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

Exiles in Their Own Country

Over 30,000 Bosniacs (Muslims) were expelled or fled in the aftermath of the fall of Srebrenica in July 1995. Thousands were settled in collective centers and abandoned homes in the Croat- and Muslim-controlled Federation, mostly in Tuzla and Sarajevo cantons. They were still there when the Dayton Agreement was signed five months later, putting an end to the war. Many of them remain there to this day.

It is a precarious existence for most of these internal exiles, most of whom come from villages and small towns. Whatever their origins, they are now underclass citizens in their own country -- unemployed, scorned by the city dwellers, threatened with eviction, pitied from afar by the whole world, and often manipulated by Bosnian politicians.

Photo credit: Adzer van der Molen & Erna Rijsdijk
Dead-end: Hundreds of Srebrenicans moved into the Mihatovic resettlement center in Tuzla after July 1995. But their permits are running out and the former residents are returning to claim their homes.

One such refugee, Zehra Ferhatbegovic, says the survivors of Srebrenica are treated like “second class citizens” by their own government. Zehra is a volunteer with the Tuzla-based NGO Bosfam. She was expelled from a town near Srebrenica early in the war, and now lives in Mihatovic, a settlement near Tuzla. As is so common with those who lived through the Bosnian war, she remembers the exact date of her ordeal. It was May 10, 1992.

“The Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA) and the paramilitary formations came into the town with no resistance on the 17th of April. On the 10th of May, they took us all from our houses to the Bratunac stadium, and then took us to Tuzla in cargo trucks. At that time, there was no front line between Bratunac and Tuzla. This was all organized by the crisis headquarters of the SDS (Karadzic’s party).”

Photo credit: Peter Lippman
Zehra Ferhatbegovic: Second class citizen in her own country.

Of her background, Zehra says, “I am a Muslim. I finished college, worked, and was not involved in politics. Neither was my father or any of my other relatives. My father was one of the most reputable people in Bratunac. He died here in Tuzla during the war, of sadness. Now my mother is sick. The tragedy can make one go crazy.”

In 1999, Zehra spoke of the difficulties of living as a refugee: “There are 1,4000 displaced Srebrenicans in Mihatovic. Some of them are in collective centers or houses, a few in apartments. Some of them pay rent. Many are in houses that Serbs left empty at the beginning of the war. They (displaced persons) had temporary permission to occupy these houses. These permits are now expiring, evictions are being implemented, and Serbs are moving back. Employment is very scarce.

“People are ending up on the streets. Some of the displaced families are getting a small pension, around 250 DM a month ($150 in 1999), if the father is from Srebrenica and he is missing [this is a special arrangement applying only to those from Srebrenica]. But most people are receiving nothing.

“At the same time, many refugees have returned from abroad, especially from Germany, under pressure. These people have some money. They aren’t able to return to their homes in the Republika Srpska, so they end up in Tuzla. They are able to pay higher rent here than those who never left. So the city is getting very crowded, and rents are going up for everyone. Only a very small percentage of all these people can make their way under these circumstances. Therefore, most would like to return home.

“The people of Tuzla have grown tired of us. Many of us have already been here almost eight years. We are second-class citizens here. Our last name is ‘refugee.’ The Bosnian Army was not able to help me return home, nor was UNPROFOR, nor SFOR. Now the international community is trying to help. Every morning when I wake up, I ask myself, ‘What am I doing here?’ If I can’t return home, to where I was humiliated, where my life was destroyed, and lost everything, then I will have a feeling that I must have revenge. And what good is that? But that energy has potential. I will struggle to return, with all my energy, to the end of my life. I cannot start from zero here in Tuzla, but there, I can.”

The energy and hope that Zehra carries have made her a staunch activist for return. She was one of the first people displaced from her town to return for a visit. She speaks of the possibilities and obstructions to return: “There is now an easing of relationships between us displaced persons and our Serb former neighbors. I was the first one to go back to visit, in 1996. I went with a woman from the OSCE. I met people whom I hadn’t seen in almost five years. We were so glad to see each other; it was as if I had been in America for those five years.

“There were many crimes committed during the war. A lot of the resistance is from those who committed those crimes. I don’t need anything to go home, just the minimal conditions. I have my hands, my brain. But everything is being prolonged, and this dulls our desire to return. 

Photo credit: Adzer van der Molen & Erna Rijsdijk

Passing time: A Srebrenica survivor at the Mihatovic center near Tuzla.

“The will and the desire exist, that’s indisputable. But help is needed to harness our energy, our dissatisfaction. There are women here who have lost several men in their family. I ask them, as a devil’s advocate, ‘How can you think of going home?’ They say, ‘I want to die in my own village.’ We are very connected to our homes.”