There is a constant background noise in Srebrenica of water running and birds singing. The atmosphere seems relaxed and calm - appropriate for a former spa destination. And standing in the centre of town that is all one can hear - the water stream. Now and then a car will drive by, a dog will bark, the church bells will chime, and the speakers of the recently rebuilt mosque will sound the call to prayer. Time is still. 

By Cintia Taylor

The town consists of two main streets with a handful of shops and cafés. On top of the hill there is still the old Domavia hotel where tourists stayed during their thermal treatments. Its yellow paint is fading, pieces of the outside walls have fallen off. There are no doors or windows. It is a ghost hotel now partly inhabited by a few homeless people. 

The Domavia isn’t the only building in ruins in Srebrenica. There are still many examples of abandoned and shattered old houses across town. But Alma’s (not her real name) isn’t one of them. She returned to Srebrenica five years ago after fleeing to Germany during the war. Her parents’ house had been occupied by a Bosnian Serb family. They moved when she claimed it as hers. 

Most of her family fled Bosnia at the beginning of the conflict, but her aunt, uncle and their son and daughter stayed behind. When it was clear Bosnian Serb troops would soon been marching through the streets of Srebrenica, they first thought of attempting to escape to Tuzla through the woods. But her cousin convinced them otherwise and they went to the Dutch-run United Nations military base in Potocari.

“He knew the Dutch soldiers very well and thought they would protect them,” says Alma. When her family was finally able to contact her aunt she told them how her husband and son had been separated from her and her daughter in Potocari and how they hadn’t heard from them ever since. At that point a Bosnian Serb voice came on the line and said “There is already grass on their graves.” 

Alma’s uncle is buried at the Memorial Centre in Potocari but only part of her cousin’s remains have been found. “I came back because [General Ratko] Mladic said there wouldn’t be any of us left here in Srebrenica. No Bosniaks, no Muslims. My aunt also came back to Srebrenica to show them we’re still here, we’re staying here,” she says. 

Before the war, some of her best friends were Bosnian Serbs, but that has changed. Alma won’t say more than ‘hello’ to them: “I know that tomorrow they would do exactly the same [as they did in 1995].” 

Alma has a delicate bone structure, big blue eyes. It contrasts with her rough voice and facial expressions. She hardly smiles during the interview. She asked not to be identified because “you never know what can happen when night falls.” 

Alma is not the only person who is afraid to talk about relations between Bosniaks and Bosnian Serbs in Srebrenica. Most Bosniak people deny tensions exist. “They know us and we are afraid,” said another Bosniak woman about those who still deny the genocide ever took place. 

Mladen Kojic says he is one of the few Bosnian Serbs to have been to the Memorial in Potocari, where more than 4,000 victims are buried. The 25-year old admits his views aren’t shared by the majority of his Bosnian Serb friends. 

His parents worked for the military – his father died in battle. He was 10 when the genocide took place and couldn’t even understand what was going on. “The only thing I knew was what I heard from my parents, neighbours and family. At that time I understood there was a war, that Serbs and Muslims were fighting against each other.”

It was only when he was 18 that Mladen began to hear the other side of the story “We were only seeing our own pain,” he confesses. He still remembers when ethnicity wasn’t an issue. It still isn’t for him, but again, he is a minority in Srebrenica.

“People here don’t like when you think differently from them,” he adds, and that’s why he believes many Bosnian Serbs don’t dare to consider the other side. And then there is the most popular culprit – politicians. According to Mladen they are the ones who make people “think about these differences and cause all the trouble.”

Mladen invites anyone to go to the bar where he works and see Bosniaks drinking with Bosnian Serbs. And he is not alone. Shop owners in Srebrenica will say all customers are welcome regardless of their religion, and taxi drivers will take anyone to their destination.

Ambiguous July

July is a busy month for Srebrenica. There are journalists from all over the world walking with local interpreters, talking with survivors and relatives, asking the same questions over and over again. Everyone wants to know how Bosniaks live side by side with Bosnian Serbs.

Locals live through it with ambiguous feelings. It’s a good time for business, it is the time to make enough money to keep the commerce afloat for the rest of the year. But it is also a period of sadness and mourning. And everyone is aware they are making money from their relatives who didn’t survive the genocide.

Every year on July 11th, human remains of the victims who have been identified are buried in the Memorial Centre in Potocari. It is about 5 kilometres from Srebrenica, right across the road where the UN Dutch battalion was based and where thousands of refugees flocked to 15 years ago when Bosnian Serb troops took over Srebrenica.

There are over 4,000 gravestones in the cemetery and an unconventional open air mosque where people of all religions are invited to pray.

Thousands of people visit it during the year, especially during the official ceremonies that mark the anniversary of the genocide.

Advo Purkovic runs his father’s hotel in Srebrenica. He has 48 beds available and, unlike the rest of the year, he is always fully booked in July. He has to redirect customers to locals who will rent rooms in their houses to accommodate the crowds that travel to Srebrenica to pay their last respects to their loved ones.

Avdo’s family left Srebrenica when the war started. His father stayed on to take care of his three restaurants. He was one of the few Bosniak men to survive the genocide because he worked as a translator for Doctors Without Borders.

Avdo talks openly about what is going on in Srebrenica: “It is all on glass legs and it can collapse anytime,” he says. According to him, people won’t talk because everyone depends on each other - “it is all inter-connected.”

And then there is the problem of how many perpetrators are still at large. Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic is currently on trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), and international efforts have been made to capture General Ratko Mladic, who stands accused of orchestrating the genocide. But what about the policeman who stopped Avdo recently after he committed a traffic offense?

“Later on I found out that that man slaughtered a full house of people. And he is a police officer, he is supposed to protect me. So imagine where I live. Imagine that a Jew in Germany was approached by a police officer who switched on gas chambers in Auschwitz. We are living in a very, very sick system.” 

Thomas Deleu is a Belgian music therapist who has been living in Srebrenica for four years. He organises creative workshops with children and is starting to promote therapy and counselling for adults, too. Although his students come from all sorts of ethnic backgrounds his project doesn’t have as a specific goal to promote dialogue between the two communities.

“Maybe through the workshops they learn how to deal with this, but we are a very small part of their lives.” But he does see the tensions. “It’s quite brave how people live together there after all that has happened. They are actually doing a lot of things together, working together, they have to live next to each other. To me it is like theatre. They are just pretending. Behind the walls, there are tensions - from both sides.”

Published in the International Justice Tribune 110

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