There are no compromises with a nationalist ideology
Comission on Srebrenica, established under the pressure of international community in Republika Srpska, one of the entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, came up last week with the list of 22 000 people who participated in Srebrenica massacre in July 1995. The list includes soldiers from Army and police of Republika Srpska, officers from Army of Yugoslavia, paramilitaries from Serbia, foreign volunteers including Greeks, and even workers of the Civil Protection Force of Republika Srpska. All these people were directly involved in three-day long execution of 8 000 Bosnian Muslim civilians and disposal of their bodies. Hague Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia in 2004 convicted Radoslav Krstic, commander of Drina corpus of Army of Republika Srpska, of genocide in Srebrenica.
Srebrenica became a planetary symbol of horror, and as such it overshadows other massacres driven by the same ideology and executed by the same machinery, that were taking place all around Bosnia and Herzegovina during 1992-1995 war. Only several weeks before Srebrenica tenth anniversary commemoration this summer, there was a commemoration to 3000 Bosnian Muslim civilian victims in Visegrad, killed and thrown into Drina river in spring 1992. One of the women, who came to Visegrad this spring to throw flowers into river for her husband and son, who were then brutally murdered, met freely walking on the street one of the executioners.
The same list of men who participated in Srebrenica massacre includes list of them who now hold public positions, even in the police forces, both in Republika Srpska and in state institutions. This is possible as ideology standing behind the war campaign is still firmly embedded in institutions, and in mind of political elite.
Establishing the truth is only the first step towards recovery. Much longer is the process facing it. Even after Srebrenica was qualified as genocide, majority of Serbs have been refusing to accept it. The video, released this summer, of Scorpions, unit under the command of Serbian Ministry of Interior, executing six men and boys from Srebrenica, have not produced wide spread recognition.
One of the major problems so far have been establishing the list of killed and missing in the war. Research and Documentation Centre in Sarajevo is now finalizing the scientifically researched list of war victims, coming up with the number of more than 100 000 killed and missing persons. Nationalist political elite have been so far manipulating numbers for political purposes, producing a side effect of blurring the real horror of every individual execution, murder, torture or rape, and depriving victims of their dignity. The number of dead in the mind of people became like a football game score, where the number of dead in one group is justified by number of dead in another, as if every murder is not justifiable under any circumstances. It should be quite contrary – every victim ought to have its name and surname, every crime has to be punished and ethnic groups should first of all deal with crimes their members committed in their name.
Hague Tribunal have not always helped this process in the best of ways. Making deals with criminals and all recent scandals of some of convicted war criminals serving their sentence in semi-open prisons have not helped the sense of justice. As one of the Srebrenica mothers rightly stated, referring to the cases where sentence was shortened and major accusations dropped in exchange for admitting the crime, “Every crime has to have its established and unchangeable price, as the warning for those who might want to commit crimes in the future”.
Crucial obstacle to the reconciliation and recovery of the society is the nationalist ideology. Partial war crimes persecution will have only partial effect as long as nationalist ideology standing behind them is not condemned and defeated. Fight against it have been undertaken by brave individuals, but as long as it is compromised by compromises by both international community and local groups it will continue to contaminate institutions and society and diminish results of all efforts to bring truth and justice. Last week football game between Serbia and Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina that took place in Belgrade was a horror-show resembling the times immediately prior to war – a horrible testimony to the nationalism taking over new generations by being disseminated through official and unofficial channels. Supporters of Bosnian team were stoned and many of them injured. Supporters of team of Serbia and Montenegro, many of them coming from Republika Srpska, were holding banners with line “Noz, Zica, Srebrenica” (Knife, Wire, Srebrenica), shouting this terrifying words and mimicking the executions by knife. It is the same people who deny genocide in Srebrenica who use this symbolism to frighten anybody standing in the way of their nationalist rage. This has been the real warning of where the enemy lies – it is the monster of nationalism.
Tija Memišević, European Research Center, Sarajevo
Guest of One World Festival 2005
