Letter to Izetbegović, Komšić, Radončić: Help Srebrenica, because even dogs flee from it!

Mediha Smajić, director of JP JS RTV Srebrenica, sent an open letter to party leaders Bakir Izetbegović, Željko Komšić, Fahrudin Radončić, Nermin Nikšić, and Amer Jerlagić with the aim, as she says, to inform them and the public of Bosnia and Herzegovina about the situation in Srebrenica, writes the Patria News Agency. We are publishing the letter in its entirety without corrections.

Dear party presidents and vice-presidents,

I am addressing you with this open letter because I am sure that you also want the Srebrenica that I want.

Four years is a long time, a long time for the life of my son, my family, the children of returnees, and us returnees, so I am contributing in an attempt to do something for a better tomorrow.

A high-ranking party official from Srebrenica told me that I was interfering in politics and that I was therefore a problem. On this occasion, I would like to tell the gentleman and his like-minded people that as long as politics is decided over me and my child, I will interfere, because in Srebrenica, you cannot even breathe the air without politics.

I am writing to you because it is the time when parties in Srebrenica are choosing people who will represent this suffering nation, and unfortunately, this nation in this city has no say in anything.

I ask you, what kind of democracy is it when it is known in advance who will be in these bodies, and all according to the measure of a high-ranking party official from Srebrenica, democratically. Once, politics in this country was an honorable and honest profession; now people are horrified when it is mentioned, because it mostly associates them with everything that is bad in society. I want and want to believe that different winds are blowing, which is why you should know that Srebrenica should be run by people who have returned and live with their families, not by the current team who mostly visit Srebrenica only before elections and for whom Srebrenica serves to gain political points.

This particularly applies to SDA Srebrenica because this party is the strongest in our city. The current leadership of this party in Srebrenica held the highest party positions, and their family members did not spend even two days in this place. What offends the intelligence of every person is that most of them do not even have an ID card from Srebrenica.

Srebrenica is still a place where, like nowhere else in the world, the suffering and pain of others, which has changed the lives of many Podrinje residents, is exploited. In Srebrenica, people still beg for personal gain. Imagine if someone living in Srebrenica decided on the lives of people in Vogošća, Tuzla, and other cities in the Federation; would they care if those people had water, electricity, what their healthcare was like, whether their roads were repaired, what their children were learning, whether the directors of public institutions lived in those cities or earned money there and spent it in other cities or even countries, or would they be interested in the amount of councilor's fees, various allowances, and similar benefits?

To my regret and the regret of the returnees in Srebrenica, those who live in Vogošća, Tuzla, Sarajevo... still decide. And they should decide, but only after they return with their families to live here, as we have returned. The current human rights activists from the Federation who mostly visit Srebrenica before elections are suitable for those who work in Srebrenica and can hardly wait for Friday to flee towards Kalesija, who, for the sake of leaders from the Federation, compete to raise their finger higher and nod their heads more vigorously.

They do not suit people for whom Srebrenica is a permanent home, who have families, educated people, who think for themselves and have critical awareness, who will not be their blind followers but will fight for the interests of the people with whom they live. We and our children share this Srebrenica reality and are mostly used for elections. I do not want to be part of that team; I want to have a say because it concerns me.

I implore you, for the sake of our future and the future of this city, to stop ignoring the people who live in Srebrenica, those who are brave and determined to initiate changes in this city. Otherwise, if this policy continues, Srebrenica will become a dark province.

We elected a mayor who would advocate for the interests of returnees; however, his talk about return and the priority of returnees only lasted until he got the position. The beautified reality in Srebrenica suits him the most, and the people in Srebrenica know best what the real situation is. His entire cabinet is involved in carrying out elections for the old SDA team in Srebrenica, so I wonder whose candidate he was in the mayoral elections, ours or a few people from the SDA?

Unfortunately, this is a time when profiteers make decisions, and it is frivolous to comment on the moral credibility of most councilors in the local parliament, with a few exceptions, because what is behind them is the best proof of why the return to Srebrenica has failed and how money is made from Srebrenica.

While political points were being gained, most had genocide on their lips; today, to my regret, because I gave my vote to some, and on the twentieth anniversary of the genocide, Miloš Milovanović, a man suspected of genocide and on the list of the Republika Srpska Government, the former secretary of the War Presidency of the Army of Republika Srpska, and a person who, according to many Srebrenica residents, was the first to stand on the barricades in Srebrenica in '92, sits in power.

Milovanović and others were not elected by the fingers of Mediha Smajić, but by the fingers of the following councilors: Hamdija Fejzić, Azir Osmanović, Suljo Čakanović, Almir Dudić, Senahid Hasanović, Salko Nukić, Begija Smajić, Vesna Mustafić, Zulfo Salihović, Abdurahman Malkić, and Daut Tihić from your Bosniak parties. My friends are not Sreten Petrović and Momčilo Cvijetinović, also councilors of the Srebrenica Assembly and members of the War Presidency appointed by Radovan Karadžić. My friends are Serbs who have nothing to do with the genocide and with whom I want to build my Srebrenica.

Therefore, I implore you to help Srebrenica and the people who live here by restoring our dignity and allowing us to decide our own lives, not to have my child's life decided by people because of whom Srebrenica can never move forward. I also implore you to stop the further colonization of Srebrenica by people who occasionally visit from the Federation, manage through social networks, and issue orders.

If this is not important to you, then I suggest to my compatriots that we leave Srebrenica and go to Tuzla and Sarajevo because it seems that then you will all respect and value us more than you do now.

And to those who do not know how to love Srebrenica, I recommend, if they do not know them, to meet Damir efendija Peštalić and Hatidža Mehmedović, because for them, Srebrenica is a way of life, not a way of getting rich.

My dear Bosniaks, I am addressing you among others in this letter. Enough of exploiting Srebrenica and its people for personal gain, enough of getting rich through the suffering of returnees. Decisions about Srebrenica and the conditions in it should be made by people who live in this city with their families, not by those who amass money in this suffering city and spend it in Tuzla or Sarajevo.

Enough of those who eagerly await Friday and rush towards Kalesija, enough of those who want to decide about Srebrenica and sit in party bodies, yet do not even have an ID card from Srebrenica. Enough of the facade and appointing those who will nod their heads on behalf of the returnees, because such people will even vote for the death penalty for their needs. Enough lies, that there are no young, educated, and determined people in Srebrenica, and above all, honest ones.

Enough of getting rich through one's own companies, fictitious invoices, even more fictitious jobs, nepotism, building houses for deserters, and all the thievery that exists in Srebrenica. Enough of the false fight for Bosniaks while those suspected of genocide sit in power. Enough is enough, because our loved ones gave their lives, our children have patron saints, our children learn about Saint Sava, our children have nowhere to get medical treatment, our children live in an environment from which even dogs flee...

If BiH wants such a Srebrenica, then hope for a better tomorrow is just a dead idea, and a better and new Srebrenica is just an illusion from which even the greatest optimists give up.