Who is to blame for crimes against Serbs in Srebrenica: an United nationalist narrative

Amer Bahtijar
Autor/ica 2.4.2019. u 10:38

Who is to blame for crimes against Serbs in Srebrenica: an United nationalist narrative

During the war, 387 Serb civilians were killed in and around Srebrenica. The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina said that Naser Orić is not guilty for those monstrous crimes. But it was not said who was to blame!

Ethical duty would be to ask 387 times, why 22 years after the war, we have no answer to the question of who is to blame!

Few war victims in BiH are so devalued as Serb victims in the Srebrenica ranks and little of what the victims say about the inability to open a culture of reminiscence.

Why, therefore, after 22 years, we have no judgments on the crimes in Srebrenica?

The easiest answer is that the Court and the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH are not able to deal with serious problems and that corruption is the foundation of our judiciary. Of course, it is not difficult to defend this thesis, and, apart from a few honourable people in those institutions, we can thank the foreign prosecutors and judges for all the important decisions of that court in its history.

But what if the prosecutors really do not have evidence, if they have nothing to do with the case? Whose fault is then?

Victorious narrativ

In the case of Naser Orić, it was said that the witnesses Serbs changed the testimony after a friendly conversation with Serbian veterans in Srebrenica, who often resolved boredom in company with Naser Orić.

But this argument is not crucial, even if it turns out to be accurate.

Who’s the ethical duty to testify about the crimes against the Serbs in Srebrenica?

First of all, the fighters of the R BiH Army who had the opportunity to see the crimes of their subordinates. Everyone who’s alive and who has seen the crimes must testify.

But the best protection of criminals in Srebrenica is a narrative that completely defeated in BiH, whereby the talk of crimes and testimony about their crimes represents an ethical betrayal.

What is the essence of this victorious narrative? To speak about the crimes of his own means to relativize the truth about the suffering. Imagine how a person who saw crimes against Serbs in Srebrenica feels and who, considering this narrative, thinks it means relativizing the horrifying massacre in Europe after the Second World War.

The victory of this narrative puts honorable people in an incessant position-truth is a lie, ethics are a betrayal!

That is why the way to the truth about all the victims in Srebrenica and BiH leads to a change and a victory over this narrative.

Crimes do not have a nation, a religion, but they have an offender, have one who did not prevent the crime, one who has designed it, one who has not done anything to prevent,  the one who banalizes it and the worst – who is silent about it.

Everything in this victorious narrative is a lie.

It is a lie that one crime justifies the other, it is a lie that the truth about a crime relativizes the other, it is a lie that one court verdict will annul the other. It is a lie that any judgment can damage the truth about the war.

Exactly the opposite! Silence over crimes against Serbs in Srebrenica brutally spits and offends Srebrenica victims, genocide is relativized.

The truth about the war in Srebrenica, Mostar, Sarajevo was confirmed and documented by the Hague judgments. The only dangerous fighters against this truth are those who are silent about the crimes in Srebrenica, Kazan, Grabovica, Trusina, Bugojno …

Changing the narrative, which will enable for those who talk about the crimes in Srebrenica,

Bugojno, Sarajevo to be truly national heroes – we’ll finally discover the truth.

Unlock the mind

 This requires serious action. The first civil intellectuals should perform the unblocking of the mind.

 The leaders of the civil block Nermin Nikšić, Željko Komšić, Peđa Kojović and Nihad Čolpa should go to Kravica, but also to Bugojno and ask the people who are responsible for the disappearance of their fellow citizens.

It’s up to us. Or we will change the war narrative and win the war, or we will be losers defeated by a united nationalist narrative, we and the victims of war for the second time from the same enemy!

 

 

 

 

 

Amer Bahtijar
Autor/ica 2.4.2019. u 10:38