SURVIVING THE PEACE The Struggle for Postwar Recovery in Bosnia-Herzegovina

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July 11, 2020
Srebrenica anniversary; Coronavirus update

Srebrenica

Today is the twenty-fifth anniversary of the fall of Srebrenica, which set off the genocidal massacres of the Muslim inhabitants of that enclave. The official number of those killed is 8,372. Of those, nearly 7,000 remains have been exhumed from mass graves and identified, with another thousand still missing. As of today, families of 6,652 victims have seen their loved ones reburied at the memorial cemetery at Potočari, with some others interred in other places.

Since 2003 annual commemorative funerals have been conducted at Potočari on July 11 of each year. The largest funeral, which I attended, took place in 2010 with 775 people put to rest at that time.

The number of remains discovered and identified continues to dwindle. In 2019, 33 people were buried, and today, the remains of only nine people are to be interred. The youngest was 23 when he was killed, and the oldest was 70. One of the victims was Kemal Musić, whose remains were found in two different mass graves. Some of the remains buried today comprised just a few bones found in more than one mass grave.

Physical participation in the observance and funeral at Potočari was held to a minimum to prevent spreading the corona virus. Likewise, most commemorations around the world will be "virtual." At Potočari today, authorities took the temperatures of mourners as they entered the cemetery grounds.

The frightening new world of pandemic makes everything strange, doesn't it? To me, the inability to commune and grieve in person for the crime at Srebrenica feels like a great loss. There are a number of on-line panel discussions and presentations organized...but it's not the same.

The commemoration and reburial provides an annual reminder of what the survivors call a "planetary" crime that was committed in 1995. In counter to this memorialization, genocide denial and provocative gestures have been practiced ever since the bodies of the victims were still cooling. These dreadful practices have ebbed and flowed, but in recent years there has been an increase in hate speech and provocation in Srebrenica. In earlier blog entries I have mentioned some of these incidents. One involved the posting of a photograph of Serb schoolchildren dressed up with Chetnik regalia, "celebrating" their extreme Serb history and glorifying the Chetnik legacy.

This is a relatively new trend among the youngest residents of Srebrenica, who on the whole used to get along well together, unencumbered by the memories of their elders. I attribute the change to the fact that since 2016, for the first time, a Serb denier of genocide has been mayor of the city. As is the case in the US, hateful nationalist speech from higher authorities resonates through the population and encourages those who are inclined to compound the hate.

One of the more active proponents of atrocity revisionism and glorification of genocide in the region is Vojin Pavlović, leader of the organization Istočna Alternativa, or Eastern Alternative. This group advocates closer ties between the Republika Srpska and Russia by posting placards showing Vladimir Putin's photograph. In recent days the organization put up posters of convicted war criminal and genocidaire Ratko Mladić in Srebrenica.

(Mladić, wartime commander of Bosnian Serb separatist forces, was convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) of genocide and other charges in 2017, and sentenced to life in prison. His appeal is still underway, but has been delayed because of the coronavirus epidemic and out of concerns for Mladić's health. The final verdict is due to be delivered next year.)

Another provocative action was the posting of two billboards in Srebrenica with pictures of Aleksandar Vučić, expressing thanks to the president of Serbia. This does not set well with the Muslim survivors and returnees who live in Srebrenica, as Vučić continues to deny the record of genocide. The billboards were approved by Srebrenica mayor Mladen Grujičić, who has also regularly denied the genocide and has participated in provocative demonstrations of Serb nationalism.

Readers of my blog will remember that last year, the Swedish Academy disgraced itself by awarding the Austrian writer Peter Handke the Nobel Literature Prize. Now there are preparations for a 2.2-meter high statue of Handke to be erected in a hotel in Banja Luka, and Pavlović has proposed that a bust of Handke be placed in Srebrenica.

It is no wonder that commentators say there is little hope for reconciliation at present. But I should point out that the above-mentioned incidents happen in the public sphere, while privately—especially in years when there is no election—ordinary people, regardless of ethnicity, are much more concerned with the question of survival than with the religion of each other's ancestors.

Still, it is critical to continue to fight the deniers; this is an integral part of any campaign for human rights and against fascism in Bosnia and throughout former Yugoslavia. In recent weeks commentators Hikmet Karčić ("How Denial of Bosnian War Crimes Entered the Mainstream"), Jasmin Mujanović ("Time to Fight Back Against Bosnian Genocide Denial"), and others have written articles denouncing the deniers. And last month the Srebrenica Memorial Center published a 60-page report on genocide denial, authored by Monica Green.

I should point out as well that most likely the longest continuous effort to expose and describe historical revisionism has been organized and maintained by my brother Roger at the Balkan Witness site, especially here in the war crimes deniers section. And for that matter, the last chapter of my book is also devoted to atrocity revisionism in Bosnia.

A couple of weeks ago the Banja Luka-based analyst (and journalist, and professor of philosophy and sociology) Dragan Bursać wrote a short commentary on denialism. He noted that the killing that went on after July 11 was not a "terrible crime" as Serb deniers sometimes characterize it, but that it was the planned and systematic extermination of part of the human species. That is, it was genocide. Thus, Bursać said, "It is necessary to speak about genocide. Because any system without a name can be very easily repeated. Only saying "Never Again" without working on the creation of a law prohibiting genocide denial is the same as putting a drunk before the wheel of a car and wishing him good luck."

This also brings to mind a treatment of genocide as developed by the Croatian sociologist Ivan Markešić in a recent article. Taking a cue from the Polish/British sociologist Zygmunt Bauman, whose works describe the Holocaust,  Markešić asserted that the crime of genocide at Srebrenica was not an "irrational outburst of pre-modern Serbian barbarism, but a legitimate resident of the house of modernity..."

I would like to clarify what I think is entirely reasonable about this statement by way of providing several off-the-cuff definitions:
--"Rational" does not mean smart or appropriate; it means (at least in this case) considered, planned, systematic, and not accidental.
--"Legitimate" does not mean good or right; in this case it means, in the poli-sci sense of the word, approved and supported by a political constituency—Markešić mentions the 1986 Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences as one of the ideological precursors of the genocide.
--"House of modernity" here takes after Bauman's similar statement regarding the Holocaust. That is (in my reading of the statement), it is modern civilization that makes genocide possible.

Genocide is a modern civilizational act. Now, most people think of "civilization" as something that's kinder and more supportive of humane values than the alternative. It can be, but it might not be. "Civilization," in fact, simply refers to the organization of society. A more-organized society is a more advanced form of civilization.

Now, advanced civilizations can commit intentional acts of mass murder and other practices listed in the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948). You might even argue that they are taking place all the time. (I'm sure every reader can think of one or two of those going on today.) And advanced civilizations can produce the works of JS Bach; the Alhambra at Granada; the writings of Toni Morrison; and so much more that is beautiful and uplifting.

So we have a choice, all of us, to determine which way civilization will go. We can influence the outcome, if we choose to do so. Shall civilization be indeed kinder and gentler, or shall it be, simply, just more brutally organized?

Corona virus update   

From the middle of June, Bosnia-Herzegovina has experienced a new spread of the corona virus. The present count has over 6,700 people infected with the virus, and some 315 have succumbed.

This rise follows trends in the US and other parts of the world. People became weary of isolation. The government instituted relaxation of some restrictive measures, while maintaining the requirements for masks and social distancing. The weather became warmer and more inviting. People went outside and stood close to each other, ignoring the mask requirement.

The result was an increase in the infection rate in a number of places, including Sarajevo, Tuzla, and parts of the Republika Srpska. By late June various levels of government reinstated restrictive measures, including monetary penalties for failure to wear a mask while entering a store. One expert noted that the areas of contact for infection were not so much the kafanas and stores, as might be assumed, but family gatherings, also work situations where meetings were held in closed quarters.

The increase in infections has been termed "a worsening of the epidemiological situation" and, in Sarajevo, an "explosion in the number of those newly infected with the corona virus." But to put the figures in perspective, it was estimated on June 23 that in Sarajevo, 51 of every 100,000 people were infected, while the rate in Zagreb was 61 per 100,000; in Ljubljana 89; in Belgrade 189; in Skopje 435. Further afield, the number of infected per 100,000 population in Milan was 1,761, and in Stockholm, 1,710.

Meanwhile, Sarajevo opened its first ever drive-in movie theater.

And in Kragujevac, Serbia, a shopping center security guard denied entry to a man who was not wearing a mask. The video record shows that the would-be customer hauled off and took a swing at the guard, after which the guard, slightly bigger and presumably more experienced in such things than the shopper, subdued him. There was another guard watching, who didn't intervene. No one knelt on the shopper's neck. No one shot him. They just subdued him.

And in Serbia on the night of July 7, right-wing rioters attacked police guarding the national parliament in Belgrade after the Serbian government announced new restrictive measures to curb the resurgent spread of virus. The demonstrators wounded dozens of cops and lit police cars on fire; the police shot tear gas (the first time in a couple decades) and arrested dozens of demonstrators.

Yes, Serbia is run by an increasingly autocratic government, with ever more repressive control of the media and dissidents (police attacked several journalists during the unrest). But the present conflict, which continued and spread to several more cities on July 9, is between the official authorities and fascists to the right of the government.

It is a problem, on many levels, that Serbia has not undergone de-Nazification in the decades since the end of the wars of Yugoslav dissolution. Prominent leaders of several extreme right-wing organizations were involved in the ructions. Among other things, they chanted slogans calling President Vučić a "traitor" to Kosovo, because he has been trying to arrange a land swap and peace deal with the president of Kosovo. Demonstrators also called for police to return to Kosovo. Presumably, they would prefer to relive the 1990s and simply invade Kosovo which, in their opinion, still belongs to Serbia.

Corona scandals update

In previous blog entries I described the disgraceful rip-off of quite some millions by a group of cronies centered around the leading Bosnia SDA party, Federation Prime Minister Fadil Novalić, and Novalić's neighbor Fikret Hodžić, the TV personality and raspberry magnate-cum-third rate ventilator importer. In the last episode, Novalić and Hodžić were arrested. They were not held in jail, but allowed to "defend themselves at liberty." That is all. There are no further developments in this case.

And in the case of the "Corona party," we recall that state-level Ministry of Foreign Affairs Staša Košarac rubbed elbows with doctors and folk-stars, flouting anti-corona measures. Košarac escaped sanction by his peers in a vote in Parliament. Thirteen members voted for his removal; 15 against, and 11 abstained.

Meanwhile, just as Draško Stanivuković warned ("Don't laugh at the Federation, we have our own scandals in the RS"), the RS-based tourist agency "Travel4fan" (the "fan" pronounced "fun") got involved in a scheme where it bought personal protective equipment for inflated prices, with the illegal profit siphoned off into the personal bank account of the tour company's owner, Saša Marković.

What was a tourism agency doing importing PPEs? Do you have to ask? The same thing as a raspberry combine. That is, if the owner of the company is friends with and in the same political party as the director of the Public Health Institute (in this case, the RS version), then he can buy anything, from anywhere, and take his cut.

In this case, the Public Health Institute paid Travel4fan 2.6 million KM (over $1.5 million) to buy masks, safety wear, and non-contact thermometers. Between late April and mid-June, Marković transferred 376,000 KM of this money to his own bank account. And even as SIPA (the State Investigation and Protection Agency) was investigating this case in response to alerts from a couple of anti-corruption NGOs, Marković withdrew 260,000 KM from his own account and stashed it in a secret location.

In another corruption case in Banja Luka, the RS Health Insurance Fund bought 50 ventilators from the local company Medietik for 157,312 KM each. Medietik had purchased the ventilators for 59,000 each, thus pocketing a profit of around 5 million KM. Opposition politician Branislav Borenović, head of the PDP party (of Draško Stanivuković), noted that the market price for these ventilators is actually between 18,000 and 27,000 KM. Borenović has stated that RS Prime Minister¸ Radovan Višković is responsible for sanctioning this transaction, and that he should go the way of Federation PM Novalić.

Corruption knows many faces. Here's an example from the border between Serbia and (Northern) Macedonia. To enter Macedonia, one must have proof of a negative corona virus test from the last 72 hours, or else you go into 14 days of quarantine. Well, no problem. For 50 euros, you can buy a forged test at the airport in Niš, southern Serbia.  For a little more, you can buy one at a convenient gas station in the southern part of Serbia.

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