Through decades of searching for missing persons in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), the name of Amor Masovic has become synonymous with the fight for truth and the hope of families that the bones of their loved ones will find their rest.
There are no people
This July 11th, Masovic will be in Potocari, and for the interview, he spoke about the thoughts that have been going through his head for several years when he steps on the holy ground of the valley of white tombstones.
“For two years now, I have been thinking about a group of people from Srebrenica that we have forgotten. This is a group of nearly 100 victims of genocide who were exhumed from mass graves in the past 20 years. They were not given a name and their bones lie in Tuzla in white bags, without any hope of finding peace. During all these funerals over the past few years, something was missing. Those people are missing, people who should share the fate of those whose fate they shared during the four-year siege of Srebrenica, and at the end of the genocide. They were together, captured together, shot, buried, dug up, and reburied together with them, were with them in the Commemorative Center in Tuzla… I don’t see any reason why Bosniaks don’t say goodbye to them. This is my first association and I appeal to the Organizing Committee and those who make the decision to bury these people in Potocari,” says Masovic.
He explains that these are incomplete skeletal remains that did not match the DNA samples of the survivors and that they too should find their peace in the graves which, temporarily or permanently, would receive a tombstone marked NN.
This year, in the Memorial Center in Potocari, funerals will be held for 31 victims of genocide, including four minors.
The youngest victim is 15-year-old Elvir Salcinovic, who will find peace with his father and brother. Nezir Muminovic is the oldest victim of the genocide in Srebrenica, who will be buried tomorrow. He was 65 years old when he was killed.
Srebrenica remains an open wound of the Bosniak people, which hurts the most on July 11th, a terrible chapter from the period of aggression in BiH that will never be written to the end. To a normal human mind, it is difficult to explain what those old men, women, and especially children were guilty of.
“There are hundreds of untold stories. How did those 600 boys spend the last moments of their lives? What were they thinking about while standing in the lines to be shot? Six hundred boys from one small area. Only a few, who hid under the bodies and hot blood of those who had just been shot, were able to tell their story,” says Masovic.
Beating is the only cure
The denial of the genocide from the Republika Srpska (RS), and especially Milorad Dodik’s swearing of the genocide, is an insult to tens of thousands of families in this country, all those who survived the war, and especially to the man who searched for, found, watched, recorded its terrible consequences for years after the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement.
“This passes without any punishment. I do not believe that these amendments to the Criminal Code will apply to him (Dodik). The only remedy is the complete elimination and ban of political activity, but I am not convinced that this will happen. The High Representative said that his decision was directed against individuals who behave that way, but did he ask himself who chose these individuals? I am afraid that the only remedy for many in BiH, even in Kosovo, is what has already been tried and tested – a beating. Otherwise, this will escalate until the moment when tensions become such that anything is possible,” points out Masovic, Avaz reports.
E.Dz.
Photo: Avaz
