Letters from Cyprus: The silence of Srebrenica

A few weeks ago I was in Bosnia and Hercegovina visiting programs and staff. Whilst there I had an opportunity to visit Srebrenica in the eastern part of the country. Srebrenica is of course well known as the notorious sight of the worst massacre since WWII. This occurred in the middle of 1995 towards the end of the war in Bosnia, when over 8000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica and the surrounding villages were rounded up and killed by the Bosnian Serb army. This occurred despite the fact that Srebrenica was a designated UN safe haven under the protection of a small Dutch contingent of UN soldiers. The killings in Srebrenica highlighted the ineptitude and inadequacy of the UN peacekeeping mandate in Bosnia.

Memorial in Srebrenica

To this day exhumation of some mass grave sites continues, and the painstaking process of matching DNA samples of remains found, with that of living relatives is ongoing. The town of Srebrenica and its surrounds are very picturesque, and it can be hard to equate the present day view the tragic events that occurred there less than 20 years ago. This was not some ancient war that occurred in a distant past, this took place just a few months before Sarah and I got married. It is hard to be confronted with the human capacity to carry out acts of evil in our own 'modern' society.

A new memorial in Srebrenica has been opened in recent years, and its a sobering experience to stand before it and contemplate the events that took place there. Likewise in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo, a museum on Srebrenica has opened. The museum provides excellent resources along with many examples of recorded testimony of those who survived Srebrenica.

The challenge for a country like Bosnia and Hercegovina is that while the war ended some 18 years ago, deep religious and ethnic fractures remain in society, and in many respects the country operates as two separate entities within one, with parallel ministries and government structures at all levels of society. New generations are taught two (or more) vastly different versions of history, and the country is beset with major economic and social challenges. As a Bosnian colleague joked with me the other week: 'When it comes to EU membership there are three groups of countries: those already in Europe, those who are in the queue to join Europe, and thirdly there is Bosnia'. There is an uncertain future but there is always hope.