00:04 Journey to a country we know from TV as the scene of a gruesome war. The war is over now. This country has since disappeared from the headlines.
00:15 BOSNIA REVISITED
00:22 Eight years have passed since the Dayton Peace Accords were signed.I have come back to find out what this peace looks like.
00:2700:32 SEARCHING FOR PEACEA film by Ulf von Mechow
00:37 The images from my trip in 1996 are still fresh in my mind.
00:4400:51 Peace, at the time, was barely 3 months old …Bosnia March 1996. The war is over – the ensuing peace still shaky.I-FOR, an international implementation force, was deployed to prevent the resurgence of violence.
01:11 They patrolled the roads, granted journalists permission to film, authorized routes. The country was tense. The streets still unsafe.
01:30 The country looked deserted - whole regions depopulated -villages plundered and destroyed - houses gutted.
01:41 Bosnia, May 2003. Our journey begins just beyond the eastern border to Serbia. Along the highway – a thriving free trade zone - a “shopping mall” with a strange sounding name for the Balkans: “Arizona Market.”
02:10 You can find everything here that money can buy.Hawkers, fences, smugglers and beggars, included.
02:19 Trade in stolen goods is booming. The business, we learn, is firmly in the hands of former Serb leader and war criminal Radovan Karadzic -and the mafia.
02:33 Cigarettes, bootleg videos and CDs pour in from Serbia.
02:48 But the days of stalls and smalltime peddlers are numbered. Big business is moving in – with a wholesale outlet now under construction.
02:56 Arizona Market got its name from the roadmap issued to the international peacekeeping forces. All major roads in Bosnia are named after states of the USA – so that American soldiers can find their way around this country.
03:11 US military intervention finally put and end to the bloodbath in southeast Europe - after three gruesome years of war.
03:22 It was the American President, Bill Clinton, who stopped the murder of Bosnian Muslims by imposing the Dayton peace plan. 20,000 US soldiers were sent to Bosnia in November 1995. The international community deployed an additional 40,000 soldiers to enforce the peace - particularly in eastern Bosnia close to the Serbian border – the scene of heavy fighting during the war.
03:49 Gorazde, Zepa and Srebrenica, were declared UN “safe areas” to protect the Muslim population. Today Srebrenica - a little town in eastern Bosnia - stands for the worst massacre in Europe since WWII.
04:08 Potocari, eastern Bosnia, March 31st 2003. Muslims from throughout Bosnia gather here, just a stones throw from Srebrenica, to hold “Djenaza” - a Muslim burial ceremony for the victims of the massacre.
04:32 Paddy Ashdown, “High Representative” of the international community has come from Sarajevo. Known as the Viceroy of Bosnia by the western press, he welds more power in this country than the Bosnian government.
04:50 These women from Srebrenica have had to wait for eight years to bury the remains of their loved ones.
05:00 O-TONE: Woman at Grave (Subtitles)This is my husband, that’s my father-in-law.Thank God they were found.Now I can bury them with their names.Now I have a grave I can visit.I have no one left anymore. No one …
05:19 Srebrenica: Bosnian Muslims accounted for 75 percent of its inhabitants. Contested and under siege, Srebrenica became a UN-declared “safe area.”
05:32 The Serbs attacked Srebrenica in July 1995.Under the command of General Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb army, units of the Yugoslavian army, and armed irregulars took the city.The Muslim residents had fled to Potocari and Bratunac.
05:52 O-TONE: Mladic (Subtitles)Forward to Potocari …Forward to Potocari and Bratunac, keep moving …
05:55 At the time some 27,000 people took refuge from the Serbs in the UN peacekeeping camp in Potocari, where 400 UN soldiers were headquartered.
06:03 The ‘Blue Helmets’ – a Dutch Battalion of the UN forces - offered no resistance.NATO-ordered air strikes failed to appear.General Mladic had complete control over the situation -and over the fate of 27,000 Muslims.
06:15 O-TONE: Mladic (Subtitles)Don’t be afraid. No one will be harmed …
06:19 Serb cameramen cover his every move - while Serbian TV aired broadcasts meant to show the “orderly” ethnic cleansing of the region.
06:33 … Broadcasts of the evacuation of women and children … are seen around the world.
06:41 The fate of the men was revealed much later …by tales of survivors, by American satellite photos and by an amateur video taken by a Serbian soldier.
06:50 Men and boys were taken to remote locations where they were shot -and thrown into mass graves prepared in advance.
07:01 Some 7,000 to 10,000 unarmed Muslim men attempted to reach Tuzla through the woods. They were shelled by Serb artillery and hunted down by Serbian soldiers. Those who surrendered were shot in the woods.
07:23 O-TONE: (Subtitles)“Where is your weapon?”“I have no weapon.”“Are you afraid?”“How could I not be afraid.”“Forward. Move on.”
07:41 The last pictures of Ramo Aganovic.Taken by a Serb soldier on July 12, 1995.
07:55 The wait continues for scores of women. Mass graves have yet to be discovered. Eight years after the worst tragedy of the war, the remains of the first 600 to be identified are buried today, on this March 31st, 2003.
08:16 The nations President has come from Sarajevo.
08:22 The spiritual leader of Bosnian Islam presides over the burial ceremony.
08:28 The “High Representative” will give a speech and read a letter from the UN General Secretary. A message that Bosnia and the entire world should hear.
08:5008:59 O-TONE Paddy Ashdown“The United Nations remembers the horrible events of Srebrenica with the deepest pain.We must be sure, that such crimes are never again repeated,that justice is carried out fully through the work of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.”
09:16 Many more graves have yet to be discovered. A memorial for the more than 7,000 victims of the largest massacre in Europe since the Second World War will be erected here.
09:34 A long journey for the victims of Srebrenica – from the anonymity of mass graves to a single grave with a single name. In this laboratory in Tuzla, the nameless dead are given back their identities..
09:52 The names of fathers, sons, and husbands that relatives can mourn.
10:00 Anthropologists and forensic scientists work together at the “People Identification Project” to unravel the fate of the victims of genocide.
10:08 Using new DNA techniques body parts can be identified with blood samples from relatives, where only bones remain.
10:20 O-TONE Zlatan S.This is the storage space in our facility. And right now, in these 450 square meters, we have 4060 body bags with human remains.
10:31 40,000 people are listed as missing since the end of the war.In the mean time hundreds of graves and mass graves have been discovered. The daunting task of exhumation and identification continues to this day.
10:44 O-TONE Zlatan S.The biggest problem for us is that we have a lot of remains from secondary mass graves. Because at the end of war, Serbs in the Republika Srpska they tried to hide evidences and they used bulldozers and trucks, for example from one primary grave they created two or three secundary graves.
11:04 Eva Klonowska, a Polish anthropologist, has been working since the end of the war for the International Center for Missing Persons, together with colleagues from Canada and other western countries. While graves continue to be found – the identification process has become increasingly difficult.
11:2511:4211:5612:0512:22 O-TONE Eva Klonowska“Here in Tuzla identification of Srebrenica remains started actually on full scale last year. Because Srebrenica remains can only be identified by DNA. But all over Bosnia exhumation started already in 1995, the very first day after Sanski Most was liberated, exhumation started there.Because Sanski Most is situated in Krajina area, a part of northwest Bosnia which is called ‘Krajina’. It was the worst area of ethnic cleansing in mass in 1992.It is the place where were the worst concentration camps, if you can call them that, actually they were death camps: Omarska, Keraterm, Trnopolje and Manjiaca.And there is a lot of victims.”
12:30 “Krajina” means “Border” – this is what the region between Croatia and Bosnia is called. I traveled through this area in 1996. But what did we know then about this part of Yugoslavia – that so reminded us of an oriental fairytale with its mosques and minaret’s?
12:50 After this war the republics of Yugoslavia became nation states.The Dayton Peace Accords left Bosnia intact – at least on paper.In reality the agreement ratified the ethnic division of this country into a ‘Serbian Republic’ (shown in yellow), and a Croatian-Bosnian Federation (shown in green).
13:10 Many of the places we wanted to visit were inaccessible at the time. Roads and bridges were destroyed.
13:18 We drove from the northwest through the “Krajina” to reach Sanski Most, our first destination. Its name means “Bridge over the Sana.”
13:27 On the banks of the Sana River we had an appointment with a man willing to speak about the terrible suffering of his people –Himself a former prisoner in a Serb concentration camp.
13:40 Adil Draganovic, judge at the Criminal Court of Sanski Most, was appointed to investigate war crimes perpetrated in this district.
13:5514:18 O-TONE Adil Draganovic (Subtitles)Here on the Sana River, we are five kilometers from Sanski Most. This is the location of a mass grave for Bosniaks and Croatians. Serb aggressors committed genocide on a vast scale in the district of Sanski Most.More than 2000 inhabitants were killed here in 1992 – all of them civilians.
14:30 People from The Hague were already here. Next month we will begin with the exhumation and identification of the corpses in the area.
14:50 We suspect there are also some two to three hundred civilians buried here.
15:05 500 meters from here is another large mass grave.
15:12 Some 10,000 Muslims lived in this district.On the 31st of May 1992 the Bosnian army occupied the Bosnian Krajina. They shelled the villages, drove out the Muslims or slaughtered them.
15:45 The same village in May 2003 - Eight years after our first visit.The survivors of Hrustovo have returned to their village; they have rebuilt the bridge and their houses.The wrecked bridge over the Sana, that the judge showed us -under which so many Muslims were killed, has also been rebuilt.We push on toward Sanski Most.
16:20 First impressions reveal no trace of this town’s turbulent history during the last years. Sanski Most was conquered twice during the war. Serbian units occupied the town in the summer of 1992. Three years later the Bosnian Army took it back. The dome of a new mosque with twin minarets – a sign of Arab influence - looks over the city.
16:42 Many residents have since returned. Others, whose towns and villages now belong to the Serbian part of Bosnia were forced to make this their permanent home – including 15,000 refugees returning from Germany. More than 90 percent of the inhabitants are Bosniaks – as the Muslims now call themselves. Their new mosque stands once again at the center of town.
17:10 The same place in 1996. The central mosque in Sanski Most was destroyed. The Muslim quarter empty. All 30,000 Muslims were driven out, deported or murdered when the Bosnian-Serbian Army took the city in 1992 and held it until 1995.
17:31 The Muslims have returned – and so have the banks.But the residents have little to show for their stable currency. Few have work and the economy hangs on the drip of the international community. Investors are scarce, professionals and well-to-do Bosniaks remain outside of the country.
18:01 The Croatian Catholic Church of Sanski Most has also been rebuilt.But today only eight hundred Croatians live here. Before the war they numbered 4,000.
18:10 Croatian lawyers, doctors, civil servants had to flee or were interned in camps. Their churches were destroyed, their culture expunged.
18:20 Of the Serb residents – there were none to be seen. They had left the city with their retreating troops. Their church was not destroyed when Bosniak soldiers retook the city.
18:32 City hall was headquarters to the most popular Bosnian general.From here he planed to take Prijedor and Banja Luka and put and end to the specter of Republika Srpska. The Dayton Accords stopped him.
General Mehmet Alagic in his new role as mayor. He used the opportunity of his first interview with western media to solicit support for the reconstruction of his city.
19:00 O-TONE General Alagic: (Subtitles)… There are many opportunities here for the Germans, the French, for Arabs and Americans. Opportunities that would strengthen existing multi-ethnic and multi-religious relationships.
19:25 It is my dream that here in the Sana Valley, with its nine rivers, we can establish a little California. I Therefore call upon all peoples to assist us in whatever way the can.
19:39 Eight years later we return to visit the ‘General’ at city hall …
19:48 … but a new mayor sits in his chair. How did he get there?
20:00 O-TONE Mayor Mesud (Subtitles)During the last elections in 2000 I was elected mayor. With my party’s nomination I was able to win the trust of the voters. After what happened to Mr. Alagic new elections were called. I’ve been in office now for three years.
20:2720:43 What happened to his predecessor? - the new mayor doesn’t want to say. We should direct our inquiries to the city archive or the local TV station…where we find pictures of the career of a General in peacetime.
20:57 The new mayor works hard for his city. Foreign donations pour in – which he uses to build hospital wards, streets and bridges …
21:10 In Sanski Most, the ‘General’ rules like a tribal prince - with posts, houses and funds earmarked for members of his clan, his brothers-in-faith and political friends.
Alija Izetbegovic, Bosnia’s President and his party friend, supports the popular mayor – elected to parliament and poised for a promising national career.A career eclipsed by his abrupt downfall.
Charged with corruption and misappropriation of public funds Alagic is put on trial. Soon, war crimes are added to the list. Mehmed Alagic is stripped of his posts and brought before the War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague.
21:38 O-TONE: (Subtitles English/French)The international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia is now in session. Please be seated. (FRENCH)
21:47 On July 5th, 2001, General Alagic and two senior officers of the Bosniak Army are indicted for committing war crimes.
21:59 Their unit was responsible for executions and massacres in central Bosnia. The list of indictments is long.The Muslims, without doubt, were the victims in this war. They were attacked. But their counter offensive was rife with atrocities committed against the Serb and Croat populations.
O-TONE Alagic (Subtitle)Your Honors, I plead not guilty …
22:30 Before the conclusion of his trial the ‘General’ dies of cancer in February 2003. He was 56 years old.
22:40 A “victim of peace,” according to his friends – and he had many.Former brothers in arms and the highest representatives of Bosnia Herzegovina gather at his bier.Thousands of Muslims pay last respects to their ‘General.’
23:08 The international community sends no wreath for his burial.But the Bosniak people mourn one of their heroes.
23:19 O-TONE: Mayor Mesud (Subtitles)He fought to defend Bosnia and Herzegovina.But then he was made responsible for certain things that happened in central Bosnia. The citizens of Sanski Most don’t accept the fact that -to this very day, no one has ever been brought before The Hague and charged with genocide against Muslims and Croats in Sanski Most, although 1500 of our people were murdered.
23:50 He assembled the evidence for the genocide in Sanski Most.Judge Draganovic, the man who showed us the mass graves in 1996. Later as presiding judge over the trial of the mayor, subsequently sentenced to four years in jail, Judge Draganovic was dismissed from his post. Since then, he is reviled as a turncoat and a traitor. But he doesn’t speak about that.
24:14 He wants instead to show us the evidence of genocide in Sanski Most.He has made videos of the mass graves being opened.
24:46 O-TONE Draganovic (Subtitles)This is the exhumation of a mass grave under the bridge at Vrpoljethat I conducted with a team of experts in May 1996.This is valuable material today - evidence that will stand the test of time - as there is no statute of limitations for war crimes. This material will most certainly be used in cases against war criminals – large and small.
25:30 With the help of forensic scientists and pathologists, you can see how we determine the cause of death.This - was the cause of death.
25:58 The judge shows us one of his appearances before the The Hague Tribunal. Most of the cases were broadcast live on Bosnian TV.
26:16 He appeared four times as a witness. With his videos, and during the trial of Biljana Plavsic, ex-president of the Republic of Srpska.
26:28 The prosecutor questions Adil Draganovic about Serb prisons and camps. As a former internee at camp Manjiaca, he testifies against Mrs. Plavsic, who is charged with genocide.
26:45 O-TONE Adil Draganovic (Subtitles)There were 408 prison camps in 37 municipalitiesin which people were physically and psychologically abused.
27:02 The prosecutor calls for film clips to submit to the court as evidence. Draganovic is called upon for clarification.
27:18 O-TONE Adil Draganovic (Subtitles)… In the first 3 months this was a hunger camp.People were left to starve.There was never enough to eat.What was available was of bad quality.This is the block where I was kept.There were six such blocks –all full of prisoners stripped of every vestige of human dignity.
27:50 His testimony helped to convict the former Bosnian Serb president for genocide against the Muslims. She was sentenced to 14 years in jail.
28:03 His people have never thanked him. His own government, that he conscientiously served, dismissed him as a judge. Now unemployed, he will continue to serve the cause of justice as a private lawyer.
28:26 We continue our journey to ‘Republika Srpska’ – the republic of the Bosnian Serbs - just across the border from Sanski Most.
28:32 The same river flows here …The same landscape, the same language, a common history – but since the war, a different land.
28:42 The border between Sanski Most and Prijedor, as laid down by the Dayton Accords, corresponds to the front lines during last days of the war. The front remains - even in peace. Serbs formerly living in Sanski Most now stay away, and few Bosniaks dare to return to Prijedor or Kozarac where half of the population was Muslim.
29:04 Just outside the city of Prijedor: Keraterm.Once the site of a ceramics factory – it is one of the death camps Dr. Klonowska spoke of. Three thousand Muslims were imprisoned here – tortured and murdered.
29:18 The emblem of the Serb fascists on a garbage can … A bouquet of flowers on a locked gate … No trace of crimes committed here.
29:28 The names of the victims from Prijedor and Kozarac: men abducted, missing or murdered are recorded in this book. 3,227 in total.Family names, dates of birth, a picture when available. Among these names are also those of 228 women and 132 children.
29:47 The book is published by a women’s organization promoting reconciliation for the peoples of Bosnia. It provides assistance for individuals trying to return, and therapy for traumatized women.Once a year they hold an international women’s conference.
30:12 The organization, Srcem do Mira - Through Heart to Peace - was founded as an NGO in a Croatian refugee camp by displaced Bosnian women. Nusreta Sivac, left on the podium, is co-founder of the initiative.Before the war she was a judge in Prijedor.
30:36 Arrested in 1992, she was kidnapped and imprisoned in Camp Omarska. And though she fights for peace - she also struggles to maintain the awareness of the past. A visit to the camps is therefore part of their annual conference.
30:56 An ‘industrial plant’ not far from the main road. Until 1992, a mine. Thereafter the name Omarska became a synonym for rape and torture in the Bosnian war.
31:15 Nusreta Sivac takes the women to the place of her ordeal.English journalists discovered the camp at the end of 1992.Judge Sivac was the first to break the silence about the agony visited upon women during the war – where rape was as common a weapon as guns and bombs.
31:39 Emsuda, organizer of the conference, had asked the authorities for permission to visit the camp. But their police escort hasn’t shown up and the women are barred entrance to the grounds.
31:57 Nusreta began her fight for justice just after her liberation from Omarska. She traveled to The Hague to demand that rape no longer be tolerated as a side effect of war – but as a crime against humanity.
32:18 For her testimony before the Tribunal she was placed in a witness protection program: her name was barred from mention, her picture blurred for TV cameras, her voice distorted - to prevent acts of revenge by the accused still at large.
32:35 Thanks to her courage some of those responsible for rape have, in the meantime, been tried and sentenced. Outside of the courtroom and without protection, the judge from Prijedor continues tirelessly to expose the crimes at Omarska.
32:54 O-TONE: Nusreta Sivac (Subtitles)… But however strong and courageous one might be -the breakdown comes.The trauma of Omarska hit me after I returned from The Hague.Thank god its over!
33:15 It all comes back again in the courtroom -what you lived through,what you saw, what was done to you.You keep seeing the pictures of the dead before your eyes –and that gave me an enormous moral strength.
33:30 All the dead: my dearest friends,my colleagues, my fellow citizens …But particularly the five women who didn’t survive Omarska …They gave me the strength to speak in their names ...Because they can’t speak anymore.
33:52 37 women were tortured, abused and murdered in the “White House” of Omarska.The men were interned in the red building behind it.…
34:05 An aggressive security officer prohibits the women from getting any closer to the building - even though the police have since arrived. They are escorted to a different entrance to the site.
34:13 And so they hear the facts about this place. From May to August 1992, over 3000 intellectuals, academics, and political leaders - the elite of the Bosnian and Croatian population in the Krajina region - were incarcerated in this facility. Night after night, the men were interrogated and beaten. Many died under the torture. Hundreds of prisoners were murdered on these vast grounds and thrown into the mine pit.
34:43 The third camp: Trnopolje. Once a schoolhouse with an adjacent gym.
34:52 In August 1992, the secret of Omarska was revealed to the world by British TV-team. Shortly thereafter, its prisoners were transferred here. But the British journalist, Penny Marshall, discovered Trnopolje as well.
35:04 Her pictures and reports - broadcast throughout the world -alerted the international community.
35:13 But how did this journalist succeed in getting into the camp and making contact with the prisoners?Karadzic, during his stay in London, had personally granted Penny Marshall permission to visit Trnopolje. What he didn’t count on was the tenacity of western journalism.
35:32 A camp doctor supplied Marshall with pictures of the victims of torture. Within 24 hours these pictures were on the front pages of newspapers around the world – fortunately saving the life of that brave doctor.
35:50 The former women’s quarters at Trnopolje. Today, no recollection of the women tortured, raped or murdered here.
36:00 Whereas, just across the street – the Serbian Eagle - carved in stone -commemorates the “bravery of the rapists.”
36:07 The place of torture – is left to decay.But the memory of its victims will be kept alive by the women of Kocaraz.
36:21 Our next destination - Banja Luka.
36:26 Monuments to Yugoslav communism still stand in the capital city of the Bosnian Serbs.
36:36 For the Serbs Yugoslavia was merely a political metaphor for Greater Serbia. With the fall of Tito-Yugoslavia the Serbian Orthodox Church became the promoter of their Greater Serbian ideology. And, the reconstruction of their cathedral – directly across from the Parliament building - a symbol of their pure Serbian State.
36:59 The destruction of their cathedral and the genocide against Serbs in World War II by Croatian fascists - the Ustashe - was used by Serb propaganda to foment hatred of everything Croatian.
37:13 The Bishop’s Church and the residence of the Croatian catholic bishop of Banja Luka – were targeted by Serb propaganda as a “Vatican outpost” – and a “stronghold of anti-Serbian evil” – that Serbs, however, didn’t dare to destroy.
37:38 Arrival in Banja Luka in 1996. On the outskirts of the city, the ruins of a church built 10 years before the war by a Croatian parish. It was not destroyed in combat - there was no combat in Banja Luka. It was dynamited. Everything not Serbian was systematically wiped-out.
38:08 Never again should Croatians live here.
38:21 The majority of Bosnian Croats, for generations an integral part of Bosnian culture, were expelled from Banja Luka.
38:36 The Bosnian Muslims of Banja Luka fared much worse. Contemptuously called “Turks” by the Serbs – the destruction of their sacred monuments to the Ottoman culture and the expulsion of the Muslim population served as revenge for the Turkish conquest of Bosnia in 1389.
38:58 On this location stood the historic Ferhadija Mosque – built in 1579 - dynamited by the Serbs in 1992.
39:07 The Muslim community center in Banja Luka. In the Mufti’s audience chamber we are shown postcards of this city’s former symbol.
39:27 O-TONE: Mufti Halilovic OFF- (Subtitles)There were 16 mosques in our city before the war,ONbuilt over the last 500 years.The destruction of these mosques, combined with the torture, suffering and provocations were aimed at driving Bosnian Muslims out of the city.
40:07 O-TONE: Mufti Halilovic OFF- (Subtitles)90 percent of my community fell victim to this ethnic cleansing.That is the evil – That is genocide.
40:3040:35 During the war Mufti Halilovic spent three years under house arrest.With the Dayton Peace Accords he could now hope for the return of his community and the reconstruction of their mosques.
40:50 The prayer room of the Islamic Center in May 2003.The Mufti who received us seven years ago is dead.His successor isn’t available.10,000 Muslims have since returned to Banja Luka, we are told.
41:16 In the corner of the prayer room we see fragments of the historic Ferhadija Mosque. Whether or not the mosque will be rebuilt -no one here can say.
41:30 The grounds on which the Ferhadija Mosque stood for 500 years haven’t changed much since the shelling.Grass grows over its foundations.A tin sign marks the place where the new cornerstone should be laid.
41:50 The cornerstone laying ceremony was scheduled for May 7th 2001. Republika Srpska TV was there to film the event.Scenes of shattered hope.
42:04 The spiritual leader of Bosnia’s Muslims, the Reis el Uleima, had come from Sarajevo.
42:11 O-TONE: Reis el Uleima (ST)Ladies and Gentlemen, distinguished guests.We are, all of us, descendents of Adam.We are derived from Adam …
42:28 But for the Serbs, his ecumenical proclamation falls on deaf ears. Busloads of Muslims had arrived from the all over the country to take part in the ceremony.
42:43 For years, Bosnian Muslims had fought for the reconstruction of their mosque. And for years the Bosnian Serbs had sabotaged it. Until finally it was sanctioned by the international community. Politicians, diplomats and public dignitaries arrived for the event. The Reis conducted the ceremony until the violence spun out of control.
43:25 Footage from the encircled Muslim Community Center was taken by Bosnian TV from Sarajevo …
43:33 … Serb cameramen shot the scenes showing the perspective of the attacker.
43:40 For 6 hours the assembly grounds were plunged into chaos. Serb police did little to control the mob – nor to free the barricaded guests of honor from their unpleasant situation.
44:03 O-TONE: Jacques Klein (ENGLISH)Hi, Sam. … where is the SFOR liaison officer? Where is SFOR? Where are the 20,000? …American peace broker, Jacques Klein, calls for the stabilization forces. After a long, tense wait they finally rescue the prominent guests.
44:20 At the end of the day, May 7th 2001, dozens of injured and one dead.The reconstruction of the mosque, the symbol of reconciliation for which the Muslims had waited so long – is now as then - nowhere in sight.
44:36 The reconstruction of the Serbian cathedral – meant to be a symbol in stone for the ethnic purity of the Bosnian state – is also at a standstill.
45:00 Meanwhile, Bosnian Serbs hear and see very different, global messages.
45:07 Even voices from Belgrade are increasingly self-critical of the Serbian national hubris. As can be heard in the songs of Serbia’s most popular poet and songwriter, Djordje Balasevic.
45:23 O-TONE: Djordje Balasevic (Song)“A devil had long ago sat on your doorstep, Serbia.Nobody alive remembers so many misfortunes.Neighbors are building bulwarks of rage and contempt around you.That has not happened, yet …only the insane can feel happy,while the others live in shame ….”
45:45 He is not one of the insane. Nor is he ashamed of being a Bosnian Serb. Zeljko Kopanja is co-founder and editor of Nezavisne Novine – the largest independent Serb daily in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Nezavisne means independent. But with the ‘devil’ still alive – and with paramilitaries in league with the mafia – critical, independent journalism in Bosnia is a dangerous profession. Zeljko Kopanja narrowly survived a car bomb.
46:18 O-TONE: Zeljko Kopanja (ST)When I woke up in the hospital, I knew immediatelythat both my legs were gone.But I knew I’d survive.
46:35 Hovering between life and death –I experienced a state of happiness -A feeling that turned to bliss the day I awokewith the knowledge that my editorial staff had not been disbanded -that the paper was still alive.It came out as usual.
46:51 If by eliminating me they thought they could kill the paper they were wrong. I knew then that we were on the right track. …
47:05 … Which is to expose the truth about the war.We need the truth.Without it people here can’t live a normal life.
47:15 15,000 copies are printed daily and sold throughout the country.Many, however, are afraid to buy it.
47:25 Many are still afraid of the truth in Republika Srpska - and of the peace that threatens to undermine the belief in their nation - and in their former leaders.
47:40 Pictures, symbols and the heraldry of Serb fascism are still openly sold. The icons of the Orthodox Church – Serbian saints - stand beside Karadzic, Mladic, Milosevic – the icons of a debased ideology.
47:55 O-TONE: ‘Chetnik’Business is brisk, the vendor tells us. The Brits were particularly keen on Chetnik heraldry. They were good customers. They bought flags, emblems, the Serb insignia. But they don’t come anymore. They were probably pulled out,” he says.
48:12 His kiosk is at the bus depot in Banja Luka – where buses leave for Belgrade and the mountain villages of Republika Srpska …where Karadzic and Mladic are thought to be.
48:29 1996. In the mountains of Bosnia.Our next destination: Pale - then Bosnian Serb capitol and wartime stronghold. To get there - we’d have to walk.
48:49 Seven years later the highways have been repaired.Twice, on the road from Banja Luka to Pale, we cross the border between Bosniak and Serb zones.
48:59 Bridges and tunnels are operating again. …
49:05 … border checks between the Federation and Republika Srpska – a thing of the past. Bosnia appears to be on the road to normalcy.
49:16 Pale - the wartime capitol of the Bosnian Serbs. We had expected something different. Karadzic’s lodge looks more like a ski resort.His empty headquarters, where the fate of Srebrenica and Sarajevo was decided ...
49:32 …Today, the view from his former stronghold is more reminiscent of a placid Alpine village. An idyll with a sinister past.
49:42 Pale was the “Heart Of Darkness”- for one Sarajevan filmmaker. Stuck here during the first weeks of the war – he could only watch and write while the Serbs pounded his city with heavy artillery,
49:59 Just below the mountains - in the valley - the enemy city could be shelled with ease. For this was also a war between mountain and valley, village against city; rural Serbian and urban Moslem culture.
50:18 Radovan Karadzic, leader of the Bosnian Serbs, and his General Ratko Mladic on their way to observe the shelling of Sarajevo. That was 1993. Wanted for war crimes since 1996 – they are still at large in 2003.The 5 million dollar bounty has not – so far - tempted Serbs to turn over their former leaders to the Hague Tribunal.
50:44 For three years, vacillating US and European policy allowed Karadzic to attain power of abstruse proportions. For three years Karadzic was allowed to sabotage every peace initiative while the world watched the slow death of Sarajevo on their TV sets. Finally, in August 1995, after yet another Serb grenade slaughtered 65 civilians, NATO commenced the long awaited air strikes against Serb positions. Two months later the war was over.
51:22 Sarajevo, March 1996: Its spring. The first spring after the war.We drove down Sniper Alley where so many civilians had to die.With us, the writer, Ivan Lovrenovic, returning to his city for the first time since the war.
51:41 In exile, he had seen the same terrible pictures of the siege of Sarajevo that we had.
51:49 Sarajevo had always been his home - until his neighborhood fell to the Serbs. Sealed off from the rest of the city, Grbavica was turned into an outpost for Karadzic’s snipers.
52:0252:10 On this March 21st 1996, the border between former Bosniak and Serb positions was opened for the first time. For the first time in three years residents driven from Grbavica could return to their neighborhood, their homes.Ivan also sees his apartment for the first time.
52:29 Nothing was destroyed. But the furnishings were gone - and his books. All his books and archives had vanished. Stolen most likely by the Serb officer quartered here.
52:43 Could the library of a Bosnian Croat help a Bosnian Serb to understand their common history? For Ivan, perhaps the only consolation.Ivan Lovrenovic is the author of BOSNIA: A CULTURAL HISTORY, and a prominent spokesman for the city’s multi-ethnic culture. One book finally does turn up – Labyrinth And Remembrance.
53:13 Sarajevo, May 2003. Sniper Alley is barely recognizable.No Street in the world has been the subject of so much media attention as this vibrant main artery of Sarajevo: a street that pulsed with life - A street where so many Sarajevans died under the crosshairs of Serb snipers and shells fired from artillery positions in the hills surrounding the city. The Serbs knew exactly what they were trying to hit …
53:48 The National and University Library - called “City Hall” by the Sarajevans, was considered to be one of the most eminent libraries in the world. Some 1.5 million volumes written in Latin, Cyrillic, Arabic and Hebrew chronicle the history of Bosnia and Sarajevo, where four high cultures bound by common ties had lived together for centuries. On May 5th 1992 – every shred of evidence that Muslims, Serbs, Croats had shared a common civilization – went up in smoke.
54:2254:42 March 1996. With Ivan Lovrenovic we visit the scene of the largest book burning in history.The city of Sarajevo replied to this barbaric act of Serb aggression by staging Mozart’s Requiem in the ruins of its library – with the war still raging.
55:09 This is “City Hall” today.What will become of this city? … Of this country? … Of this peace?
55:26 The façade of the library is restored. The roof was sponsored by the Austrian government. It’s contents forever lost.
55:40 The “Death Zone” between Serb and Muslim positions – is today a park.
55:51 “One day when the war is over,Those who survived the nether world,Shall say of themselves: what a strangeNew breed we are … the breed of the unbowed.” …
56:03 … Wrote one observer in his Chronicle Of Charred Illusions.
56:06 But who can write anything - after this hell?And how do they live today? The unbowed?
56:17 A bookstore café in the center of Sarajevo.Ivan Lovrenovic invites us here rather than to his home with its empty bookshelves. He comes here to write.Sometimes.
56:33 During the war he wrote for numerous foreign periodicals.In peace, the interest of the western media has shifted to other wars.Today, Ivan writes for a Bosnian magazine. He writes about peace – and the aftermath of peace - in the consciousness of his people.
56:56 O-TONE: Ivan Lovrenovic (ST)“Sarajevo is a complex story.The scars of war are still too fresh to talk about the wounds of peace. Sarajevans are still living with the trauma of war –whether they realize it or not.”
57:26 OFF-TONE: Ivan LovrenovicOn the other hand, it’s clear that what war unleashed in Bosnia & Herzegovina has changed the face of Sarajevo completely. New and unexpected urban conglomerates have surfaced in post-war Sarajevo - never before seen in this unexpected form.
57:49 Today, Ivan Lovrenovic is an editor and columnist at DANI.His weekly column is called “After The End.”
CREDITS A film byUlf von Mechow
Camera:Milenko Uherka Axel Funk, etc.
Sound: Boris Jugo Rudolf Roggemann Michael Alles
Film Editor: Enno Echt
Production Managers: Eldina Jasarevic Gerhard Hehrlein
Assistance: Adolf Hampel Nenad Popovic Mato Valjan
Commissioning Editor: Esther Schapira
Produced By: Ulf von Mechow films etc.
For Hessischen Rundfunk
In collaberation with arte © 2003
00:15 BOSNIA REVISITED
00:22 Eight years have passed since the Dayton Peace Accords were signed.I have come back to find out what this peace looks like.
00:2700:32 SEARCHING FOR PEACEA film by Ulf von Mechow
00:37 The images from my trip in 1996 are still fresh in my mind.
00:4400:51 Peace, at the time, was barely 3 months old …Bosnia March 1996. The war is over – the ensuing peace still shaky.I-FOR, an international implementation force, was deployed to prevent the resurgence of violence.
01:11 They patrolled the roads, granted journalists permission to film, authorized routes. The country was tense. The streets still unsafe.
01:30 The country looked deserted - whole regions depopulated -villages plundered and destroyed - houses gutted.
01:41 Bosnia, May 2003. Our journey begins just beyond the eastern border to Serbia. Along the highway – a thriving free trade zone - a “shopping mall” with a strange sounding name for the Balkans: “Arizona Market.”
02:10 You can find everything here that money can buy.Hawkers, fences, smugglers and beggars, included.
02:19 Trade in stolen goods is booming. The business, we learn, is firmly in the hands of former Serb leader and war criminal Radovan Karadzic -and the mafia.
02:33 Cigarettes, bootleg videos and CDs pour in from Serbia.
02:48 But the days of stalls and smalltime peddlers are numbered. Big business is moving in – with a wholesale outlet now under construction.
02:56 Arizona Market got its name from the roadmap issued to the international peacekeeping forces. All major roads in Bosnia are named after states of the USA – so that American soldiers can find their way around this country.
03:11 US military intervention finally put and end to the bloodbath in southeast Europe - after three gruesome years of war.
03:22 It was the American President, Bill Clinton, who stopped the murder of Bosnian Muslims by imposing the Dayton peace plan. 20,000 US soldiers were sent to Bosnia in November 1995. The international community deployed an additional 40,000 soldiers to enforce the peace - particularly in eastern Bosnia close to the Serbian border – the scene of heavy fighting during the war.
03:49 Gorazde, Zepa and Srebrenica, were declared UN “safe areas” to protect the Muslim population. Today Srebrenica - a little town in eastern Bosnia - stands for the worst massacre in Europe since WWII.
04:08 Potocari, eastern Bosnia, March 31st 2003. Muslims from throughout Bosnia gather here, just a stones throw from Srebrenica, to hold “Djenaza” - a Muslim burial ceremony for the victims of the massacre.
04:32 Paddy Ashdown, “High Representative” of the international community has come from Sarajevo. Known as the Viceroy of Bosnia by the western press, he welds more power in this country than the Bosnian government.
04:50 These women from Srebrenica have had to wait for eight years to bury the remains of their loved ones.
05:00 O-TONE: Woman at Grave (Subtitles)This is my husband, that’s my father-in-law.Thank God they were found.Now I can bury them with their names.Now I have a grave I can visit.I have no one left anymore. No one …
05:19 Srebrenica: Bosnian Muslims accounted for 75 percent of its inhabitants. Contested and under siege, Srebrenica became a UN-declared “safe area.”
05:32 The Serbs attacked Srebrenica in July 1995.Under the command of General Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb army, units of the Yugoslavian army, and armed irregulars took the city.The Muslim residents had fled to Potocari and Bratunac.
05:52 O-TONE: Mladic (Subtitles)Forward to Potocari …Forward to Potocari and Bratunac, keep moving …
05:55 At the time some 27,000 people took refuge from the Serbs in the UN peacekeeping camp in Potocari, where 400 UN soldiers were headquartered.
06:03 The ‘Blue Helmets’ – a Dutch Battalion of the UN forces - offered no resistance.NATO-ordered air strikes failed to appear.General Mladic had complete control over the situation -and over the fate of 27,000 Muslims.
06:15 O-TONE: Mladic (Subtitles)Don’t be afraid. No one will be harmed …
06:19 Serb cameramen cover his every move - while Serbian TV aired broadcasts meant to show the “orderly” ethnic cleansing of the region.
06:33 … Broadcasts of the evacuation of women and children … are seen around the world.
06:41 The fate of the men was revealed much later …by tales of survivors, by American satellite photos and by an amateur video taken by a Serbian soldier.
06:50 Men and boys were taken to remote locations where they were shot -and thrown into mass graves prepared in advance.
07:01 Some 7,000 to 10,000 unarmed Muslim men attempted to reach Tuzla through the woods. They were shelled by Serb artillery and hunted down by Serbian soldiers. Those who surrendered were shot in the woods.
07:23 O-TONE: (Subtitles)“Where is your weapon?”“I have no weapon.”“Are you afraid?”“How could I not be afraid.”“Forward. Move on.”
07:41 The last pictures of Ramo Aganovic.Taken by a Serb soldier on July 12, 1995.
07:55 The wait continues for scores of women. Mass graves have yet to be discovered. Eight years after the worst tragedy of the war, the remains of the first 600 to be identified are buried today, on this March 31st, 2003.
08:16 The nations President has come from Sarajevo.
08:22 The spiritual leader of Bosnian Islam presides over the burial ceremony.
08:28 The “High Representative” will give a speech and read a letter from the UN General Secretary. A message that Bosnia and the entire world should hear.
08:5008:59 O-TONE Paddy Ashdown“The United Nations remembers the horrible events of Srebrenica with the deepest pain.We must be sure, that such crimes are never again repeated,that justice is carried out fully through the work of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.”
09:16 Many more graves have yet to be discovered. A memorial for the more than 7,000 victims of the largest massacre in Europe since the Second World War will be erected here.
09:34 A long journey for the victims of Srebrenica – from the anonymity of mass graves to a single grave with a single name. In this laboratory in Tuzla, the nameless dead are given back their identities..
09:52 The names of fathers, sons, and husbands that relatives can mourn.
10:00 Anthropologists and forensic scientists work together at the “People Identification Project” to unravel the fate of the victims of genocide.
10:08 Using new DNA techniques body parts can be identified with blood samples from relatives, where only bones remain.
10:20 O-TONE Zlatan S.This is the storage space in our facility. And right now, in these 450 square meters, we have 4060 body bags with human remains.
10:31 40,000 people are listed as missing since the end of the war.In the mean time hundreds of graves and mass graves have been discovered. The daunting task of exhumation and identification continues to this day.
10:44 O-TONE Zlatan S.The biggest problem for us is that we have a lot of remains from secondary mass graves. Because at the end of war, Serbs in the Republika Srpska they tried to hide evidences and they used bulldozers and trucks, for example from one primary grave they created two or three secundary graves.
11:04 Eva Klonowska, a Polish anthropologist, has been working since the end of the war for the International Center for Missing Persons, together with colleagues from Canada and other western countries. While graves continue to be found – the identification process has become increasingly difficult.
11:2511:4211:5612:0512:22 O-TONE Eva Klonowska“Here in Tuzla identification of Srebrenica remains started actually on full scale last year. Because Srebrenica remains can only be identified by DNA. But all over Bosnia exhumation started already in 1995, the very first day after Sanski Most was liberated, exhumation started there.Because Sanski Most is situated in Krajina area, a part of northwest Bosnia which is called ‘Krajina’. It was the worst area of ethnic cleansing in mass in 1992.It is the place where were the worst concentration camps, if you can call them that, actually they were death camps: Omarska, Keraterm, Trnopolje and Manjiaca.And there is a lot of victims.”
12:30 “Krajina” means “Border” – this is what the region between Croatia and Bosnia is called. I traveled through this area in 1996. But what did we know then about this part of Yugoslavia – that so reminded us of an oriental fairytale with its mosques and minaret’s?
12:50 After this war the republics of Yugoslavia became nation states.The Dayton Peace Accords left Bosnia intact – at least on paper.In reality the agreement ratified the ethnic division of this country into a ‘Serbian Republic’ (shown in yellow), and a Croatian-Bosnian Federation (shown in green).
13:10 Many of the places we wanted to visit were inaccessible at the time. Roads and bridges were destroyed.
13:18 We drove from the northwest through the “Krajina” to reach Sanski Most, our first destination. Its name means “Bridge over the Sana.”
13:27 On the banks of the Sana River we had an appointment with a man willing to speak about the terrible suffering of his people –Himself a former prisoner in a Serb concentration camp.
13:40 Adil Draganovic, judge at the Criminal Court of Sanski Most, was appointed to investigate war crimes perpetrated in this district.
13:5514:18 O-TONE Adil Draganovic (Subtitles)Here on the Sana River, we are five kilometers from Sanski Most. This is the location of a mass grave for Bosniaks and Croatians. Serb aggressors committed genocide on a vast scale in the district of Sanski Most.More than 2000 inhabitants were killed here in 1992 – all of them civilians.
14:30 People from The Hague were already here. Next month we will begin with the exhumation and identification of the corpses in the area.
14:50 We suspect there are also some two to three hundred civilians buried here.
15:05 500 meters from here is another large mass grave.
15:12 Some 10,000 Muslims lived in this district.On the 31st of May 1992 the Bosnian army occupied the Bosnian Krajina. They shelled the villages, drove out the Muslims or slaughtered them.
15:45 The same village in May 2003 - Eight years after our first visit.The survivors of Hrustovo have returned to their village; they have rebuilt the bridge and their houses.The wrecked bridge over the Sana, that the judge showed us -under which so many Muslims were killed, has also been rebuilt.We push on toward Sanski Most.
16:20 First impressions reveal no trace of this town’s turbulent history during the last years. Sanski Most was conquered twice during the war. Serbian units occupied the town in the summer of 1992. Three years later the Bosnian Army took it back. The dome of a new mosque with twin minarets – a sign of Arab influence - looks over the city.
16:42 Many residents have since returned. Others, whose towns and villages now belong to the Serbian part of Bosnia were forced to make this their permanent home – including 15,000 refugees returning from Germany. More than 90 percent of the inhabitants are Bosniaks – as the Muslims now call themselves. Their new mosque stands once again at the center of town.
17:10 The same place in 1996. The central mosque in Sanski Most was destroyed. The Muslim quarter empty. All 30,000 Muslims were driven out, deported or murdered when the Bosnian-Serbian Army took the city in 1992 and held it until 1995.
17:31 The Muslims have returned – and so have the banks.But the residents have little to show for their stable currency. Few have work and the economy hangs on the drip of the international community. Investors are scarce, professionals and well-to-do Bosniaks remain outside of the country.
18:01 The Croatian Catholic Church of Sanski Most has also been rebuilt.But today only eight hundred Croatians live here. Before the war they numbered 4,000.
18:10 Croatian lawyers, doctors, civil servants had to flee or were interned in camps. Their churches were destroyed, their culture expunged.
18:20 Of the Serb residents – there were none to be seen. They had left the city with their retreating troops. Their church was not destroyed when Bosniak soldiers retook the city.
18:32 City hall was headquarters to the most popular Bosnian general.From here he planed to take Prijedor and Banja Luka and put and end to the specter of Republika Srpska. The Dayton Accords stopped him.
General Mehmet Alagic in his new role as mayor. He used the opportunity of his first interview with western media to solicit support for the reconstruction of his city.
19:00 O-TONE General Alagic: (Subtitles)… There are many opportunities here for the Germans, the French, for Arabs and Americans. Opportunities that would strengthen existing multi-ethnic and multi-religious relationships.
19:25 It is my dream that here in the Sana Valley, with its nine rivers, we can establish a little California. I Therefore call upon all peoples to assist us in whatever way the can.
19:39 Eight years later we return to visit the ‘General’ at city hall …
19:48 … but a new mayor sits in his chair. How did he get there?
20:00 O-TONE Mayor Mesud (Subtitles)During the last elections in 2000 I was elected mayor. With my party’s nomination I was able to win the trust of the voters. After what happened to Mr. Alagic new elections were called. I’ve been in office now for three years.
20:2720:43 What happened to his predecessor? - the new mayor doesn’t want to say. We should direct our inquiries to the city archive or the local TV station…where we find pictures of the career of a General in peacetime.
20:57 The new mayor works hard for his city. Foreign donations pour in – which he uses to build hospital wards, streets and bridges …
21:10 In Sanski Most, the ‘General’ rules like a tribal prince - with posts, houses and funds earmarked for members of his clan, his brothers-in-faith and political friends.
Alija Izetbegovic, Bosnia’s President and his party friend, supports the popular mayor – elected to parliament and poised for a promising national career.A career eclipsed by his abrupt downfall.
Charged with corruption and misappropriation of public funds Alagic is put on trial. Soon, war crimes are added to the list. Mehmed Alagic is stripped of his posts and brought before the War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague.
21:38 O-TONE: (Subtitles English/French)The international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia is now in session. Please be seated. (FRENCH)
21:47 On July 5th, 2001, General Alagic and two senior officers of the Bosniak Army are indicted for committing war crimes.
21:59 Their unit was responsible for executions and massacres in central Bosnia. The list of indictments is long.The Muslims, without doubt, were the victims in this war. They were attacked. But their counter offensive was rife with atrocities committed against the Serb and Croat populations.
O-TONE Alagic (Subtitle)Your Honors, I plead not guilty …
22:30 Before the conclusion of his trial the ‘General’ dies of cancer in February 2003. He was 56 years old.
22:40 A “victim of peace,” according to his friends – and he had many.Former brothers in arms and the highest representatives of Bosnia Herzegovina gather at his bier.Thousands of Muslims pay last respects to their ‘General.’
23:08 The international community sends no wreath for his burial.But the Bosniak people mourn one of their heroes.
23:19 O-TONE: Mayor Mesud (Subtitles)He fought to defend Bosnia and Herzegovina.But then he was made responsible for certain things that happened in central Bosnia. The citizens of Sanski Most don’t accept the fact that -to this very day, no one has ever been brought before The Hague and charged with genocide against Muslims and Croats in Sanski Most, although 1500 of our people were murdered.
23:50 He assembled the evidence for the genocide in Sanski Most.Judge Draganovic, the man who showed us the mass graves in 1996. Later as presiding judge over the trial of the mayor, subsequently sentenced to four years in jail, Judge Draganovic was dismissed from his post. Since then, he is reviled as a turncoat and a traitor. But he doesn’t speak about that.
24:14 He wants instead to show us the evidence of genocide in Sanski Most.He has made videos of the mass graves being opened.
24:46 O-TONE Draganovic (Subtitles)This is the exhumation of a mass grave under the bridge at Vrpoljethat I conducted with a team of experts in May 1996.This is valuable material today - evidence that will stand the test of time - as there is no statute of limitations for war crimes. This material will most certainly be used in cases against war criminals – large and small.
25:30 With the help of forensic scientists and pathologists, you can see how we determine the cause of death.This - was the cause of death.
25:58 The judge shows us one of his appearances before the The Hague Tribunal. Most of the cases were broadcast live on Bosnian TV.
26:16 He appeared four times as a witness. With his videos, and during the trial of Biljana Plavsic, ex-president of the Republic of Srpska.
26:28 The prosecutor questions Adil Draganovic about Serb prisons and camps. As a former internee at camp Manjiaca, he testifies against Mrs. Plavsic, who is charged with genocide.
26:45 O-TONE Adil Draganovic (Subtitles)There were 408 prison camps in 37 municipalitiesin which people were physically and psychologically abused.
27:02 The prosecutor calls for film clips to submit to the court as evidence. Draganovic is called upon for clarification.
27:18 O-TONE Adil Draganovic (Subtitles)… In the first 3 months this was a hunger camp.People were left to starve.There was never enough to eat.What was available was of bad quality.This is the block where I was kept.There were six such blocks –all full of prisoners stripped of every vestige of human dignity.
27:50 His testimony helped to convict the former Bosnian Serb president for genocide against the Muslims. She was sentenced to 14 years in jail.
28:03 His people have never thanked him. His own government, that he conscientiously served, dismissed him as a judge. Now unemployed, he will continue to serve the cause of justice as a private lawyer.
28:26 We continue our journey to ‘Republika Srpska’ – the republic of the Bosnian Serbs - just across the border from Sanski Most.
28:32 The same river flows here …The same landscape, the same language, a common history – but since the war, a different land.
28:42 The border between Sanski Most and Prijedor, as laid down by the Dayton Accords, corresponds to the front lines during last days of the war. The front remains - even in peace. Serbs formerly living in Sanski Most now stay away, and few Bosniaks dare to return to Prijedor or Kozarac where half of the population was Muslim.
29:04 Just outside the city of Prijedor: Keraterm.Once the site of a ceramics factory – it is one of the death camps Dr. Klonowska spoke of. Three thousand Muslims were imprisoned here – tortured and murdered.
29:18 The emblem of the Serb fascists on a garbage can … A bouquet of flowers on a locked gate … No trace of crimes committed here.
29:28 The names of the victims from Prijedor and Kozarac: men abducted, missing or murdered are recorded in this book. 3,227 in total.Family names, dates of birth, a picture when available. Among these names are also those of 228 women and 132 children.
29:47 The book is published by a women’s organization promoting reconciliation for the peoples of Bosnia. It provides assistance for individuals trying to return, and therapy for traumatized women.Once a year they hold an international women’s conference.
30:12 The organization, Srcem do Mira - Through Heart to Peace - was founded as an NGO in a Croatian refugee camp by displaced Bosnian women. Nusreta Sivac, left on the podium, is co-founder of the initiative.Before the war she was a judge in Prijedor.
30:36 Arrested in 1992, she was kidnapped and imprisoned in Camp Omarska. And though she fights for peace - she also struggles to maintain the awareness of the past. A visit to the camps is therefore part of their annual conference.
30:56 An ‘industrial plant’ not far from the main road. Until 1992, a mine. Thereafter the name Omarska became a synonym for rape and torture in the Bosnian war.
31:15 Nusreta Sivac takes the women to the place of her ordeal.English journalists discovered the camp at the end of 1992.Judge Sivac was the first to break the silence about the agony visited upon women during the war – where rape was as common a weapon as guns and bombs.
31:39 Emsuda, organizer of the conference, had asked the authorities for permission to visit the camp. But their police escort hasn’t shown up and the women are barred entrance to the grounds.
31:57 Nusreta began her fight for justice just after her liberation from Omarska. She traveled to The Hague to demand that rape no longer be tolerated as a side effect of war – but as a crime against humanity.
32:18 For her testimony before the Tribunal she was placed in a witness protection program: her name was barred from mention, her picture blurred for TV cameras, her voice distorted - to prevent acts of revenge by the accused still at large.
32:35 Thanks to her courage some of those responsible for rape have, in the meantime, been tried and sentenced. Outside of the courtroom and without protection, the judge from Prijedor continues tirelessly to expose the crimes at Omarska.
32:54 O-TONE: Nusreta Sivac (Subtitles)… But however strong and courageous one might be -the breakdown comes.The trauma of Omarska hit me after I returned from The Hague.Thank god its over!
33:15 It all comes back again in the courtroom -what you lived through,what you saw, what was done to you.You keep seeing the pictures of the dead before your eyes –and that gave me an enormous moral strength.
33:30 All the dead: my dearest friends,my colleagues, my fellow citizens …But particularly the five women who didn’t survive Omarska …They gave me the strength to speak in their names ...Because they can’t speak anymore.
33:52 37 women were tortured, abused and murdered in the “White House” of Omarska.The men were interned in the red building behind it.…
34:05 An aggressive security officer prohibits the women from getting any closer to the building - even though the police have since arrived. They are escorted to a different entrance to the site.
34:13 And so they hear the facts about this place. From May to August 1992, over 3000 intellectuals, academics, and political leaders - the elite of the Bosnian and Croatian population in the Krajina region - were incarcerated in this facility. Night after night, the men were interrogated and beaten. Many died under the torture. Hundreds of prisoners were murdered on these vast grounds and thrown into the mine pit.
34:43 The third camp: Trnopolje. Once a schoolhouse with an adjacent gym.
34:52 In August 1992, the secret of Omarska was revealed to the world by British TV-team. Shortly thereafter, its prisoners were transferred here. But the British journalist, Penny Marshall, discovered Trnopolje as well.
35:04 Her pictures and reports - broadcast throughout the world -alerted the international community.
35:13 But how did this journalist succeed in getting into the camp and making contact with the prisoners?Karadzic, during his stay in London, had personally granted Penny Marshall permission to visit Trnopolje. What he didn’t count on was the tenacity of western journalism.
35:32 A camp doctor supplied Marshall with pictures of the victims of torture. Within 24 hours these pictures were on the front pages of newspapers around the world – fortunately saving the life of that brave doctor.
35:50 The former women’s quarters at Trnopolje. Today, no recollection of the women tortured, raped or murdered here.
36:00 Whereas, just across the street – the Serbian Eagle - carved in stone -commemorates the “bravery of the rapists.”
36:07 The place of torture – is left to decay.But the memory of its victims will be kept alive by the women of Kocaraz.
36:21 Our next destination - Banja Luka.
36:26 Monuments to Yugoslav communism still stand in the capital city of the Bosnian Serbs.
36:36 For the Serbs Yugoslavia was merely a political metaphor for Greater Serbia. With the fall of Tito-Yugoslavia the Serbian Orthodox Church became the promoter of their Greater Serbian ideology. And, the reconstruction of their cathedral – directly across from the Parliament building - a symbol of their pure Serbian State.
36:59 The destruction of their cathedral and the genocide against Serbs in World War II by Croatian fascists - the Ustashe - was used by Serb propaganda to foment hatred of everything Croatian.
37:13 The Bishop’s Church and the residence of the Croatian catholic bishop of Banja Luka – were targeted by Serb propaganda as a “Vatican outpost” – and a “stronghold of anti-Serbian evil” – that Serbs, however, didn’t dare to destroy.
37:38 Arrival in Banja Luka in 1996. On the outskirts of the city, the ruins of a church built 10 years before the war by a Croatian parish. It was not destroyed in combat - there was no combat in Banja Luka. It was dynamited. Everything not Serbian was systematically wiped-out.
38:08 Never again should Croatians live here.
38:21 The majority of Bosnian Croats, for generations an integral part of Bosnian culture, were expelled from Banja Luka.
38:36 The Bosnian Muslims of Banja Luka fared much worse. Contemptuously called “Turks” by the Serbs – the destruction of their sacred monuments to the Ottoman culture and the expulsion of the Muslim population served as revenge for the Turkish conquest of Bosnia in 1389.
38:58 On this location stood the historic Ferhadija Mosque – built in 1579 - dynamited by the Serbs in 1992.
39:07 The Muslim community center in Banja Luka. In the Mufti’s audience chamber we are shown postcards of this city’s former symbol.
39:27 O-TONE: Mufti Halilovic OFF- (Subtitles)There were 16 mosques in our city before the war,ONbuilt over the last 500 years.The destruction of these mosques, combined with the torture, suffering and provocations were aimed at driving Bosnian Muslims out of the city.
40:07 O-TONE: Mufti Halilovic OFF- (Subtitles)90 percent of my community fell victim to this ethnic cleansing.That is the evil – That is genocide.
40:3040:35 During the war Mufti Halilovic spent three years under house arrest.With the Dayton Peace Accords he could now hope for the return of his community and the reconstruction of their mosques.
40:50 The prayer room of the Islamic Center in May 2003.The Mufti who received us seven years ago is dead.His successor isn’t available.10,000 Muslims have since returned to Banja Luka, we are told.
41:16 In the corner of the prayer room we see fragments of the historic Ferhadija Mosque. Whether or not the mosque will be rebuilt -no one here can say.
41:30 The grounds on which the Ferhadija Mosque stood for 500 years haven’t changed much since the shelling.Grass grows over its foundations.A tin sign marks the place where the new cornerstone should be laid.
41:50 The cornerstone laying ceremony was scheduled for May 7th 2001. Republika Srpska TV was there to film the event.Scenes of shattered hope.
42:04 The spiritual leader of Bosnia’s Muslims, the Reis el Uleima, had come from Sarajevo.
42:11 O-TONE: Reis el Uleima (ST)Ladies and Gentlemen, distinguished guests.We are, all of us, descendents of Adam.We are derived from Adam …
42:28 But for the Serbs, his ecumenical proclamation falls on deaf ears. Busloads of Muslims had arrived from the all over the country to take part in the ceremony.
42:43 For years, Bosnian Muslims had fought for the reconstruction of their mosque. And for years the Bosnian Serbs had sabotaged it. Until finally it was sanctioned by the international community. Politicians, diplomats and public dignitaries arrived for the event. The Reis conducted the ceremony until the violence spun out of control.
43:25 Footage from the encircled Muslim Community Center was taken by Bosnian TV from Sarajevo …
43:33 … Serb cameramen shot the scenes showing the perspective of the attacker.
43:40 For 6 hours the assembly grounds were plunged into chaos. Serb police did little to control the mob – nor to free the barricaded guests of honor from their unpleasant situation.
44:03 O-TONE: Jacques Klein (ENGLISH)Hi, Sam. … where is the SFOR liaison officer? Where is SFOR? Where are the 20,000? …American peace broker, Jacques Klein, calls for the stabilization forces. After a long, tense wait they finally rescue the prominent guests.
44:20 At the end of the day, May 7th 2001, dozens of injured and one dead.The reconstruction of the mosque, the symbol of reconciliation for which the Muslims had waited so long – is now as then - nowhere in sight.
44:36 The reconstruction of the Serbian cathedral – meant to be a symbol in stone for the ethnic purity of the Bosnian state – is also at a standstill.
45:00 Meanwhile, Bosnian Serbs hear and see very different, global messages.
45:07 Even voices from Belgrade are increasingly self-critical of the Serbian national hubris. As can be heard in the songs of Serbia’s most popular poet and songwriter, Djordje Balasevic.
45:23 O-TONE: Djordje Balasevic (Song)“A devil had long ago sat on your doorstep, Serbia.Nobody alive remembers so many misfortunes.Neighbors are building bulwarks of rage and contempt around you.That has not happened, yet …only the insane can feel happy,while the others live in shame ….”
45:45 He is not one of the insane. Nor is he ashamed of being a Bosnian Serb. Zeljko Kopanja is co-founder and editor of Nezavisne Novine – the largest independent Serb daily in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Nezavisne means independent. But with the ‘devil’ still alive – and with paramilitaries in league with the mafia – critical, independent journalism in Bosnia is a dangerous profession. Zeljko Kopanja narrowly survived a car bomb.
46:18 O-TONE: Zeljko Kopanja (ST)When I woke up in the hospital, I knew immediatelythat both my legs were gone.But I knew I’d survive.
46:35 Hovering between life and death –I experienced a state of happiness -A feeling that turned to bliss the day I awokewith the knowledge that my editorial staff had not been disbanded -that the paper was still alive.It came out as usual.
46:51 If by eliminating me they thought they could kill the paper they were wrong. I knew then that we were on the right track. …
47:05 … Which is to expose the truth about the war.We need the truth.Without it people here can’t live a normal life.
47:15 15,000 copies are printed daily and sold throughout the country.Many, however, are afraid to buy it.
47:25 Many are still afraid of the truth in Republika Srpska - and of the peace that threatens to undermine the belief in their nation - and in their former leaders.
47:40 Pictures, symbols and the heraldry of Serb fascism are still openly sold. The icons of the Orthodox Church – Serbian saints - stand beside Karadzic, Mladic, Milosevic – the icons of a debased ideology.
47:55 O-TONE: ‘Chetnik’Business is brisk, the vendor tells us. The Brits were particularly keen on Chetnik heraldry. They were good customers. They bought flags, emblems, the Serb insignia. But they don’t come anymore. They were probably pulled out,” he says.
48:12 His kiosk is at the bus depot in Banja Luka – where buses leave for Belgrade and the mountain villages of Republika Srpska …where Karadzic and Mladic are thought to be.
48:29 1996. In the mountains of Bosnia.Our next destination: Pale - then Bosnian Serb capitol and wartime stronghold. To get there - we’d have to walk.
48:49 Seven years later the highways have been repaired.Twice, on the road from Banja Luka to Pale, we cross the border between Bosniak and Serb zones.
48:59 Bridges and tunnels are operating again. …
49:05 … border checks between the Federation and Republika Srpska – a thing of the past. Bosnia appears to be on the road to normalcy.
49:16 Pale - the wartime capitol of the Bosnian Serbs. We had expected something different. Karadzic’s lodge looks more like a ski resort.His empty headquarters, where the fate of Srebrenica and Sarajevo was decided ...
49:32 …Today, the view from his former stronghold is more reminiscent of a placid Alpine village. An idyll with a sinister past.
49:42 Pale was the “Heart Of Darkness”- for one Sarajevan filmmaker. Stuck here during the first weeks of the war – he could only watch and write while the Serbs pounded his city with heavy artillery,
49:59 Just below the mountains - in the valley - the enemy city could be shelled with ease. For this was also a war between mountain and valley, village against city; rural Serbian and urban Moslem culture.
50:18 Radovan Karadzic, leader of the Bosnian Serbs, and his General Ratko Mladic on their way to observe the shelling of Sarajevo. That was 1993. Wanted for war crimes since 1996 – they are still at large in 2003.The 5 million dollar bounty has not – so far - tempted Serbs to turn over their former leaders to the Hague Tribunal.
50:44 For three years, vacillating US and European policy allowed Karadzic to attain power of abstruse proportions. For three years Karadzic was allowed to sabotage every peace initiative while the world watched the slow death of Sarajevo on their TV sets. Finally, in August 1995, after yet another Serb grenade slaughtered 65 civilians, NATO commenced the long awaited air strikes against Serb positions. Two months later the war was over.
51:22 Sarajevo, March 1996: Its spring. The first spring after the war.We drove down Sniper Alley where so many civilians had to die.With us, the writer, Ivan Lovrenovic, returning to his city for the first time since the war.
51:41 In exile, he had seen the same terrible pictures of the siege of Sarajevo that we had.
51:49 Sarajevo had always been his home - until his neighborhood fell to the Serbs. Sealed off from the rest of the city, Grbavica was turned into an outpost for Karadzic’s snipers.
52:0252:10 On this March 21st 1996, the border between former Bosniak and Serb positions was opened for the first time. For the first time in three years residents driven from Grbavica could return to their neighborhood, their homes.Ivan also sees his apartment for the first time.
52:29 Nothing was destroyed. But the furnishings were gone - and his books. All his books and archives had vanished. Stolen most likely by the Serb officer quartered here.
52:43 Could the library of a Bosnian Croat help a Bosnian Serb to understand their common history? For Ivan, perhaps the only consolation.Ivan Lovrenovic is the author of BOSNIA: A CULTURAL HISTORY, and a prominent spokesman for the city’s multi-ethnic culture. One book finally does turn up – Labyrinth And Remembrance.
53:13 Sarajevo, May 2003. Sniper Alley is barely recognizable.No Street in the world has been the subject of so much media attention as this vibrant main artery of Sarajevo: a street that pulsed with life - A street where so many Sarajevans died under the crosshairs of Serb snipers and shells fired from artillery positions in the hills surrounding the city. The Serbs knew exactly what they were trying to hit …
53:48 The National and University Library - called “City Hall” by the Sarajevans, was considered to be one of the most eminent libraries in the world. Some 1.5 million volumes written in Latin, Cyrillic, Arabic and Hebrew chronicle the history of Bosnia and Sarajevo, where four high cultures bound by common ties had lived together for centuries. On May 5th 1992 – every shred of evidence that Muslims, Serbs, Croats had shared a common civilization – went up in smoke.
54:2254:42 March 1996. With Ivan Lovrenovic we visit the scene of the largest book burning in history.The city of Sarajevo replied to this barbaric act of Serb aggression by staging Mozart’s Requiem in the ruins of its library – with the war still raging.
55:09 This is “City Hall” today.What will become of this city? … Of this country? … Of this peace?
55:26 The façade of the library is restored. The roof was sponsored by the Austrian government. It’s contents forever lost.
55:40 The “Death Zone” between Serb and Muslim positions – is today a park.
55:51 “One day when the war is over,Those who survived the nether world,Shall say of themselves: what a strangeNew breed we are … the breed of the unbowed.” …
56:03 … Wrote one observer in his Chronicle Of Charred Illusions.
56:06 But who can write anything - after this hell?And how do they live today? The unbowed?
56:17 A bookstore café in the center of Sarajevo.Ivan Lovrenovic invites us here rather than to his home with its empty bookshelves. He comes here to write.Sometimes.
56:33 During the war he wrote for numerous foreign periodicals.In peace, the interest of the western media has shifted to other wars.Today, Ivan writes for a Bosnian magazine. He writes about peace – and the aftermath of peace - in the consciousness of his people.
56:56 O-TONE: Ivan Lovrenovic (ST)“Sarajevo is a complex story.The scars of war are still too fresh to talk about the wounds of peace. Sarajevans are still living with the trauma of war –whether they realize it or not.”
57:26 OFF-TONE: Ivan LovrenovicOn the other hand, it’s clear that what war unleashed in Bosnia & Herzegovina has changed the face of Sarajevo completely. New and unexpected urban conglomerates have surfaced in post-war Sarajevo - never before seen in this unexpected form.
57:49 Today, Ivan Lovrenovic is an editor and columnist at DANI.His weekly column is called “After The End.”
CREDITS A film byUlf von Mechow
Camera:Milenko Uherka Axel Funk, etc.
Sound: Boris Jugo Rudolf Roggemann Michael Alles
Film Editor: Enno Echt
Production Managers: Eldina Jasarevic Gerhard Hehrlein
Assistance: Adolf Hampel Nenad Popovic Mato Valjan
Commissioning Editor: Esther Schapira
Produced By: Ulf von Mechow films etc.
For Hessischen Rundfunk
In collaberation with arte © 2003