Yesterday, the Bosnian State Prosecutor’s
Office filed indictments against Nedjeljko Milidragovic and Aleksa Golijanin. Milidragovic, former commander of a
unit within the special police squad of the Republika Srpska, and his deputy
Golijanin are believed to have committed genocide between July 10th
and July 19th 1995. Included in the specific allegations is a
reference to the use of an old storage facility at Kravica, a few kilometers
outside Srebrenica on the road towards Bratunac. Here it is alleged
Miladragovic ordered the mass execution of Muslim men and boys who were rounded
up and held here as Srebrenica fell and people fled.
Reading the story in Balkan
Insight reminded me of a time we gave a ride in our car to a local lady who
was returning to Srebrenica from Tuzla for the weekend. We happened to be going
in her direction and so offered her a lift. As well as a journey filled with
her richly descriptive personal recollections of the war and life in Srebrenica
during the conflict, she also pointed out some of the most significant
execution and burial sites as we passed them along the road.
It’s easy to miss these locations. They don’t jump out at you.
If they are identified at all it is usually by a small black granite plaque
positioned by the side of the road with a brief description of what happened
there during the war or what was found there afterwards. At the primary and
secondary gravesites, vegetation now hides any mark of exhumation and you don’t
notice signs of disturbance from the contours of the meadows. Buildings are
derelict and inconspicuous. They don’t give up their secrets, from the outside
at least. The warehouse at Kravica is quite ordinary in this respect. The
building is dilapidated and the small sign marking the significance of the site
whizzes past the car window when you’re not looking out for it. Once identified
for us by our passenger we went back later on to have a better look.
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| A haunting place; the warehouse Kravica Kristian Skeie |
Kristian’s photo of the warehouse at Kravica presents a gloomy
cold and unreal looking place and once you know what happened, you are
haunted by a feeling that doesn’t leave you as you stand to look at it in any
season. Here, on the 13th July 1995, men and boys were
herded, packed in tightly, left with no food, water or sanitation for hours and
hours before the order was given at 5pm to lock the doors and windows and begin
killing. Soldiers threw grenades through the windows and waited outside ready
to shoot those who managed to escape to the car park at the front of the
building. Leaving sufficient time for those not killed outright to die, diggers
were then sent in to begin clearing-up operations. Dismembered corpses were
shoveled into the jaws of the trucks that were then driven out of the warehouse
along the road and into a neighboring field. A freshly dug mass grave awaited.
Bodies were tipped into the hole (imagine rubbish tipping at a land-fill waste
site). Water from the facilities water tank in the car park was used to wash
away the blood-soaked trail that drenched the tarmac in front of the building
and the main road. Not much immediate evidence of the atrocity remained.
In the quietness of the countryside as I look at the building, I imagine the noise of it all. It must have
been immense; the screams, the explosions and then the diggers. After execution, the whole place must have sounded like a construction site.
It's good that the men thought to be responsible for ordering the
killings at Kravica have finally been indicted, but for the survivors and for
the family members who lost loved ones that day there is a cruel, but not altogether
uncommon twist to proceedings. Both Milidragovic and Golijanin are Serbian
citizens and reside there. Serbia doesn’t usually extradite her war criminals.
Ratko Mladic is a rare exception. Clare Cook 19.06.12.13:42
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| The warehouse in the spring Kristian Skeie |
