A Voice For the Voiceless

MISSION

The Advocacy Project seeks to help community-based advocates produce, disseminate and use information, and so become more effective advocates for human rights and social justice

The Making of a Tragedy

Bosnia’s murderous war began in the spring of 1992, when Bosnian Serb forces combined with the Yugoslav National Army to launch an arc of attacks across the Northwest and Northeast of Bosnia. Their goal was to expel non-Serbs -- mainly Muslims and Croats -- as the first step towards establishing an ethnically pure Bosnian Serb state.

The result was a catastrophe for Bosnia’s other ethnic groups. Thousands of people in the northwest were rounded up and detained in a series of detention centers that became synonymous with death and torture: Manjaca, Keraterm, Omarska, Trnopolje. In the Northeast, the Serbs seized the strategically important town of Brcko. In Eastern Bosnia, Muslim communities were attacked and expelled all along the Drina river, which acts as a boundary between Bosnia and Serbia. Thousands were detained or killed in the process.

Photo credit: BBC
Hard-pressed: Desperate Srebrenicans wait for aid in the besieged pocket, 1993.

Most of northern and eastern Bosnia fell to nationalist Serb forces quickly. But Srebrenica was remote and protected by surrounding hills, and a military resistance was organized there. During the first few months of the war, the front lines in this area were fluid. As Muslims were quickly expelled from the eastern region between Zvornik and Visegrad, some fled to Tuzla, while others made it to Srebrenica and nearby Zepa. Meanwhile, Serb forces took control of territory surrounding these two towns, and they became enclaves.

As 1992 wore on, the Serb forces solidified their control over two-thirds of Bosnia. The front line dividing Serb-held territory from the rest of Bosnia then remained more or less static until the summer of 1995. But in the Srebrenica enclave, commander of the Muslim army Naser Oric led a struggle to expand territory under his control. In the fall and winter of 1992, Oric was able to conduct an effective campaign. He almost succeeded in breaking through to the Muslim/Croat-controlled area around Tuzla, to the northwest of Srebrenica. By January 1993, 350 square kilometers of territory was under Oric’s control. The enclave reached from the Drina to within five miles of the Tuzla front line.

 

Conditions were worse in Srebrenica itself than in the surrounding villages of the enclave, where people could at least find some wild food and occasionally cultivate a garden. Translator Emir Suljagic described the town as being so crowded with refugees that thousands were sleeping in the streets.

Srebrenica was becoming a “concentration camp without barbed wire,” as Suljagic called it. He recounted how refugees would arrive with their livestock, which would soon be slaughtered, and the meat traded off for other food. “We ate once, occasionally twice a day. The summer days got longer, and we waited for sunset to take another bite of food. Thin soup and beans were the most common fare; meat was the privilege of the rich, or better put, the group of war profiteers that quickly formed in the enclave. Each day we were thinner than the day before. One man traded his wedding ring for several kilos of peppers. He wasn’t the only person who traded the last thing he owned for a few crumbs of food.” (“Dani” July 7, 2000)

In this period, Naser Oric’s army caused great problems for the Serb forces that surrounded Srebrenica. Hundreds of Serb soldiers and civilians were killed as Oric fought to unite the enclave with Tuzla. The Serb forces that controlled most of eastern Bosnia were determined to prevent this from taking place. In February 1993, commander of the Bosnian Serb army General Ratko Mladic launched an offensive against Srebrenica. Over the next few weeks, Serb forces chipped away at Muslim-controlled territory. In the face of this offensive thousands of new refugees fled to Srebrenica.

Within a couple of weeks the Serbs recovered most of the territory that Oric had taken over, and the enclave was reduced to an area of less than 140 square kilometers. The offensive threatened over 50,000 people who were trapped in the Srebrenica enclave. At this point the Muslim government in Sarajevo announced a boycott of aid from the West as long as the desperate plight of Srebrenica was ignored. After a week of pressure, the United States agreed to parachute food into Srebrenica.

The food aid did not slow the Serb offensive, and conditions became unbearable as the population of the enclave swelled. Simon Mardel, a doctor with the World Health Organization, hiked into Srebrenica to report on conditions there. He noted “considerable weight loss. Many pneumonia cases. Mortality rate 20 to 30 per day due to sickness. But hunger is contributing to this.”


There was so little space during the siege that the dead had to be buried on surrounding hills. The graves have not been disturbed.

In response to Mardel’s dire report, General Philippe Morillon, commander of UNPROFOR (UN Protection Force), traveled in a convoy to Srebrenica on March 10, 1993, at the height of the Serb offensive. His intention was to evaluate the situation and leave the next morning. But a crowd of women and children blocked his car, calling for him to stay and protect the town. Morillon decided to make the best of it. He climbed up on the roof of the post office where he had been sleeping and hung up a UN flag. He made a declaration to the people of Srebrenica that he would not abandon them, that Srebrenica was from then on protected by UN forces. Soon after, Morillon met with then-President of Serbia Slobodan Milosevic and pressured him to influence the Bosnian Serb forces to call off the offensive.

A cease-fire was put in place, but it quickly deteriorated as Serb forces moved closer to Srebrenica. The international community renewed pressure on Serb leaders, making it clear to them that they were risking military retaliation. In mid-April the Serbs agreed to halt the offensive in return for the demilitarization of the enclave. At this time the UN Security Council declared Srebrenica a “safe area.” Muslim troops within the enclave were required to surrender their weapons, and in return a contingent of UNPROFOR would establish bases in the enclave, intended to “deter” attacks from the surrounding Serbs.

Photo credit: Newsworld Famous site: The battery factory served as the base for UN peacekeepers during the war.

Canadian troops established a base in Srebrenica and several observation posts around the enclave. They were soon replaced by a Dutch battalion (Dutchbat), few other countries being willing to volunteer for the task. And the idea of the “safe area” was never adequately defined. Real demilitarization did not take place. Suljagic recounted, “No one wanted to give up his gun. Mainly old and useless weapons were handed over, for which there was no ammunition, and guns hand-made from plumbing pipe and some form of trigger mechanism. Several thousand rifles remained in the hands of the Srebrenica units.” The Bosnian Muslim military structure continued to function, outside of the town boundaries of Srebrenica, but within the enclave.

The people of the “safe area” continued a marginal existence. Food aid arrived rarely, and hunger persisted as before. For the time being, Serb attacks on the enclave ceased. But Bosnian forces under Oric knew that they would not be able to defend themselves against a concerted attack by General Mladic, should he decide to take over Srebrenica.

Hasan Nuhanovic, another translator for UN forces in Srebrenica, said, “At every meeting where I was translator, the question was posed, ‘How do you think you will defend this place in case of attack?’ The answer was, NATO airplanes are covering the skies of Bosnia, and they can arrive at the ‘protected zone’ within two to three minutes after our call, and eliminate any attacking formation... Although they admitted that they were not capable of defending Srebrenica with the forces they had on the ground, they tried to convince us that their air support was completely sufficient.” (“Ljiljan,” July 17, 2000)