Milivoje Ivanisevic SERBIAN VILLAGES OF THE SREBRENICA REGION REDUCED TO ASHES SERBIAN VILLAGES OF THE SREBRENICA REGION REDUCED TO ASHES Institute for Research on the Suffering of the Serbs in XX c. Belgrade, 2010. SERBIAN VILLAGES OF THE SREBRENICA REGION REDUCED TO ASHES This presentation of the crimes committed by the Muslims against the Serbian people of Central Podrinje is just a fraction of the entire pogrom of the Serbian population in that region throughout the war. The destruction of Serb settlements and their cultural and religious institutions in that region bear wounds, which have evidently not yet been healed. According to one of the several hundred important documents of the BiH Army in our possession, the following has been stated: “ At the end of January or beginning of February in 1993, within the Zone of Responsibility of the 8th OG (Operating Group, author’s remark), a vast, linked, free territory had been formed, with its centre in Srebrenica, covering 95% of the Srebrenica municipality, 90% of the Bratunac municipality, 60% of the Vlasenica municipality, and 50 % of the territory of the Zvornik municipality. Furthermore, a direct physical link with the liberated villages of the Zepa region was established.” 1 By that time (at the end of January or the beginning of February in 1993), according to the same document, in the above listed municipalities, the Muslims had occupied an area of more than 850 km2 of the entire territory. Their undisputed military success had nearly resulted in the complete extermination of the many Serb settlements in the aforementioned municipalities and had also produced much tribulation amongst the inhabitants of Serb nationality. Based on the following facts, it is possible to determine the concrete effects of Muslim armed activity, which lasted for a period of several months. Only in the municipalities of Srebrenica and Bratunac, which were comprised of 93 settlements (which, according to the BiH census taken in April in 19912, the Serbs had had also inhabited), were 81 of those settlements destroyed. The only villages which had not been destroyed by the Muslims were: Crvica, Lijesce, Petrica and Skelani in the Srebrenica municipality; in the Bratunac municipality, neighboring the urban part of the town, the Serbs had also survived in the villages of: Dubravice, Jelah, Krasanovici, Pobrdje, Polom, Repovac, Rakovac and Slapasnica (the Bratunac municipality consists of 48 villages). Another 30 destroyed Serbian villages and hamlets in the municipalities of Milici, Vlasenica and Zvornik should be added to that number. 1 Headquarters of the Eighth Operating Group of Srebrenica, 07.03.1994. Republic Defense, Military Secret, strictly confidential, to the Sector for the Morale of the Second Corps, Supplement for the Chronicle Guide of the BiH Army, submitted. Link: File, strictly conf. No. 04‐1‐364‐2 2 The national composition of population of Bosnia and Herzegovina – Census of 1991, the Federal Statistics Institution, Belgrade, 1992. After this Muslim campaign, only 860 out of the 9, 390 local residents of Serb nationality had remained in their homes and in their villages in the Srebrenica municipality3, or, just merely 9%. By the first months of the war, fear had struck within the Serb settlements, as well as along the roads, by which they had tried to escape from their villages, in order to avoid the terror which had blazed all over the place. That Serbian tragedy was not a mystery to the world. Even the State Department’s spokesperson, Richard Boucher, had stated at a press conference, on January 26th, 1993, that the Bosnian Muslim forces had killed at least 60 Serbs, mainly civilians, in the villages surrounding Bratunac. Following that, the same American official also mentioned the following: “As a result of the hostility, as many as 5,000 people, primarily women, children, the elderly and the wounded, had fled to Ljubovija”. After this statement, no similar public remarks have been made in the US, which would also have depicted atrocities against the Serbs as well. Soon after, the American administration and the American ambassador Madeleine Albright had imposed the most rigorous information blockade measures, filtering anything related to the slaughtering of the Serbian population. At about the same time, the President of FR Yugoslavia, Dobrica Cosic, and the Yugoslav government, had submitted a “Memorandum on the war crimes and crimes of genocide in Eastern Bosnia (municipalities of Bratunac, Skelani, and Srebrenica), carried out against the Serbian population between April 1992 and April 1993”, to the UN General Assembly, as well as the Security Council. 3 Ibid. Yugoslav ambassador, Dragomir Djokic, had submitted the Memorandum on June 2nd, 1993, to the Security Council office.4 However, that document had never been placed on the agenda, nor had it been taken into consideration by the Security Council. The pogrom of the Serbs in that region is no exception, and it is difficult to prove that it exceeds the suffering of the Serbs in other parts of this former Yugoslav republic. Unfortunately, regardless of which of the warring parties is of interest, the overall magnitude of the tragedy, caused by the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, has still not been documented thoroughly enough, nor has it been objectively acknowledged, estimated, and publicized. REVIEW OF THE EVENTS IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA Before we cover more detailed testimonies of the fate of Serbian settlements within the Srebrenica region, we will be occupied with some global indicators which, at least to a certain extent, can portray an overall scale of the tribulations the Serbs had faced in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the indicated war period. According to the documentation, which, after much verification, should not be controversial, it was confirmed that Serbs were expelled from 1, 904 settlements, or 42.6 % from the total of 4,464 settlements in which they were registered, according to the census of 1991. These are predominantly municipalities and settlements in the Muslim‐Croat Federation. Today, those settlements are ethnically cleansed, with the rare exception of returning residents, mostly the elderly and members of mixed marriages. During two accounts of the exodus of Serbs (recorded in 1992 and 1995, from the territory of today’s Muslim – Croat Federation, in reference to the aforementioned settlements and municipalities), over 550,000 individuals of Serbian nationality, or 40% of the overall Serb population in BiH, were expelled. Finally, according to the lists and evidence as of December 31st, 2009, the Serbian casualties amount to 30,707 individuals. 4 Memorandum on war crimes and crimes genocide in Eastern Bosnia (communes of Bratunac, Skelani, and Srebrenica) committed against the Serbian population from April 1992 to April 1993, Continual Mission of the FRY to the UN, June 2, 1993. Yet, when addressing the human losses, we must stress that there still exists a disputable reliability of the information for the municipalities, which were under the control of Croat or Muslim authorities during the war and remain under their control today. As a result, for a considerable number of municipalities, the information at our disposal can be considered complete (in this case we believe, for different reasons that a maximum deviation of 5% of the abovementioned figure can be tolerated). The second group consists of municipalities which were previously mentioned, and are primarily (but not exclusively) from the Muslim‐Croat Federation, in which the list of the names of Serb victims and their numbers can considerably change in the coming years. For the first group, for which we are presenting the final figures, the municipalities are: Banja Luka (there were 1,411 Serbian victims listed), Bijeljina (780), Bileca (149), Bosanska Gradiska (325), Bosanska Dubica (242), Bosanska Krupa (362), Bosanski Brod (452), Bosanski Novi (430), Bosanski Petrovac (378), Bosanski Samac (422), Bosansko Grahovo (198), Bratunac (464), Brcko (494), Visegrad( 270), Vlasenica (322), Gacko (109), Glamoc (140), Gorazde (410), Derventa (455), Doboj (598), Donji Vakuf (270), Drvar (284), Zvornik (659), Kalinovik (136), Kljuc (375), Konjic (297), Kotor Varos (281), Kupres (223), Laktasi ( 291), Lopare (302), Ljubinje (38), Modrica (254), Mostar (493), Mrkonjic Grad (438), Nevesinje (270), Prijedor (648), Prnjavor (321), Rudo (105), Rogatica (302), Sanski Most (644), Sokolac (207), Srebrenica (458), Srbac (92), Teslic (444), Trebinje (334), Foca (631), Han Pijesak (128), Ugljevik (78), Cajnice (128), Celinac (213), Sekovici (241), Sipovo (143). In almost all the above mentioned municipalities (especially Banja Luka, Bijeljina, Prijedor, Doboj, Foca, and Zvornik), large numbers of victims were recorded within areas of the Muslim‐Croat Federation. Those were the victims whose families, due to the terror of war and a constant danger of being massacred, could only find refuge within the territory of Republika Srpska. The second group consists of municipalities, for which, as we had anticipated, the number of victims had considerably climbed. Unfortunately, with good reason, we expect the number of victims to rise in certain municipalities. Those crucial municipalities are: Banovici (the list contains 82 Serbian victims), Bihac (249), Breza (32), Bugojno (99), Busovaca (1), Vares (94), Velika Kladusa (48), Visoko (206), Vitez (4), Gornji Vakuf (5), Gradacac (109), Gracanica (200), Duvno (61), Jablanica (12), Zepce (51), Zivinice (66), Zenica