Day 79: A Cry From the Grave

Today I watched an incredibly sad documentary called A Cry From the Grave about the Srebrenica Massacre in Europe. In 1995 more than 7,000 Bosnian Muslims were executed in the small town of Srebrenica by the Bosnian Serb Army, led by General Ratko Mladic. The Muslims and Serbs were in conflict over territory stemming from the breakup of Yugoslavia. By 1995 the majority of the fighting had stopped, but the Serbs were still seeking control of Muslim cities. On July 10th 1995 the Serb army took over Srebrenica and began a massacre that lasted more than a week. Muslim refugees fled into the mountains to escape certain death. Some 7,000 civilians were killed, raped and tortured.

Srebrenica 

The film follows the widows and refugees as they seek justice and closure. We follow the events of the massacre as they unfolded hour by hour, watching from all sides; the Muslims, the Serbs, and the UN troops. A group of Dutch UN soldiers had been deployed earlier in the summer to maintain peace between the two factions and to keep the Serbs from attacking Srebrenica outright. Most of the film is made up of first hand footage taken from all three sides.

The film was very hard to watch. For a variety of reasons. Obviously the gravity of the situation, the heart-wrenching footage of widows and refugees detailing their experiences, and the grotesqueness of the mass graves. But it was also striking to see constant reminders of how recent this genocide was. Personal camcorders capture the invading troops as they lay siege to the city. Men wear Nike shirts as they flee. It's easy to displace the events as something that happened long ago, like the Holocaust. But this was only 16 years ago- long after the horrors of WWII. This was the age of Clinton, Post-Desert Storm, in the midst of the rising dotcom boom. Incredible to think of the progress one side of the world was making while others were slipping into savage barbarianism.

I know enough about history and war to know you shouldn't pick sides. History, unlike film and fiction, rarely divides itself neatly between heroes and villains: even in the most dire of situations there are two sides to every story. But the Srebrenica Massacre seems completely unwarranted. It was a peaceful, quiet town (a health resort for tourism) filled with civilian families. The Serbs had occupied it earlier in 1992, and I suppose they wanted it back again, despite the lack of any military or economic infrastructure. The Serb general, Mladic, is shown briefly in some footage his soldiers took. He comes off as a cold, merciless man more at home in a 80's action movie than real life. There's an eerie scene of him walking the deserted streets of Srebrenica moments after the invasion. He's cheerful and proud, commanding his men to tear down street signs and Muslim flags from windows.

So the town was taken over, with little resistance from the UN soldiers. As one soldier put it, it wasn't "their war" and that made it difficult to put up much of a fight. There's footage of the commander of the UN troops meeting with Mladic, over drinks and cigars, calmly negotiating the fate of the town and its people. Mladic demands that all guns are turned over to the Serbs.They shake hands as they part. Within days the UN had turned over the city to the Serbs, and kicked the Muslims out of their base. The massacre began the following day.

This film left me with two big questions; where was the United States, or the rest of the world, during all this? What role were we playing, if any? I don't mean the Bosnian/Serb War, I mean the Srebrenica Massacre. Is it possible we just didn't know this was happening? If so, what did we do once we found out about it? Mladic was not officially charged with war crimes until last year, and has yet to be sentenced. Before I watched this I had never heard of the Srebrenica massacre. It was never discussed in school, by my family, my friends, the media, no one. Why? What purpose does silence serve here? Reverence? Respect? The survivors would ask for the very opposite, I would think; that everyone know what happened here. That is what the survivors of the Holocaust would want.

Which leads me to my second question; why are genocides still happening? Why are we allowing them to happen? I thought the lesson we were supposed to pull from the Holocaust, the terrible story we are told over and over again in school, was to stop things as terrible as genocide from ever occurring again. To speak up, to become involved at the slightest sign of trouble, despite the political or financial obligations it might create. We all regret the Holocaust, so why aren't we doing more to ensure it is never done again? In Bosnia, in Africa, in Syria, everywhere?

You can watch the documentary here:

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