Road to Ratkovići village

Having visited a number of villages in the Drina River valley, and observed a wide variety of horrors inflicted on their Serbian inhabitants, we thought that few surprise lay in wait for us. However, this time also it has turned out that for every evil there is another one which is greater still and even more striking. It had taken us a long time to take the decision to sit down and to write a few sentences about this village because of the strong impressions produced by what we saw and the feeling that they could  be conveyed, if at all, then only with utmost difficulty. It is a challenge to describe so much horror concentrated in a single place. Ratkovići is simply something that a person needs to see. Ratkovići is a village which compells you to reflect and to pose innumerable questions for which there do not seem to be any answers.

A few days ago[1], Mr. Mirsad Tokača, director of the Sarajevo Research and Documentation Center (RDC), announced that on November 4 he is planning to unveil the results of several years’ work: “The Bosnian Crime Atlas.” Mr. Tokača’s institution, with the assistance of the Norwegian government, has been working for some time to set up a comprehensive data base about missing persons as a result of the 1992—1995 war in Bosnia-Herzegovina from all the ethnic communities. Our NGO, Srebrenica Historical Project, supports Mr. Tokača’s efforts and considers it on the whole quite invaluable for an objective determination of facts about some essential segments of the Bosnian conflict.

On September 15, 2009, Srebrenica Historical Project and Belgrade-based NGO, Dveri Srpske, organized a public presentation in Banski dvor in Banja Luka, Republic of Srpska, about the July 1995 Srebrenica massacre. The immediate reason for this presentation was to introduce the latest issue of “Dveri,” the quarterly magazine of the organization by the same name.

By Diana Johnstone

Srebrenica Revisited

(This remarkable analysis of the Srebrenica issue was written four years ago, but it is as topical now as it was then. In a brief and reasoned overview, all the major abuses and dilemmas of the official Srebrenica narrative are noted. We recommend it warmly to our readers and we invite them to form their own opinion on this complex issue. This was originally published  in Counter Punch, October 12, 2005: http://www.counterpunch.org/johnstone10122005.html –Srebrenica Historical Project)  

Last summer, almost the entire political spectrum in the Western world joined in a chorus of self-flagellation on the 10th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre. The dominant theme was "nostra culpa": "we" let it happen, "we" didn't want to know about it, and "we" mustn't let it happen again.

    It seems that the last few weeks have been none too kind to the “Srebrenica genocide affirmers” [to coin a phrase]. Some common sense questions about their thesis have been raised and it has been the topic of professional scepticism from the most unexpected quarters. Serious cracks are appearing in the Srebrenica genocide argument.

    The years of fragile peace and cohabitation in Bosnia and Hercegovina have often been undermined in the recent past, and that was reflected in wall grafitti which appeared in Potočari (Republic of Srpska) a few days ago. As if looking for a pretext to provoke their Serbian neighbors, Moslems are taunting Serbs on their own land with one of the most odious criminals of the recent war, Naser Orić. Do they think that, using Srebrenica (about which we still to this day do not know the complete truth) as cover, they can get away with anything, without accountability? Must Serbs quietly, on their own land, tolerate praise for Naser Orić? Or should Serbs also build some sort of monument to Orić for failing to exterminate them all, for lack of opportunity if not for any other reason?

    This month’s annual July 11 events in Potočari followed the same tired, indistinguishable, pattern of  previous years.  But there is a problem.
    Every single Broadway show in history, regardless of how brilliant and successful it was and no matter how many runs it may have had, always inevitably came to an end. It is just as certain that the Srebrenica show, staged annually in Potočari, will sooner or later experience the same fate.  The actors will not be around forever, the stage extras will find the gathering an increasing imposition as their lives develop in different directions, the audience will ultimately become annoyed and will be turned off by the  sheer slickness of the monotonous performance. New facts will inevitably emerge to cast doubt on the credibility of the plot.  Old tricks will become threadbare and useless. The show will attract a steadily decreasing  amount of interest. At that point, the tent will have to fold and everyone will have to admit that the show is over. Is the Sarajevo leadership ready for that moment, and how will it explain it, when it comes, to the callously misled and manipulated Moslem people?