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Resources > Global Issues > Bosnia – War an... > Srebrenica – Ba... > Serbs in Limbo

Serbs in Limbo

The expulsion and massacre of Srebrenica’s Muslim population in 1995 left the municipality depopulated. The authorities in the Serb entity tried to take advantage of this to resettle Srebrenica with Serbs who had been displaced from other parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The clear expectation was that the relocation of Serbs to municipalities that had been in a Muslim majority would cement the new demographic map and realize the dream of an ethnically “pure” Serb republic. At the time, it seemed likely to prevent any subsequent return by Muslims.

Some of the arrivals to Srebrenica were Serbs who had lived in the region before the war, but most were from Sarajevo, Tuzla, Donji Vakuf, Glamoc, and other locations in territory that was now controlled by the Muslims or Croats.

Very few were glad to end up in Srebrenica. Compounding the brutal reality of displacement was the fact that Srebrenica, to most people, was the ‘end of the world.’ If one had to be displaced, it was preferable to end up in Banja Luka, Zvornik, or at least Bratunac. Srebrenica was an out-of-the-way hamlet, and a devastated one at that.


Photo credit: Adzer van der Molen & Erna Rijsdijk
End of the Road: Srebrenica holds out few attractions for its population of displaced Serbs.

Most of Srebrenica’s current population arrived between late 1995 and the spring of 1996. One of the results of the Dayton Agreement was to unify Sarajevo. This meant that outlying suburbs like Ilijas, Hadzici and Vogosca, which had been controlled by the Serbs throughout the war, became part of the Federation. This resulted in another traumatic mass transfer of population, and as many as 60,000 Serbs left the suburbs for the Republika Srpska in the spring of 1996.

Why and how they left remains a matter of bitter controversy. Some clearly went voluntarily because they were afraid of living among a vengeful Muslim majority. But many were intimidated by the Serb leadership into leaving. Their leaders calculated that they would be of little use in a Muslim-dominated Sarajevo. But they could help to repopulate regions like Srebrenica, which had been ethnically cleansed of their original inhabitants. They too were pawns of ethnic cleansing.

It was particularly exhausting and demoralizing for the women and children. One of those displaced, who we will call Rada, told her story to the Advocacy Project in 1999. She said that she had had little choice:

“Because of politics, one gets the impression that Serbs are really bad people. Not all Serbs are bad, but I had problems with some people. In my neighborhood, there were local gangs that were in charge. That happened everywhere. There were no police. These were just people who were 'someone.' It was a racket to earn protection money. There were no controls at the beginning of the war. Whoever wanted to had a gun, and therefore had authority. Like many other people, we had to pay money to keep out of trouble. This was very common.

“Then they told my father that he had to be mobilized. He had to go. When they mobilized my father, he and my mother sent me away. I started to leave the country, but I turned back. I realized that I did not have anyone except my family. I said to them, ‘Whatever happens to you, happens to me too.' We have very strong family connections.

“We had some friends and moral support within the community. Still, I was afraid that my father would be killed. Then the authorities said that I had to go into the army. This was to show my loyalty. I was not required to carry a gun.

“I had to go. But on the first day, on my way to work, I was wounded by shrapnel. This was luck, because I could have been killed. So I was 'wounded as a Serb soldier!' I was taken to the hospital. It was when I was in recovery that I decided to learn English. I didn't go back into the army, thank God.

“There were no casualties in my immediate family, fortunately. But six members of my father's family had their throats cut, because of their surname. One of my first cousins was killed. He was a blind man. Bad things happened on all sides.

Return of displaced Serbs from Srebrenica to their pre-war homes After the war, Srebrenica was populated Serbs who came from various parts of the Bosnian Federation. For them, returning to their pre-war homes has been easier than for Muslims returning to Srebrenica, but there is still a great deal of obstruction. In places such as Glamoc and Sarajevo, Serb return has been relatively high. In Donji Vakuf, until recently the location of serious political obstruction, Serb return has been low. The UNHCR provides a monthly update on registered returns of each ethnicity to each canton, major town, or municipality. This table does not reveal the location from which each returnee is coming. But as of the spring of 2002, around 50 Serb families had returned to Glamoc. The Advocacy Project was told that this represented about 80 percent of the families from Glamoc that had been living in Srebrenica. A similar number of Serbs were waiting to return to Donji Vakuf. Other Serbs in Srebrenica are working to go back to their pre-war homes in various municipalities of Sarajevo, as well as areas around Tuzla and throughout central Bosnia.

“Then there was the NATO bombing. The war ended in late 1995. After Dayton was signed, my family left our neighborhood. We had no choice. The authorities told us to stay, but we could see the trucks loading up and leaving. They were removing whole factories. I asked, why are they leaving? And what happens then? People were removing their dead from the cemeteries.

“Officially we were told to stay, but unofficially, we knew that we were expected to leave. And there were bandits who were coming into the neighborhood, both Serbs and Croats, who were stealing things and beating people up. I don't know what happened later, when the Muslims came.

 “Now we think this was our mistake. We should have stayed. We should have blocked the road. At this time there was a huge exodus of Serbs from all of the outer neighborhoods of Sarajevo, which were being reunited with the core of the city.

'I watched the exodus from my office window. There was an endless line of cars. The weather was bad; it was very cold with deep snow. There were cars, trucks, tractors, horse and wagons, and people on foot. Some were carrying dead bodies. I was sick and couldn't do anything to help. Some people had tried to go through Sarajevo, but they were stoned.

“I watched these people and knew that my family could be among them. In each vehicle there were at least four people. That's four lives, four life stories. Tens of thousands of people left. There were many car accidents.

“One evening my parents arrived with my uncle, who was paralyzed. No one wanted to take care of him. They went to [a town near Srebrenica]. Thousands of people arrived there, and there was not much room. There are still some people living in collective centers. My parents slept in a truck and then in a garage. For that they paid 150 DM a month ($80). My parents, two aunts and uncles, four children, and another whole family stayed there. It was better than nothing. I was lucky, because I could pay for their lodgings.

“After three months, we got one floor of a family house. But it's still crowded, after the big house we had in my old neighborhood.

“I was hoping to move back to my old neighborhood in Sarajevo. But when I went back there [in 1998], I found out that our family house had been destroyed. I don't know who did it. But they knew me; there was graffiti with my name in it, on the wall. I was shocked at the situation there; I didn't imagine it would be so bad. I had been dreaming about going back this spring.

“This has been going on for ten years. Now I have no more strength. Do I have hopes? I don't know. I hope somehow to be able to live normally again, to be in an honest place. I would like to go away from the Balkans, away from Europe as far as possible, where no one will ever ask me again what my last name is.”

Obstacles to Serb return

The most successful return of Serbs from Srebrenica has been to Glamoc, in the northwestern part of Bosnia. This municipality was predominantly Serb-populated before the war, and return there began early.

It has been much harder to return to the central Bosnian town of Donji Vakuf. About 500 displaced Serb families in Srebrenica are from Donji Vakuf. Aleksa Milanovic, president of the Serb Citizens Council in Srebrenica, complains that the government of Donji Vakuf is seriously obstructing Serb return:

“When displaced people have visited Donji Vakuf, not one government office has been open. We need to obtain documentation from the property office for example, but when we have visited Donji Vakuf not one government office has been open -- even when we arrive there at 11:00 in the morning and spend most of the day. We even went in the winter, and got back here around 2:00 or 3:00 a.m. Between 500 and 600 people have made pre-return visits to Donji Vakuf. To now, only five or six families have returned.”

Many of the families from Donji Vakuf are living in portable bungalows in Potocari just outside Srebrenica. The Republika Srpska Ministry for Refugees has even said they can take the bungalows back with them to their pre-war homes.

In June 2002, Paddy Ashdown replaced Wolfgang Petritsch as the international community’s new High Representative in Bosnia. One of Ashdown’s first acts was to remove the mayor of Donji Vakuf, Kemal Terzic, on the grounds that Terzic had consistently obstructed the return of refugees like Jovan Belenzada to their homes in the Donji Vakuf municipality.

Citing reports from the Return and Reconstruction Task Force, the High Representative said that Terzic had obstructed the work of Serb displaced persons associations, and had been responsible for “many cases of harassment” of would-be returnees. Under Terzic, municipal government authorities took over many Serb-owned apartments, preventing Serb return in this way. Mayor Terzic himself purchased and took control of an apartment for which a property returns claim had already been filed. 


Living with Ruins: Serbs like Rada yearn for their former homes in Sarajevo.

Mr. Ashdown accused Terzic of having obstructed Serb return since the end of the war, and characterized these policies as “very irresponsible behavior for someone in a position of responsibility.” He warned that all officials who may be preventing the process of return should take a lesson from this removal, and expressed special interest in opening return of Muslims to the towns of Srebrenica and Bratunac. Terzic’s removal might well start a trend. It could also open the way to Jovan’s return home.

As displaced Muslims return to Srebrenica, those Serbs who have been living in their houses will have to leave. Some may be lucky enough to receive temporary “alternative accommodation” in the Srebrenica region, but they know this is no substitute for a long-term solution.

The best solution, by far, would be for them too to return home to the villages they left during the war. Unfortunately, this too has been largely impossible because of obstructionism from local Muslim and Croat politicians. It is another example of Bosnia’s tangled ethnic complexities – and a major reason why the wholesale return of refugees to minority areas has proved so stubbornly difficult.

Jovan Belenzada is one of Srebrenica’s displaced Serbs who longs to go home. Born in 1943, Jovan came to Srebrenica from Donji Vakuf towards the end of the war, when that town came under the control of the Federation. He had lived in a Serb village near the city, and he made a living tending his fruit orchards.

Since 1995, Jovan and his wife and sons have lived in Srebrenica, in the modest house of a displaced Muslim. That woman has been living in Tuzla. She filed a claim for the return of her property, and it was approved. Now Jovan faces eviction. His monthly income is a meager pension of 130 km (around $60). But because two of his three sons work, his family is not eligible for alternative accommodation. When evicted, they will have to find a home to rent. “The rent could be as much as 200 km a month,” says Jovan. “So I would have to go and dig in the fields to survive.”

Jovan hopes to avoid this outcome by returning home to Donji Vakuf. He says that he would leave tomorrow if he could reclaim possession of his house. The problem is that it is now inhabited by a Muslim from another village, and that person’s house was destroyed in the war.

Jovan filed a claim for the return of his property three years ago, and he received a favorable resolution. The legal procedure that should bring him home is clear: the resident of his home must be evicted and, if necessary, provided with alternative accommodation.

This procedure is taking place all around Bosnia, and it is only complicated if local authorities make it so. Jovan is convinced that figures in the government of Donji Vakuf have obstructed his return and that of many other displaced Serbs. His assertions are corroborated by activists for return who are working in the NGOs of Srebrenica.

Jovan notes that there are around 5,000 displaced Serbs from Donji Vakuf scattered around the Serb entity, in Banja Luka, Bratunac, Prijedor, and Srebrenica. As of the summer of 2002, only 120 had returned to Donji Vakuf, according to UNHCR statistics. Jovan’s interpretation of this situation is that the Donji Vakuf authorities are refusing to carry out evictions.

Foot-dragging on evictions is one of the most common forms of obstruction, and the international authorities in Bosnia have cracked down on this tactic in varying measure. Jovan asserts that the local authorities have compounded his problem by reporting to the IPTF (UN police advisory task force) that he sold his house, which he did not.

Photo credit: Peter Lippman

Jovan Belenzada: “There are thousands of cases like mine."

Jovan has received all the documentation necessary for his return, but he fears that because of such obstructionist tactics, his return process could last many years. He has gone to Donji Vakuf on organized visits more than a dozen times -- not an easy voyage from Srebrenica -- and he finds that whenever he and other would-be returnees arrive from Srebrenica, the authorities are always out of office.

Jovan notes that in Srebrenica, the officials are being compelled to carry out evictions, but that in Donji Vakuf, the authorities are “working for the least possible return of Serbs.” He says, “I am requesting that you tell the world that we have been asking Petritsch [former High Representative to Bosnia] for our return for three years. There are thousands of cases like mine. Petritsch certainly does not know what’s happening in Donji Vakuf.”

Jovan accuses the High Representative of helping the Muslims but not the Serbs. It is difficult to say whether this is accurate or simply embitterment, but it clearly reflects the frustration of Srebrenica’s Serbs.

 

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