Women's Empowerment and Leadership Development for Democratisation
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Serbia and Montenegro: Srebrenica 2004
Message from Jasmina Tesanovic, of Women in Black Belgrade, on 10th July 2004.
It was my daughter's birthday, twentieth, a rather important date for a person who grew up in Milosevic's Serbia, born on the date of his wife Mira Markovic, who incessantly celebrated the fortunate event that made all of us rather miserable not only politically but in my case personally too. I had a feeling that even that rather rare moment in my private life has been snatched away from us as private persons and made a matter of public charade if not crime: so why bother to celebrate it, considering that my daughter was born in 1984, Orwell science fiction dark year which turned somewhat true in Serbian history, we developed in my family this habit to share this private date as a public issue.
This year as every beginning of July was a ritual standing of Women in Black in the Square of Republic for the victims of Srebrenica, 9 years after the massacre, in occasion of the burial of new 338 identified bodies, now more that thousand out of 8000 which have disappeared.
We regularly reported our standing, got the official permission, yet once we were there we realized that the square was already occupied by two very loud and commercial events, so we had to retire under the famous Ljilja's clock (our activist) where in the past few months we have been collecting the signatures for, first the abolition of the law supporting the Hague war criminals, then for our recently elected presidential candidate Boris Tadic.
Before we even managed to spread our banners, a woman from the usual onlookers stepped forward and started screaming incessantly; traitors, whores, CIA agents, AID patients, the usual repertoire... The police standing by our side was passive; the woman ran into our crowd of fifty, and started hitting random, she hit Ljilja, Cica, Stasa and Slavica; she did it fast and strong. The police finally stopped her while our Women in Black were trying to respond but not particularly surprised, it happened before. It happened only two months ago when three of our activists were beaten repeatedly and nobody was arrested afterwards and of course several other times during the Milosevic's regime.
We organized ourselves rapidly in the usual circle with our pacifist and antimilitarist and antinationalist banners asking for the responsibility of the former and present regime for the massacre in Srebrenica. That triggered some others to join the combative woman. Other few women and some men. I recognized one from the last time our activists were beaten and the other from the famous gay lesbian pride march back in 2001 when the 15 activists were incessantly persecuted and beaten and spitted by 900 hooligans as well as members of the Obraz (nationalist) organization.
We stood for one hour listening to their threats and offences, extremely radical this time: they threatened to skin us next
time, to bring weapons, to take us to the court of traitors... to rape us ... They sang Ko to kaze ko tolaze Srbija je mala (nationalist song) and they shouted the names of their heroes, Seselj, Mladic Karadzic Milosevic... The police wrote down their id's as well as those of attacked women in black women and then stood in silence.
After the standing we closed our banners and took a seat in the nearby Gradska kafana (restaurant): we did not want to leave one by one, and we had foreign guests who were visibly upset. We hoped the harassers would leave first, instead they gathered around us waiting. After some time we stood up and asked to police to protect us by making the aggressors leave...Instead the police asked us to leave because they claimed they could not protect us even though we were in a bigger number then the hooligans, even though we have all the legal and moral right to be where we were and do what we did. Even though the next day the democratic candidate was to be proclaimed the official president of Serbia, even though... We were summoned into cabs and denied to right to walk down the streets, some of us were furious, some scared but most of us, I guess used to it. Srebrenica is a bad word for modern Serbia, even worse then feminism, and the Women in Black put the two together...
The next day, early in the morning we went to Srebrenica for the ritual standing in the memorial valley where the victims are buried. Our women friends greeted us and gave us the first row so that our banner Women in Black from Belgrade can be visible for the mass auditorium, press...and it never fails to be noticed, because it is important, for them, for us... paradoxically these last years for us it became safer and more significant to stand in Srebrenica 11the of July than to assist the first democratic president we supported with all our might to be elected while he was anointed the very same day in Belgrade: why did we have to chose and given the choice, how come only few of us were in Srebrenica...and why the obvious fact such as 8000 missing people from Srebrenica some of which found buried in Serbia proper never ever becomes a reality in Belgrade.
I had a wish for the maturity birthday of my daughter next year: that the 338 wrapped bodies passed from hand to hand in Bratunac by relatives of the survived, if any, were passed here in the republic Square by our so called decent citizens and policemen who every year now just watch us silently while the war criminals and their loud supporters make the rules according to which we all are their hostages, willing or milling. I know my wish will never come true, but I also know that if we stop wishing we may get what we really want, as an English proverb says. And god forbid what that may be when it comes to Serbia whose favourite proverb is: one can fool around with everything but never with police or army...
PS Why the nature becomes so beautiful wherever the crime is committed, said my friend. She was right; I never pay attention to the nature unless I am obliged to. The Srebrenica valley is demanding it: the intensive green colours, the soothing sounds of the wind and birds, the blazing sun which heats without hurting...the design of the clouds...the neat border lines of the place of the crime. On one side the abandoned railway tracks, the barracks the weeds...the barbed wire...in the same condition as 9 years ago; there the male victims were held once separated from the families...Later on they were executed somewhere else they say...it is a Auschwitz atmosphere that side of the valley triangle, it strikes for its organized efficiency, so many people executed in so few days, the technology bothers me, and images of general Mladic throwing chocolates to the children behind the barbed wire...
The other side is a hill, not very steep, today covered with humble even graves of the identified recovered victims...the third side is a steep hill with a tree or two, where usually we come and stand during the ritual prayers. And in the middle, the memorial erected last year, a construction resembling a tent a cupola under which the bodies are assembled in rows, where the priest and speakers address god or commons. It is not an even side triangle, it does not resemble justice or beauty, it is even slightly sinister when the shadows start creeping in the late afternoon, it has no running water and has a lot of dust, but somehow every year I have a catharsis there, even though I am not a Muslim, I am not a man who prays
and I am not even a foreigner anymore there. The place has the captive beauty of a place of a crime: there where men have wronged the nature rebels.
We regularly reported our standing, got the official permission, yet once we were there we realized that the square was already occupied by two very loud and commercial events, so we had to retire under the famous Ljilja's clock (our activist) where in the past few months we have been collecting the signatures for, first the abolition of the law supporting the Hague war criminals, then for our recently elected presidential candidate Boris Tadic.
Before we even managed to spread our banners, a woman from the usual onlookers stepped forward and started screaming incessantly; traitors, whores, CIA agents, AID patients, the usual repertoire... The police standing by our side was passive; the woman ran into our crowd of fifty, and started hitting random, she hit Ljilja, Cica, Stasa and Slavica; she did it fast and strong. The police finally stopped her while our Women in Black were trying to respond but not particularly surprised, it happened before. It happened only two months ago when three of our activists were beaten repeatedly and nobody was arrested afterwards and of course several other times during the Milosevic's regime.
We organized ourselves rapidly in the usual circle with our pacifist and antimilitarist and antinationalist banners asking for the responsibility of the former and present regime for the massacre in Srebrenica. That triggered some others to join the combative woman. Other few women and some men. I recognized one from the last time our activists were beaten and the other from the famous gay lesbian pride march back in 2001 when the 15 activists were incessantly persecuted and beaten and spitted by 900 hooligans as well as members of the Obraz (nationalist) organization.
We stood for one hour listening to their threats and offences, extremely radical this time: they threatened to skin us next
time, to bring weapons, to take us to the court of traitors... to rape us ... They sang Ko to kaze ko tolaze Srbija je mala (nationalist song) and they shouted the names of their heroes, Seselj, Mladic Karadzic Milosevic... The police wrote down their id's as well as those of attacked women in black women and then stood in silence.
After the standing we closed our banners and took a seat in the nearby Gradska kafana (restaurant): we did not want to leave one by one, and we had foreign guests who were visibly upset. We hoped the harassers would leave first, instead they gathered around us waiting. After some time we stood up and asked to police to protect us by making the aggressors leave...Instead the police asked us to leave because they claimed they could not protect us even though we were in a bigger number then the hooligans, even though we have all the legal and moral right to be where we were and do what we did. Even though the next day the democratic candidate was to be proclaimed the official president of Serbia, even though... We were summoned into cabs and denied to right to walk down the streets, some of us were furious, some scared but most of us, I guess used to it. Srebrenica is a bad word for modern Serbia, even worse then feminism, and the Women in Black put the two together...
The next day, early in the morning we went to Srebrenica for the ritual standing in the memorial valley where the victims are buried. Our women friends greeted us and gave us the first row so that our banner Women in Black from Belgrade can be visible for the mass auditorium, press...and it never fails to be noticed, because it is important, for them, for us... paradoxically these last years for us it became safer and more significant to stand in Srebrenica 11the of July than to assist the first democratic president we supported with all our might to be elected while he was anointed the very same day in Belgrade: why did we have to chose and given the choice, how come only few of us were in Srebrenica...and why the obvious fact such as 8000 missing people from Srebrenica some of which found buried in Serbia proper never ever becomes a reality in Belgrade.
I had a wish for the maturity birthday of my daughter next year: that the 338 wrapped bodies passed from hand to hand in Bratunac by relatives of the survived, if any, were passed here in the republic Square by our so called decent citizens and policemen who every year now just watch us silently while the war criminals and their loud supporters make the rules according to which we all are their hostages, willing or milling. I know my wish will never come true, but I also know that if we stop wishing we may get what we really want, as an English proverb says. And god forbid what that may be when it comes to Serbia whose favourite proverb is: one can fool around with everything but never with police or army...
PS Why the nature becomes so beautiful wherever the crime is committed, said my friend. She was right; I never pay attention to the nature unless I am obliged to. The Srebrenica valley is demanding it: the intensive green colours, the soothing sounds of the wind and birds, the blazing sun which heats without hurting...the design of the clouds...the neat border lines of the place of the crime. On one side the abandoned railway tracks, the barracks the weeds...the barbed wire...in the same condition as 9 years ago; there the male victims were held once separated from the families...Later on they were executed somewhere else they say...it is a Auschwitz atmosphere that side of the valley triangle, it strikes for its organized efficiency, so many people executed in so few days, the technology bothers me, and images of general Mladic throwing chocolates to the children behind the barbed wire...
The other side is a hill, not very steep, today covered with humble even graves of the identified recovered victims...the third side is a steep hill with a tree or two, where usually we come and stand during the ritual prayers. And in the middle, the memorial erected last year, a construction resembling a tent a cupola under which the bodies are assembled in rows, where the priest and speakers address god or commons. It is not an even side triangle, it does not resemble justice or beauty, it is even slightly sinister when the shadows start creeping in the late afternoon, it has no running water and has a lot of dust, but somehow every year I have a catharsis there, even though I am not a Muslim, I am not a man who prays
and I am not even a foreigner anymore there. The place has the captive beauty of a place of a crime: there where men have wronged the nature rebels.