Srebrenica Remembers: If We Fall Again, It Will Be Heard Far...

Less than two months until the local elections. July has passed, gatherings are ending, relatives have said all they have to say about how things are there and how they are here.

Football tournaments have been played, all houses visited, the raspberry season is over, everyone has cleaned in front of their own door. Those who are here are now thinking about getting children ready for school, September will come quickly.

The "big players" have left us in peace, the time when we were a topic, July 11th, has passed.

And our struggle continues, quietly, unable to reach the media, because we don't want to complain much, nor do we want to ask for help from others. Who to call, when everyone already knows. And then I remember the last statement of Nino Ćatić, on July 10, 1995, for Radio-Television of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which it seems no one has heard to this day: "Can anyone in the world come and see the tragedy that is happening to Srebrenica and its residents?" 

From the First Councillors to New Generations 

Much has passed. From the first returnees, tent settlements, from fear and panic to courage and the desire to survive. Much has also passed from the first representatives of Bosniaks in the Srebrenica Municipal Assembly after the war, through mayors Nesib Mandžić, Šefket Hafizović, Abdurahman Malkić, the late Osman Suljić.

From the exodus from Ljeskovik, the verdict of the International Court of Justice, from the first to this last funeral on July 11, 2016. Everything has replayed in my memories, and various battles and struggles are replaying within me.

We have lost many, gained many, but we have often found ourselves halfway with our political opponents, because we have always extended a hand of reconciliation and sought solutions. Because, it has to be that way. It cannot be otherwise. No matter what anyone thinks. 

This is the case at every level of government, where we who are for this country to survive are forced to yield to those who only seek excuses and only want to show us that this can no longer go on like this.

Because of all this, the elections in Srebrenica are important. Important, because in 2012 it was important that some healthy forces won in Srebrenica. It is important because it was a message of encouragement. Then we realized that we would gain nothing from empty talk, but that through hard work and sacrifice we would achieve everything we set out to do. The only question that remains is how aware each of us is of our role on that path?

I remember when I addressed our expelled Srebrenica residents in Podlugovi in 2012, who were still dreaming of returning to their homes there and who still had ID cards of displaced persons, waiting for their homes to be rebuilt.

I promised them a new movement of people, new hope, and a new rise. People needed new pride and strength. This year too, we worked with many diligent people across the country and the world to find our Srebrenica residents, to register them, and I hope we have at least secured enough people for the next "race" to be fair, so that we haven't lost at the start, but will fight to the end.

The lists will include hardworking and honest people, among them practically children, some born in 1994 and 1995, some after the war and the fall of Srebrenica. Among them are many who have returned, who live the reality of Srebrenica every day.

With me on this difficult path are all those for whom the electricity goes out when it goes out for me in Vidikovac. With me are all those who know what the silence of my city means, there in the autumn when the bazaar empties. All of us who have shared the pain for everyone who left and the joy for everyone who returned or just arrived in our city. For the people who have been with me all along, it is worth fighting to the end. 

What should we do now?

From the announcement of the elections until July 19, we mobilized our diaspora and registered Srebrenica residents to vote by mail. In the last local elections, 328 Srebrenica residents voted this way. Looking at the statistics from 2014, I see an increase, so I hope it will continue this year. I fought to overcome divisions and political differences, and for everyone to work on it. Now it is important that they get their registration confirmed, and when they receive the ballots in September, fill them out correctly and send them back to Bosnia on time. 

We also worked with our displaced persons throughout the Federation. Many had problems with personal documents, we dealt with that a lot, communicated with local authorities and election commissions to ensure there were no oversights. 

Furthermore, many personal identity cards of people who left Srebrenica since the issuance of the first CIPS personal documents have expired. Many have been displaced, have left. The final revision of illegally registered citizenships in Skelani has not yet occurred, but we are insisting on that as well. Until the Central Voters' Register is finalized, we will work to establish the list properly, so that we do not have a situation where someone votes for people who have died.

We are going from local community to local community, visiting our villages, checking how people are satisfied with the progress we have made in the last four years. I am noting down where things need to be fixed, renovated, what needs to be worked on, fitting these small problems of ordinary people into the broader perspective of the further development and construction of our municipality.

I talk to everyone, my hand is extended to every well-intentioned person. I try to convince them that this region cannot be ruled from Bajina Bašta and Serbia. Many are aware that the municipality cannot be left in the hands of those for whom the interests of Srebrenica residents are not the first thing they think about when they wake up in the morning. 

I am reassuring our people. And I am afraid. My family is here. I don't know how many entrepreneurs and investors will leave if the political climate changes. Who knows how many people will decide on October 3rd that it's time to pack up and give up on our city.

And I know even less how this new reality will be felt throughout eastern Bosnia among our returnees who still look to Srebrenica as a "free space," a place that is their second home, where they are safe.

I also fear for the Memorial Center, which we will seek to be declared a Museum of Genocide and a place of learning, a place of history for generations to come, so they know everything about suffering, genocide, and ethnic cleansing. What will happen to the schools, to the teachers, to our villages, to the roads leading to them? 

We Must Not Trust Anyone 

No matter how far away we seem from Sarajevo, if we fall, it will be heard all the way to Baščaršija. Only then will some receive the message. And the feeling of betrayal will be immense again. The media will call us Srebrenica residents again, everyone will be there to hear our three sentences about how angry, furious, sad, and disappointed we are.

We will be promised help again, the international community will promise a lot, just to stop that first wave of catastrophic feelings. We must not trust anyone, just as the parents from Konjević Polje did not trust, who sought their justice for days in front of the OHR building, or us when we sought special status for Srebrenica almost ten years ago.

In the memory of every one of our children, the names of everyone who betrayed us again and who decided for us that this city, twenty years later, should be surrendered to policies that would most like us not to exist, will remain.

Then there will be no Dutchbat, and no UN resolution, to mention. Then it will just be us. One with another. Abandoned and those who abandoned us. And Srebrenica remembers. Counting will begin again, I think to myself, "don't let anyone be missing from us," and for two decades, thousands have been missing from us. "Don't dream that the West will come and solve this... don't dream."