Tim Butcher was Defence Correspondent for the London “Telegraph” during the war in Bosnia. He reported on Srebrenica and related issues in numerous dispatches. In this article, published on the first anniversary of the fall of Srebrenica, he depicts the criminal atmosphere within the enclave under the rule of the local warlord, Naser Orić. Far from being a besieged outpost of the “multiethnic” and “multicultural” government in Sarajevo, Srebrenica was a den of thieves and cut-throats, of whom Orić was the chief and most notorious.
Given the terror to which the Muslim population of Srebrenica was subjected by the local representatives of their “government” in Sarajevo, described by Butcher with a few impressionistic brush strokes, one can easily imagine the treatment of the Serbian residents of Srebrenica town and the surrounding area. By July 11, 1995, when Srebrenica was taken over by Serbian forces, they were extinct.
It was not just the besieging Serbs who threatened the lives of the 40,000 Muslims crammed for three years into the Srebrenica enclave.
They also had to deal with an enemy within, as a breakdown of law and order created Muslim warlords not afraid of exploiting their own people. While most reports about Srebrenica have focused on the pocket’s collapse and the maltreatment of its inhabitants by the attacking Bosnian Serbs, there is a parallel story of social degradation inside the enclave.
Srebrenica’s established structure of municipal authority broke down and was replaced by a primitive law of the jungle where ruthlessness won out. Men who before the war were petty criminals and hoodlums rose to positions of huge authority, engaging in murder and black marketeering and organising prostitution. They even stockpiled humanitarian aid sent to the pocket and sold it for profit.
“War is war, but in Srebrenica there were no rules at all, just the law of a few private individuals,” Ibran Mustafic, a member of Srebrenica’s mayoral council, said. At the centre of the accusations of profiteering is the complex figure of Naser Oric, 29, who learnt his military skills when he was trained in the 1980s as a bodyguard for President Milosevic of Serbia.
Mr Oric has been feted by the Bosnian government in Sarajevo as a war hero and credited with masterminding the defence of Srebrenica from 1992 until it was declared a United Nations safe area in April 1993. But for many Srebrenica refugees Mr Oric is a hated figure accused of making money out of the misery of others. One refugee said: “Oric just saw his chance and took it. When everything collapsed in Srebrenica he made the best of his opportunity, but he was not so much respected in the town as feared.”
One of the most mysterious aspects of Srebenica’s fall is that Mr Oric and his senior commanders were not in the pocket when it was attacked by the Serbs last July.
Srebrenica women claimed Mr Oric’s men organised prostitution using young Muslim girls who had fled their homes in nearby villages during the Serb ethnic cleansing of 1992. Mr Mustafic said 24 inhabitants of Srebrenica were murdered by Mr Oric’s men for opposing his style of leadership.
Mr Mustafic’s face is scarred and his left eye disfigured after he was shot by Mr Oric’s men inside the Srebrenica pocket on a dark night in May 1995. He had a reputation as a troublemaker for the public criticism he voiced against Mr Oric for running a system whereby starving Srebrenicans were charged huge amounts for food delivered by the UN.
Gunmen attacked him on May 19, 1995, as he walked home from a meeting. He was hit twice in the legs, once in the neck and once in the face, but was luckier than his colleague, Hamed Salihovic, who died in the same attack. Mr Mustafic claimed that Srebrenica residents knew of deals made by Mr Oric’s men with the besieging Serbs for fuel, food and arms.
One of the most mysterious aspects of Srebenica’s fall is that Mr Oric and his senior commanders were not in the pocket when it was attacked by the Serbs last July. They had left in March on one of the regular night helicopter flights arranged from government-controlled territory near Tuzla. More of Mr Oric’s senior command left on foot in early summer, leading many Srebrenicans to believe they had cut a deal with the besieging Serbs.
One year after the pocket fell Mr Oric can be found living the life of the Balkan playboy. He lives in Tuzla and spends most of his summer days swimming at the large Modracko lake near Lukavac before regular sessions in Tuzla’s most ostentatious nightclub and casino. Under 6ft tall but with the squat, muscular physique of a pit bull, he exudes menacing authority with eyes as lifeless as a white shark’s.
Mr Oric does not so much deny the allegations made against him as flatly refuse to discuss them. With a wave of his muscular arm and guffaws from his adoring followers, he dismisses strangers curtly. For a former bodyguard he has done surprisingly well for himself, driving a new Mercedes and wearing designer sports clothes with extravagant jewellery.
While many Muslims blame Mr Oric for the breakdown of law inside the Srebrenica pocket, he is also accused by the Bosnian Serbs of being a war criminal who organised attacks on Serb civilians near Srebrenica throughout the war. For Veselen Sarac, a Bosnian Serb now living in Milici, there is little doubt that Mr Oric is a criminal. More than a dozen white flecks of scar tissue on his arms are all the proof Mr Sarac needs for what sort of man Mr Oric became in the war.
“When Oric tortured me he stubbed cigarettes out on my arms and this is what made the marks,” he said. “One day he punched me in the face and my eye swelled like an apple.”
Source: Electronic Telegraph
International News
Thursday July 11 1996 Issue 425