UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository) Stories from no land: the women of Srebrenica speak out Leydesdorff, S. DOI 10.1007/s12142-007-0005-7 Publication date 2007 Document Version Final published version Published in Human Rights Review Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): Leydesdorff, S. (2007). Stories from no land: the women of Srebrenica speak out. Human Rights Review, 8(3), 187-198. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12142-007-0005-7 General rights It is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Disclaimer/Complaints regulations If you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: https://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible. UvA-DARE is a service provided by the library of the University of Amsterdam (https://dare.uva.nl) Download date:02 Oct 2021 Stories from No Land: The Women of Srebrenica Speak Out Selma Leydesdorff It is argued that the stories of the survivors of the Srebrenica massacre in 1995 have been neglected by the memorial culture of Bosnia and by the various national reports that investigated how the massacre could have taken place. The author argues that a satisfactory history of the genocide has to include the voices of the survivors, in this case, the women. These are stories of trauma that are hard to listen to. She compares listening to them to the difficulty historians experience in listening to the stories of other genocides like the Shoah/Holocaust, they are stories based on silence about what cannot be told. The argument relies on the oral history literature on listening to trauma as personal and subjective accounts of survival. They are not straightforward referential narratives. One narrative, the narrative of Sabaheta who lost her child and husband, is central to the piece. She is one of the women interviewed by the author. The interview expresses sorrow about loss and rage about the international community; these stories are interwoven. The narrative also describes through the eyes of the victim what she felt happened. The author is Dutch, so is part of the one nation – more than any other – that is accused of “doing nothing.” It was the Dutch army that was supposed to protect the civilian population of Srebrenica. The government of The Netherlands has halted any negotiation on financial support for the research as “the project does not help to overcome trauma.” She argues that giving a voice to the victim is a necessary step toward closure. Background During the war in Bosnia, so-called “safe areas” were created territories protected by the United Nations (UN) where Muslims could take refuge from “ethnic cleansing” (Rhode 1997; Cecik et al. 2001; De Barros-Duchene 1997;Honig and Both 1996;SilberandLittle1997). One of these safe areas was Srebrenica, which was protected by the Dutch Army under the UN command until it fell into Serbian hands. The Serbs conquered the enclave in July 1995 and massacred thousands of civilians. Exactly how many were murdered is unknown, but the reported figures range between 7,000 and 10,000. Before the massacre began, women, children, and older men were herded into the UN compound of Potocari, where they expected shelter. Many younger men had chosen to risk fleeing through the woods to a territory controlled by the Bosnian Army (the Federation). Few made it to safety, however. They were killed in the woods, and those who 187 188 Human Rights Review, April-June 2007 went to Potocari perished in the massacre. The small town of Srebrenica has been Serb controlled territory (Republika Srpska) since the Dayton Peace Agreement of 1995. The ethnic cleansing has proven to be effective; few Muslims have returned. It is a ghostly place, empty, bearing numerous signs of war, and a lieu de memoire for the Bosnian genocide. Only since 2001 have Muslims been allowed to return, yet very few can or want to. Nevertheless, more and more have no other choice than “resettlement,” as it is known in official UN jargon. Srebrenica is rife with bad memories and still feels unsafe. The poverty-stricken women living in refugee camps have few alternatives, though. Euphemistically called “collective centers,” the camps are a no man’s land where people live destitute lives amid stench and mud. There is no hope for a future there. Recently, some women have been “resettled,” but many of them have ended up living in hostile surroundings. In short, most of the women of Srebrenica are living miserable lives, mourning the loss of their loved ones. Ten years after the end of the civil war, its history is being written, and we can see the beginnings of a memorial culture in which the “real facts of war,” such as the defense of Sarajevo, the role of political leaders, the military strategies, and the reaction of the international community, form part of the founding myths of a new nation. The genocide is part of that memory, but it is a memory shaped by many accusations and unpleasant, conflicting views of what happened. The systematic killing of more than 7,000 Muslim men is part of a history of international betrayal. Indeed, Srebrenica was a factor in the negotiations between the international community and representatives of the Bosnian government led by the then president, Alija Izetbegovic, who was eager to lift the siege of Sarajevo. It is generally assumed that the siege of Sarajevo was lifted in exchange for the fall of the enclave. Clearly, then, Srebrenica is also the story of Bosnian betrayal. Despite the many reports and analyses devoted to this episode, no one has ever clarified how it could happen. The struggle for control of the memorial culture is focused on the resulting contradictions. This is a political struggle, however. Academic debate on the history of the betrayal and genocide has yet to begin. The various reports and analyses through which the political debate is conducted often emanate from research teams of the nations and armies involved. They contrast sharply with the memories of the genocide survivors, who are rarely mentioned in these reports (only one book on this subject has been published, in French: Collectif L’Esprit des Peninsules 2000). Interviewing the Women, the Survivors In the autumn of 2002, I visited the enclave of Srebrenica for the first time to assess the feasibility of conducting an interview project with Bosnian women about the massacres and their sad aftermath. Although I was warned that it would be an uphill struggle, my proposal met with a great deal of cooperation. I also visited Bosnia as a member of a Dutch delegation attending the inauguration of the Leydesdorff 189 Srebrenica monument (cemetery) on 20 September 2003. During this ceremony, 25,000 people, mostly women, crowded on the hill behind the cemetery. We wept, visitors and Bosnians alike, as we buried the 100 identified men under the imposed security of the many military forces still present, notably the US Air Force. Some onlookers wept for the shame of the international community; some, like the Bosnian warlord in front of me, wept for the defeat. Most wept for lost loved ones, and others wept tears of fury for not knowing what had happened to them, for the emptiness of their lives since 1995 and the impossibility of returning to normal life when the scene of the crime is one’s own home. The day before, we had visited one of the gravesites with Hatidzja, who spoke softly of her husband, brothers, and father. At the ceremony, I tried to listen to “Srebrenica Inferno,” a requiem, submerging myself in the beauty of the music. I tried to repress the thought that boys like the one singing before us would have been killed simply for being male, over a certain age, and a Muslim. Once I began work on the interviews and listened to the many painful and agonizing accounts, strange stories started turning up in my dreams, disturbing every notion of good and evil. Although I communicated through a translator on my numerous trips and therefore could not speak with the women directly, I was presented with moving accounts of flight, anxiety, fear, and life in the camps. I am quite sure that there was, and still is, a basic feeling of trust and understanding between the Bosnian women and myself. Thus, I slowly learned to communicate with them, even before I started to learn their language. I struggle with language, a problem I try to solve by transcripts in Bosnian and literal translation of every transcript. I work with translators who want to join the project and who are not scared to listen to the atrocious stories. They are Bosnian women who often work in nongovernment organizations (NGOs), although they are used to witnessing suffering, they have difficult moments. I have learned that the emotional involvement and softness are the most important requirements for a translated interview. Nevertheless, translated interviews do not allow for the secondary analysis of interviews I am used to making. I try to understand the original written Bosnian transcript and follow the flow of the interview.