[syndicate] Srebrenica: Serbia's Agressive Denial

[Andrej Tisma]

CLEANSING OF SREBRENICA REGION

Serb inhabitants were exiled from Srebrenica on May 8, 1992, and many of
them were killed. Two days earlier 72 Serb villages in Srebrenica
neighborhood were burned down and all their Serb inhabitants killed. Trough
the burned Serb villages Muslim troops have reached Drina river on October
5, 1992 with aim to cut the main communications with Serbia. On January 16,
1993 the Muslim offensive has started under the command of Naser Oric
against the still remained Serb villages: Skelane, Cosici and Kruscic.

During the period when Muslim forces under Naser Oric controlled Srebrenica
they killed some 3,200 Serbian civilians in the area. Naser Oric went public
at that time, proudly displaying a video of Serbian civilians his troops had
mutilated. There were burning houses, dead bodies, severed heads, and people
fleeing. Oric grinned throughout admiring his handiwork. 'We ambushed them,'
he said when a number of dead Serbs appeared on the screen. The next
sequence of dead bodies had been done in by explosives: 'We launched those
guys to the moon,' he boasted. [According to theTribunal, forensic
scientists have discovered 1,668 bodies 'in and around the Srebrenica area'
so far]

Remaining population of Srebrenica villages were mainly elderly Serbs, many
in their 80s, who refused to leave their homes. Even these poor souls were
not spared, but were slaughtered by having their throats slit.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ivo Skoric" <ivo at reporters.net>
To: "ed Agro" <edagro at verizon.net>
Sent: Thursday, July 15, 2004 4:50 PM
Subject: [syndicate] Srebrenica: Serbia's Agressive Denial


> Dear WIB supporters, letters of support can be sent to wib belgrade
> at:  stasazen at eunet.yu.
>
>  Subject: Srebrenica 2004
>  by Jasmina Tesanovic
>  10th July
>
> http://www.b92.net/galerija/pics/2004/07/55872873440f06cf16184e4327077
> 79.jpg
>
> It was my daughter s birthday, twentieth, a rather important date for
> a person who grew up a  in Milosevic s Serbia, born on the date of
> his wife Mira Markovic, who incessantly celebrated the fortunate
> event that made all of us rather miserable not only politically but
> in my case personally too. I had a feeling that even that rather rare
> moment in my private life has been snatched away from us a private
> persons and made a matter of public charade if not crime: so why
> bother to celebrate it, considering that my daughter was born in
> 1984, Orwell science fiction dark year which turned somewhat true in
> Serbian history, we developed in my family this habit to share this
> private date as a public issue.
>
> This year as every beginning of July was a ritual standing of Women
> in Black in the Square of Republic for the victims of Srebrenica, 9
> years after the massacre, in occasion of the burial of new 338
> identified bodies, now more that thousand out of 8000 which have
> disappeared.
>
> We regularly reported our standing, got he official permission, yet
> once we were there we realized that the square was already occupied
> by two very loud and commercial events, so we had to retire under the
> famous Ljilja's clock (our activist) where in the past few months we
> have been collecting the signatures for, first the abolition of the
> law supporting the Hague war criminals, then for our recently elected
> presidential candidate Boris Tadic. Before we even managed to spread
> our banners, a woman from the usual onlookers stepped forward and
> started screaming incessantly; traitors, whores, CIA agents, AID
> patients, the usual repertoire...The police standing by our side was
> passive; the woman ran into our crowd of fifty, and started hitting
> random, she hit Ljilja, Cica, Stasa and Slavica; she did it fast and
> strong. The police finally stopped her while our Women in Black were
> trying to respond but not particularly surprised, it happened before.
> It happened only two months ago when three of our activists were
> beaten repeatedly and nobody was arrested afterwards and of course
> several other times during the Milosevic s regime.
>
> We organized ourselves rapidly in the usual circle with our pacifist
> and antimilitarist and antinationalist banners asking
>  for the responsibility of the former and present regime for the
> massacre in Srebrenica. That triggered some others to join the
> combative woman. Other few women and some men. I recognized one from
> the last time our activists were beaten and the other from the famous
> gay lesbian pride march back in 2001 when the 15 activists were
> incessantly persecuted and beaten and spitted by 900 hooligans as
> well as members of the Obraz (nationalist) organization.
>
> We stood for one hour listening to their threats and offences,
> extremely radical this time: they threatened to skin us next
> time, to bring weapons, to take us to the court of traitors...to rape
> us ...They sang "Ko to kaze ko tolaze Srbija je mala" (nationalist
> song) and they shouted the names of their heroes, Seselj, Mladic
> Karadzic Milosevic...The police wrote down their id-s as well as
> those of attacked women in black women and then stood in silence.
> After the standing we closed our banners and took a seat in the
> nearby Gradska kafana (restaurant): we did not want to leave one by
> one, and we had  foreign guests who were visibly upset. We hoped the
> harassers would leave first, instead they gathered around us waiting
> ...After some time we stood up and asked to police to protect us by
> making the aggressors leave...Instead the police asked us to leave
> because they claimed they could not protect us even though we were in
> a bigger number then the hooligans, even though we have all the legal
> and moral right to be where we were and do what we did. Even though
> the next day the democratic candidate was to be proclaimed the
> official president of Serbia, even though... We were summoned into
> cabs and denied to right to walk down the streets, some of us were
> furious, some scared but most of us, I guess used to it. Srebrenica
> is a bad word for modern Serbia, even worse then feminism, and the
> Women in Black put the two together...
>
> The next day, early in the morning we went to Srebrenica for the
> ritual standing in the memorial valley where the victims are buried.
> Our women friends greeted us and gave us the  first row so that our
> banner Women in Black from Belgrade can be visible for the mass
> auditorium, press...and it never fails to be noticed, because it is
> important, for them, for us...paradoxically these last years for us
> it became safer and more significant to stand in Srebrenica 11the of
> July than to assist the first democratic president we supported with
> all our might to be elected while he was anointed the very same day
> in Belgrade: why did we have to chose and given the choice, how come
> only few of us were in Srebrenica...and why the obvious fact such as
> 8000 missing people from Srebrenica some of which found buried in
> Serbia proper never ever becomes a reality in Belgrade.
>
> I had a wish for the maturity birthday of my daughter next year: that
> the 338 wrapped bodies passed from hand to hand in
> Bratunac by relatives of the survived, if any, were passed here in
> the republic Square by our so called decent citizens and policemen
> who every year now just watch us silently while the war criminals and
> their loud supporters make the rules according to which we all are
> their hostages, willing or milling. I know my wish will never come
> true, but I also know that if we stop wishing we may get what we
> really want, as an English proverb says. And god forbid what that may
> be when it comes to Serbia whose favourite proverb is: one can fool
> around with everything but   never with police or army...
>
> PS Why the nature  becomes so beautiful  wherever the crime is
> committed, said my friend. She was right; I never pay attention to
> the nature unless I am obliged to. The Srebrenica valley is demanding
> it: the intensive green colours, the soothing sounds of the wind and
> birds, the blazing sun which heats without hurting...the design of
> the clouds...the neat border lines of the place of the crime. On one
> side the abandoned railway tracks, the barracks the weeds...the
> barbed wire...in the same condition as 9 years ago; there the  male
> victims were held once separated from the families...Later on they
> were executed somewhere else they say...it is a Auschwitz atmosphere
> that side of the valley triangle, it strikes for its organized
> efficiency, so many people executed in so few days, the technology
> bothers me, and images of general Mladic throwing chocolates to the
> children behind the barbed wire...
>
> The other side is a hill, not very steep, today covered with humble
> even graves of the identified recovered victims...the third side is a
> steep hill with a tree or two, where usually we come and stand during
> the ritual prayers. And in the middle, the memorial erected last
> year, a construction resembling a tent a cupola under which the
> bodies are assembled in rows, where the priest and speakers address
> god or commons. It is not an even side triangle, it does not resemble
> justice or beauty, it is even slightly sinister when the shadows
> start creeping in the late afternoon, it has no running water and has
> a lot of dust, but somehow every year I have a catharsis there, even
> though I am not a Muslim, I am not a man  who prays and I am not even
> a foreigner anymore there. The place has the captive beauty of a
> place of a crime: there where men have wronged, the nature
> rebels.
>
>
>


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