradition known as janazah, hundreds of relatives of the men and boys executed ten years ago in the Muslim enclave of Srebrenica said a last farewell to their loved ones.

In attendance Monday as the remains of 610 victims were put into ground at the Potocari Memorial Centre were family members, delegations from more than 50 countries and some 50,000 people who came to show solidarity with the victims of what was described as the worst atrocity in Europe since Word War II.

"The United Nations failed to safeguard the people of the protected zone. They surrendered them to Serbian forces who killed 7,800 men," Sulejman Tihic, member of the Bosnia-Herzegovina rotating presidency, said in his address to the tens of thousands who attended the service.

"However, the war criminals who did this cannot be war heroes as they have no nation or religion," he added in a reference to the fact that Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, the wartime leaders of Bosnian Serbs accused of this crime are still at large and regarded as war heroes in neighbouring Serbia.

"The truth of war crimes and punishment of those responsible will be the basis for future relations in the region," Tihic added.

"The tragedy of Srebrenica will always haunt the history of the United Nations," UN official Marc Brown said as he relayed the message of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. "We can say that great nations failed. We could have sent stronger military forces. It was serious error of judgment based on principles of impartiality and non-violence that was not appropriate for Bosnia and Herzegovina" the message said.

Potocari is the town where some 8,000 men and boys were separated from their wives, sisters and mothers by the Bosnian Serb army that had overrun the Muslim enclave in eastern Bosnia on July 11, 1995, just months before the three-year war between Serbs and Muslims ended.

The 300-strong United Nations battalion of Dutch soldiers at Potocari could do nothing to prevent what happened later.

In a matter of days, the men and boys were executed by Serbs in nearby woods, fields and battery factory and agricultural buildings. Their bodies were buried in at least 40 mass graves, in an effort by the Bosnian Serbs to hide their responsibility for the crime.

More than 1,300 victims of the massacre have been recovered and reburied at Potocari, after being positively identified by forensics and the International Commission for Missing Persons DNA lab in the central Bosnian town of Tuzla.

Hundreds have been buried at different locations in Bosnia, where their families resettled in 1995.

In July 1995, more than 20,000 Muslim women and small children were bussed by Serbs to the closest areas under Muslim control, most of them remaining today in Tuzla. Bosnian Serb authorities later settled Serbs fleeing parts of Bosnia under Muslim control in Srebrenica.

So far, the figures of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) say fewer than 2,000 Muslims have returned to what used to be, in pre-war times, a predominantly Muslim town.

"Memories are still hard. It’s not easy to come to terms with what happened," said Abid Dudic, 51, who attended the janazah for his father Huso, who was 65 when he was executed after the fall of Srebrenica.

Dudic’s wife Fahreta, 50, attended the funeral ceremony as the body of her brother, Resad Mujic, was recently identified in a mass grave and brought to final rest. He was 33 at the time he was killed. The bodies of two more of her brothers, Sefik, 31, and Redzep, 24, have not yet been found.

The couple returned to Srebrenica in 2001, trying to build their lives anew, as "there is no place like home when you’re on your own," Dudic told IPS.

"It is very hard to live, knowing how your loved one’s life was ended," said Dudic, a professional truck driver. "But it means a lot to me that my father’s body was found; that he can be buried with dignity… My life must go on and this helps me continue."

For Fahreta, mother of two sons who are well and sound, married now and having children of their own, "the whole war was nothing but a sea of sorrow and suffering for all."

"Everybody faced only suffering and pain, nobody gained a thing, regardless of the nation they belong to," she told IPS. "Nothing can bring the dead back to us. We have to reconcile with our Serb neighbours and continue to live on."

Srebrenica looked like a ghost town in the days ahead of the commemorative ceremony.

Its Serb residents were reluctant to speak or comment about the events ten years ago. Most said they are displaced persons themselves, who arrived only when "everything was over," and that they did not know what really happened in the days after July 11, 1995. The Serbs are of the Christian Orthodox religion. Some were in denial that the crime ever happened.

"It’s an exaggeration – speculation with numbers," Milos Milovanovic, a Serb, told IPS. "Others who committed crimes against Serbs are being absolved of their sins," he added, in reference to atrocities the Muslims committed against Serbs during the war that claimed 250,000 lives in former Yugoslavia. Most of the war’s victims were non-Serbs.

Srebrenica, once a prosperous mining town of around 30,000 people, and a popular thermal spa nearby, fell to a population of less than 10,000 after Bosnian Serbs took over in July 1995.

It derives its name "Srebrenica" from the Serbo-Croat word for silver, "srebro", which was extracted in the mines surrounding the town.

"This is a town where few people have jobs and few chances for a real life or prosperity," Vera Grujicic, a Serb in Srebrenica told IPS. She fled her native town at the beginning of war in 1992, "as something was brewing, dark, threatening." Together with her husband Zoran and children who were aged five and two at the time, she fled to Serbia. After the war ended, they returned to their hometown only to find their house in ruins.

"We started all over again, rebuilding the home, taking children to school," Vera says. "I was so glad when I saw the Dudics come back in 2001… We were always good neighbours, visiting each other frequently and feasting both our religious holidays in pre-war times. Regardless of what happened, we remained friends."

The Dudics and Grujicics live in the small suburb of Vidikovac in Srebrenica. Their homes are across the dirt road from each other, surrounded by many other homes that are still in need of repair even though the war ended ten years ago.

"People are reluctant to come back, not only because of what happened, but because of poverty," Vera Grujicic explained. "The youngsters have no place to go out, no jobs to earn money or be motivated to stay." According to the municipal statistics, there are only 20 children in Srebrenica who will start first grade in September.

"In our times, it was several classes of first grade starters in each of four schools in the town," her neighbour Fahreta says.

"This is a place where you can buy little but bread, milk, sugar or flour in the shops" Vera added. "It’s so neglected and forgotten. We have to buy clothes, medicines and everything in Bratunac," a small town six kilometres away.

The residents of Srebrenica, regardless of their ethnic background, say they are tired of politics and war, and the horrors that accompanied it and ruined their lives.

"There were no winners in the war, only losers and the politicians who created this whole mess," Abid Dudic says. "Ordinary people did not want the war. However, it will be important for us to know who is responsible for crimes against members of our families, but we can not blame the whole Serbian nation."