Wednesday, July 13, 2005

"It is to the shame of the international community that this evil took place under our noses, and we did nothing like enough." Jack Straw, Srebrenica, 11th July

Now I'm back here in London, it seems almost surreal to think that just 24 hours ago I was in Srebrenica.

It's tempting to think that the atrocities committed there ten years ago happened in some far off land.

But Bosnia is just a short three-hour plane journey from the UK, right on Europe's doorstep.

Visiting Srebrenica was a deeply depressing experience -- one from which it's difficult to find any glimmers of hope.

Srebrenica is a town filled with ghosts.

The place is haunted by the memories of what happened there in 1995.

Most of the lucky ones who managed to escape the orgy of killing perpetrated by Ratko Mladic's Bosnian Serb forces will never return. They've tried to build new lives far away from the valley of death along the Drina River, in Tuzla or Sarajevo.

The area's population is a quarter of its pre-war level. Its ethnic balance has shifted. 60% of those living around Srebrenica are now Serbs.

Time has only partially eased the tensions between the communities.

Many of those I spoke to said they fully expected ethnic violence to flare up again in Bosnia in the future.

Even though the Serbian President Boris Tadic showed courage by attending the memorials, many of his people are still in denial.

A Serb on the plane journey home erupted in fury when he saw me reading Chuck Sudetic's magisterial Blood and Vengeance, which chronicles the events of July 1995.

"It is rubbish," he spat in broken English.

"Srebrenica -- It was not Serbs."

The slogans from the Srebrenica commemmorations said "never again" and "no more Srebrenicas."

But as my colleague Fergal Keane recently noted, "never again" keeps on happening.

(One of the best overviews of the anniversary is published in this week's Economist. It's available by subscription only so here it is as a Word document.)

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Welcome back Stu.
Thanks for the audio blogs.

You mentioned when we met that you were helping someone write a book.
Is that the Fergal Keane book you have on your amazon wishlist that is yet to be published?

2:33 PM  

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