Ten years after Srebrenica, war’s wounds remain raw

Today, the only males in the village are a handful of teenagers and a couple of men in their early 20s who were children when the carnage occurred. So it is women who haul wood and cut it for kindling, hoe the subsistence gardens and herd cattle.

Only a few Muslims have moved back to the town of Srebrenica itself, even though many of those Serbs who had taken over Muslim homes have been forced by the government to vacate them. The two communities have separate bakeries, separate cafes; the Serbs still run most grocery stores.

Nearly 10 years after the end of the war, Bosnia-Herzegovina remains a deeply troubled place, divided ethnically, dependent on international aid for its economic survival and ruled by a European viceroy who can impose legislation and fire officials if they fail to integrate the Serb, Croat and Muslim populations.

In dozens of interviews with Serbs and Muslims, no one said they feared violence from their neighbors, but once the surface was scratched, a less sanguine picture emerged.

Although Muslims, Serbs and Croats sometimes live side by side in the big cities or in neighboring hamlets in the countryside, they say they live in different worlds.

The inter-ethnic and inter-religious marriages that were commonplace in the big cities before the war have almost entirely disappeared. Before the war, most Bosnian Muslims, especially those in Sarajevo, rarely attended prayers except for the most holy days of the year and had friends from different groups.

Few women wore the head scarf. Today, the call to prayer sounds from the mosque loudspeakers five times a day—a reminder to non-Muslims that the largest group in the country follows a different religion from that of the minority Serbs, who are Christian Orthodox, and Croats, who are Catholic.

Srebrenica itself is a profile in alienation and lurking hatred. ‘‘We are all for accepting the blame, but all the guilt is (put) on one side, the Serb side, while crimes were committed on both sides,’’ said Rajko Misatovic (64), a Serb who used to earn his living as a driver. ‘‘We had a genocide of the Serbs here as well.’’

Asked his nationality, one of Misatovic’s fellow pensioners answered reflexively before Misatovic could get in a word: ‘‘Never Bosnian.’’ Misatovic nodded in agreement, adding, ‘‘We are Bosnian Serbs.’’ —LAT-WP