Where Is Bosnia

Bosnians heading toward Srebrenica for anniversary

SREBRENICA, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — They're coming on bicycle from Switzerland, by plane from the U.S. and Australia. From Bosnian towns and villages they're heading through the woods on foot joining thousands of other pilgrims.

The occasion is a somber one that's also marked by solace: the funeral next Monday of 613 newly identified victims of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.

The burial is a yearly event marking the July 11 anniversary of Europe's worst massacre since the Nazi era. This year, the commemorations are particularly special because of the May capture of Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb commander accused of orchestrating the execution of 8,000 Muslim men and boys — and now standing trial on genocide charges in The Hague.

The event attracts more people than Srebrenica, a town of about 4,000 people, has residents. Historians, former townsfolk, Bosnians from all over the world come to take part in round table discussions, performances and a march along the route through the woods survivors took in 1995 to escape death.

The week of reflection and commemoration culminates with the burial of hundreds of bodies found in mass graves and identified through DNA analysis.

The ceremonies have caused more division in this ethnically divided town, where Serbs and Muslims shop at rival butcher shops and hold deeply conflicting views of history.

On Monday, a Serb was arrested for driving up and down town waving an ultranationalist flag and playing patriotic songs as Mladic appeared at his hearing at the International War Crimes Tribunal.

Muslims say they're struggling to keep historical memory alive in a hostile environment where majority Serbs continue to worship Mladic and former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, also on trial at the Hague.

Mladic's "genocidal policy is nowhere near to being defeated here," said Damir Pestalic, the local imam.

Srebrenica was under the protection of the United Nations during the 1992-95 Bosnian war but the outnumbered Dutch troops never shot a bullet when Serb forces commanded by Mladic overran Srebrenica on July 11, 1995.

More than 15 000 men led by the mountains to government-held territory, but many of them never made because they were pursued by Serbian forces and killed.

Each year, thousands escape the back in March, praying at the sites of mass graves along the road. They walk for days and time of arrival for July 11 funeral memorial center in Srebrenica, a suburb of Potocari.

Zuzia Danielski » where is the justice for bosnia's women ...

Before the conference, I had set out with what I believed was a reasonable goal of blogging every evening on the day’s events. What I had never factored in was the amount of time I would need for reflection before I could even begin to put ‘pen to paper’.

The story of one woman particularly engrossed me. It might be because I have been to Bosnia, lingering on Sarajevo’s roses and standing in the middle of two worlds on the Old Mostar Bridge. Seeing the destruction the civil war caused – the lives destroyed.

As someone remarked, Bakira Hasecic – a Bosniak from Visegrad -  ‘has been through hell and back, and then through hell and back again’.

In the Globe and Mail’s article on the conference , they shared Bakira’s story:

It was Veljko Planincic, the local police chief, who was also her next-door neighbour and a fishing buddy of her husband. Also known by the nickname “Goodtimes,” Mr. Planincic was an ethnic Serb and an Orthodox Christian. Ms. Hasecic and her family are Muslims. The attempts of the non-Christian Bosnians to establish independence from Serbia had left the neighbours at war.

Bakira leads a campaign to identify the war criminals living within the local community and pressures for their arrest and extradition to the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. She was one of the first witnesses who testified at the Hague – and one of the first women to tell the story of what happened to her in full.