July 12, 1996
Bosnian Serbs Celebrate Srebrenica's Liberation Day
By MIKE O'CONNOR
REBRENICA, Bosnia-Herzegovina -- Most of the world regards it as the date on which the worst war crime began in a war covered in crimes, but Bosnian Serb leaders have given it a new name: Liberation Day. And on Thursday, many of Srebrenica's new Serbian residents celebrated the anniversary of the capture of the town from Muslims one year ago.
There was no mention here of international investigators' estimates that after the town was taken, as many as 8,000 men and boys were hunted down, captured, and killed by Bosnian Serb soldiers. Most Serbs here appear to be convinced that such talk is nothing but lies.
Still, it was not a completely joyful event to the Serbs now living here, most of whom were themselves displaced from their homes elsewhere in Bosnia during the war.
A quartet of two electric guitars, a drummer, and an accordionist tried to warm up the crowd at a local theater with Serbian folk songs. But even the blood-churning strains of "March On to the Drina River" was not enough to produce much of a reception for the Serbian official who took the stage to tell the crowd how glorious it was to have gained the town's freedom from the Muslims.
The speaker, Momcilo Cvetinovic, did not remind them that four years ago they had homes that were really their own, and jobs and families still whole. Instead, his speech was about the great strides they have taken toward creating their own country.
Despite commitments by Bosnian Serb politicians that the agreement stopping the war would create a semi-autonomous Serbian state within Bosnia, Cvetinovic told the people that they now must assist in making a completely independent state. "We must show the world that we don't want to live with Muslims," he said.
And on a day when international arrest warrants were formally issued for the Bosnian Serb leader, Radovan Karadzic, and the Bosnian Serb military commander, Gen. Ratko Mladic, for the killings in Srebrenica, Cvetinovic said the people must continue to support Karadzic because he was the only person who could give them their own country.
In the audience, only a few people nodded, and only a few others clapped. But the weary crowd did not appear to doubt the message, which they have heard now for years.
It was a message clearly accepted by Zagorka Jokic, whose son was killed in the war. On Thursday, she was at a refugee assistance center picking up a plastic bag holding a pound of sugar, a half pound of pasta, six tiny candies, and a jar of jam.
She said the food aid was all provided by the Bosnian Serb government, and that no one else cared enough about the people here to help them, because that is what she has been told. Even though U.N. refugee aid officials say they give the food to the government in the first place.
She said the small amount on which she and her husband are to live for nearly a month, along with what they can grow themselves, was due to the fact that the Bosnian Serb government has been made poor by actions taken by other nations.
Her leaders have told her they are her only protection from a malevolent world, so she must support them. She, and others here, could not consider that the taking of this town one year ago was a prelude to mass murder.
"We had to liberate Srebrenica because it was a Muslim enclave in a part of Bosnia the Serbs needed for their own protection," said Sreten Pantic, 26 a former soldier in the Bosnian Serb army. "The Muslims wanted to kill us, everyone knows that."
"There was no mass killing," said Pantic. "Serbs could not do that." His family lives in a home provided by local officials to whom he feels he owes allegiance and whose vision of an independent state he has come to share.
Pantic speculated that the thousands of missing men could have died in combat or perhaps killed themselves. Any evidence suggesting that there was mass murder would surely be propaganda, he said, and show even more that the Serbs can trust no one.
About 10 miles northwest of here, in the village of Cerska, on the side of a narrow road, investigators from the war crimes tribunal were working on Thursday at one of about a dozen mass graves found in the area. They were exposing the top layer of bodies of the men of Srebrenica who were killed.
On the other side of the road, they had found dozens of spent cartridges, and, behind the bodies, trees were scarred from bullets. It was clear, said an investigator, that the men had been lined up, shot, and then their bodies covered with dirt.
In Tuzla, where most of the survivors of the attack on Srebrenica fled, several thousand women who lost male relatives went to a rally commemorating the fall of the town.
The event was sponsored by women from other countries, including the American ambassador to Austria and Queen Noor of Jordan. A representative of the organizers said they had raised over $3 million to finance rehabilitation programs for the survivors.
