Kareem Salama

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This is another documentary about the genocide which happen in July 1995 in the small east-bosnian town Srebrenica where more than 8,000 Bosnian muslims were killed by Serb troops although the United Nations had declared Srebrenica a UN-protected “safe area” but that did not prevent the massacre, even though 400 armed Dutch peacekeepers were present at the time.

In this report Srebrenica victim’s relatives talk about their lives and every-day nightmares. (Al Jazeera, Witness, 4 September 2007)

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The small mining town of Omarska in Republika Srpska (the Serb part of Bosnia) epitomises the problems facing Bosnia, a country still very much divided. The Omarska iron mine was among the most notorious concentration camps in use during the Bosnian war. Thirteen years after the conflict it has been taken over by Arcelor Mittal, the world’s largest steel company, and is working again. Bosniaks have returned to settle and are campaigning for a memorial to those killed and tortured in the now-working mine. They want to turn the white house, one of the prisoner holding facilities, into a memorial centre, but are facing stiff opposition from the Serb authorities.

Denying history seems to be exactly what is happening in Republika Srpska and it is creating divisions. Milorad Dodik, the leader of Republika Srpska, is aggressively reversing a decade of reforms with control over his mini-state becoming more and more centralist and subject to serious accusations of corruption. He does not think Bosnia can survive and does not want it to, regarding Republika Srpska as a state in itself.

After 10 years of progress which made Bosnia the world’s most successful exercise in post-conflict reconstruction, there is a real threat of Bosnia breaking up again.

The Bosniak diaspora and returnees to Republika Srpska are putting money into the area and many of them are trying to establish new links with their Serb neighbours, some of whom victimised them during the war. They are trying to forgive, but not forget.

The point of the Omarska memorial is to acknowledge the past and move on from it, away from more ethnic division. How far they can persuade their Serb neighbours to do this only time will tell, and until then the region will stay volatile.

The capture of Radovan Karadzic was celebrated across Europe but there are warnings that the politics of the country he left behind are increasingly fractured.

Dom Rotheroe travelled to Bosnia to investigate for Al Jazeera.

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Tomorrow, on 11th July 2008 is the 13th commemoration of the genocide in Srebrenica. This is a documentary film about this topic.

Six years after BBC showed A Cry From the Grave (1999), a film by Leslie Woodhead about the 1995 Srebrenica massacre in which more than 7,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were rounded up and murdered by the Bosnian Serb army, BBC made a new film about the Srebrenica genocide.

This second film was commissioned as an attempt to judge what had happened since the massacre. Had any degree of reparation been made to those who had lost their families? Had it been possible to bring some of the offenders to justice? Did the world care to remember what had happened in the worst atrocity to be committed in Europe since 1945?

The town of Srebrenica is still struggling to come back to life. A memorial has been put up at the site of the Dutch UN base from which the men and boys were taken. Very few of the perpetrators have been brought to justice. Four of the characters from the first film appear in this one – and their anger and contempt hasn’t withered on the vine. Not easy viewing, but absolutely necessary.

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