The Unquiet Dead Page 30

  “Then what do we do, sir?”

  She wanted Khattak to know. She wanted to believe he had the bedrock certainty of right and wrong, truth and falsehood, that she herself lacked. There wasn’t a single person who would mourn Dražen Krstić’s death, whether murder, suicide, or accident. And yet, and yet—didn’t they have a duty to the truth?

  Khattak placed one hand on Nate’s shoulder. “We call Tom Paley at Justice. The rest is up to them.”

  “Then come back to Winterglass.”

  She knew the invitation meant more than it seemed on the surface: it was Esa and Nate clearing away the wreckage of the past, the dross of Laine Stoicheva. It was Nate’s warm eyes approving her as a person, a woman without artifice. It was the chance to sit by his fire and make a phone call to her brother without fear, without hopelessness, after he had helped her determine whether a girl named Sable Norman was a student at the Mozarteum.

  Yet at this moment, it was the light of the minaret that seemed to hold the truth in the balance.

  They had come full circle. Murder, suicide, accident, coincidence. There was no certainty to be had.

  But Khattak thought he knew. He thought he knew what Muharrem had done. The man who had hounded Dražen Krstić and brought him to his knees would not have let him walk away at the last.

  There had been a tussle in the dark on the edge of Cathedral Bluffs.

  Justice had found the butcher of Srebrenica.

  And the shadow of the mosque was no consolation.

  Author’s Note

  This novel is based upon events that occurred during the 1992–1995 war in Bosnia, formerly a republic of the nation of Yugoslavia.

  In 1991, Yugoslavia dissolved into its constituent republics, each of which was to wrestle with the question of independence. In 1990 and 1991, respectively, Slovenia and Croatia staged their referenda on independence from Yugoslavia. When Bosnia followed suit in 1992, it put forward a vision of the future that attested to its uniquely blended heritage. In Bosnia, Serbs, Croats, and Muslims spoke the same language, intermarried without controversy, and embraced each other’s traditions in the fullness of history. In this vision of the future, the Bosnia that rose from the ashes of Yugoslavia was a nation of equal citizens, with rights guaranteed under a democratic constitution, in recognition of a centuries-old pluralism.

  What came to pass instead was the vision of ultranationalists in the republics of Serbia and Croatia. In their formulation of Bosnia’s future, a “Greater Serbia” or “Greater Croatia” could only be achieved by the annexation of a Bosnian territory rid of its non-Serb or non-Croat inhabitants. Thus followed a series of acts that began with the siege of Sarajevo in 1992, and culminated in the Srebrenica massacre of 1995.

  For the first time since the Second World War, a genocide campaign of staggering ferocity and ruthlessness was unleashed against a civilian population in Europe, nearly in tandem with the international intervention that eventually became complicit in the suffering of Bosnia’s people. In his influential work Slaughterhouse, journalist and author David Rieff calls the Bosnia of this period a “slaughterhouse” and describes the conflict within its boundaries as a slaughter, not a war. Through Bosnia’s many well-documented agonies, the terms ethnic cleansing, cultural destruction, and rape camps would also become commonplace.

  The term ethnic cleansing first entered the parlance as a description of Serbian tactics that “cleansed” the land of its Muslim inhabitants. The substitution of this term for the actual crime of genocide went some distance toward undermining the international legal obligation to prevent the genocide while it was still under way. (See Prosecutor v. Radislav Krstic IT-98-33 [2 August 2001].)

  Cultural destruction encompassed the deliberate campaign to eradicate mosques, Catholic churches, and countless other representations of religious and cultural identity—foremost among these, the architecture of Bosnia’s Ottoman past. Finally, although an endemic part of the overall war strategy, it was for the widespread and systematic use of rape in the southeastern town of Foča that a historic legal precedent was set: rape was recognized as a crime against humanity under international law. (See Prosecutor v. Dragoljub Kunarac and Radomir Kovac, IT-96-23-PT [22 February 2001].)

  For those who seek to learn how it was possible for the Bosnian enlightenment to be obliterated so swiftly and steadily, there are several key works I recommend. On the nature of the war crimes and cultural destruction that took place, see Roy Gutman’s Pulitzer Prize–winning A Witness to Genocide and Michael Sells’s The Bridge Betrayed: Religion and Genocide in Bosnia.

  Rabia Ali and Lawrence Lifschultz’s essay “In Plain View,” in their edited book Why Bosnia?, remains a landmark in the study of the war, alongside The Death of Yugoslavia by Laura Silber and Allan Little. For perspective on the role the international community played, there is David Rieff’s Slaughterhouse: Bosnia and the Failure of the West, Brendan Simms’s Unfinest Hour: Britain and the Destruction of Bosnia, and Samantha Power’s A Problem from Hell: America in the Age of Genocide. Human rights reports, war crimes testimony, and UN reports are listed extensively in the notes section.

  A comment on names used in this book. Although not based on actual persons, the characters Avdo and Hakija Osmanović were named for two Bosnians who did not survive the war. In 1993, Bosnia’s vice president, Dr. Hakija Turajlić, was shot and killed by a Serb fighter while traveling with a United Nations Protection Force convoy. Surrounded by Serb forces on a road ostensibly under UN control, the French commander on the scene opened the armored personnel carrier transporting Dr. Turajlić, resulting in his immediate assassination.

  Colonel Avdo Palić of the Army of Bosnia-Herzegovina defended safe area Zepa against Serb siege for more than three years, volunteering himself for negotiations with Serb forces during the fall of Srebrenica, so that the people of Zepa might escape a similar fate. Ordered to investigate and fully account for Colonel Palić’s disappearance, the Palić Commission found that Avdo Palić had been held in a military prison until he was disappeared by Serb forces on the night of 4 September 1995. Avdo Palić’s remains were subsequently located, exhumed, and returned to his wife, Esma, bringing her fourteen-year search for her husband to an end. He was buried with honors in 2009.

  Though not based on any single individual, Dražen Krstić was named for two figures who were instrumental in the carrying out of the Srebrenica massacre. Dražen Erdemović was a soldier in the 10th Sabotage Detachment of the Bosnian Serb Army. He participated in the executions of hundreds of unarmed Bosnian Muslim men from the Srebrenica enclave and was the first person to enter a guilty plea at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). General Radislav Krstić was the Deputy Commander of the Drina Corps. He took command of the Drina Corps on 13 July 1995, giving him direct command responsibility for the Srebrenica massacre and the forcible depopulation of the Srebrenica enclave. He was the first person to be convicted of genocide by the ICTY.

  As to the tireless prosecutors and fearless investigators of the International Criminal Tribunal, who carry out such difficult yet necessary work: nothing has struck me more than the statement of the Chief War Crimes Investigator, Jean-René Ruez, when he said of Srebrenica, “It was a crime committed against every single one of us.”

  In that spirit, I wish to thank Professor Cherif Bassiouni, President Emeritus of the International Human Rights Law Institute. Professor Bassiouni took time out of his very busy schedule to educate a twenty-three-year-old law student about war crimes in Bosnia, at a time when he was investigating those crimes as Chairman of the United Nations Commission of Experts. His compassion and dedication have stayed with me all these years.

  I worked briefly with the Bosnian Canadian Relief Association during the war and had the privilege of meeting many members of Bosnian communities and their imams. I particularly wish to thank Imam Muharrem, who shared his story with such courage and humanity. I have also had the opportunity to learn from the work
of many Bosnian witnesses, activists, and scholars over the years, foremost among them Hasan Nuhanovic, whose efforts in the cause of justice have served so many without ever faltering.

  I hope what couldn’t be articulated at that time has been articulated in this book.

  A last word on the people of Bosnia—Serb, Croat, and Muslim—who defended the Bosnian enlightenment in the face of the fascist drive for ethnic and religious uniformity. Their courage, perseverance, and dignity in the face of appalling carnage remind us why Bosnia was a place worth saving.

  Notes

  Chapter 1.

  I will never worship what you worship. Nor will you worship what I worship. To you, your religion—to me, mine.

  Sura Al Kafirun, “The Unbelievers.” Qur’an 109: 4–6.

  They are going to burn us all.

  Paraphrased from the statement of Emil Čakalić, relating what he heard a soldier say to him and other prisoners at the Vukovar military barracks in 1991, after he narrowly escaped execution at Ovčara. He testified on 5 February 1998 in the case against Slavko Dokmanović; on 13 and 14 March 2006 in the case against the Yugoslav People’s Army officers Veselin Šljivančanin, Mile Mrkšić, and Miroslav Radić; and on 16 July 2003 in the case against Slobodan Milošević. Prosecutor v.Slavko Dokmanović, IT-95-13a-T [5 February 1998], Witness Name: Emil Čakalić, page 908.

  Chapter 2.

  I keep wondering, where have all the good friends gone?

  Letter of Muhamed Čehajić, former mayor of the Prijedor municipality, as read by his wife, Dr. Minka Čehajić, before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia at the trial of Milomir Stakić. In its judgment of 31 July 2003, the Trial Chamber stated that it had no evidence at hand to establish beyond reasonable doubt the reason for Muhamed Čehajić’s death. It said, however, that “even if Čehajić was not directly killed, the conditions imposed on a person whose health was fragile, alone would inevitably cause his death. His ultimate fate was clearly foreseeable.” The Trial Chamber argued that due to Milomir Stakić’s position as president of the Crisis Staff, the National Defense Council, the War Presidency, and the Municipal Assembly in Prijedor, and due to his close ties to both the police and the military, he could not “have been unaware of what was common knowledge around the town, the municipality, and even further afield.” The Trial Chamber stated that “[i]t was Dr. Stakić himself [who] triggered the deplorable fate of this honorable man.” On 22 March 2006, the Appeals Chamber confirmed the convictions against Milomir Stakić and sentenced him to forty years’ imprisonment. Prosecutor v. Milomir Stakić, IT-97-24-T [31 July 2003]. Minka Čehajić’s complete “Voice of the Victims” statement is available through the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia at http://www.icty.org/sid/186.

  Chapter 3.

  He was a modest and reasonable man.

  Minka Čehajić, a Bosnian pediatrician, speaking about her quest to find out what happened to her husband after she last saw him in May 1992. She testified on 14, 15, and 16 May 2002 in the case against Milomir Stakić. Čehajić’s complete “Voice of the Victims” statement is available through the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia at http://www.icty.org/sid/186.

  This is part of a cat-and-mouse game.

  Letter dated 19 October 1992 from the Permanent Representative of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the United Nations, addressed to the president of the Security Council. S/24685, 19 October 1992.

  You can either survive or disappear.

  General Ratko Mladić, Commander of the Bosnian Serb Army (the VRS). Available online at Justice Report: http://www.justice-report.com/en/articles/interpretation-of-Mladić-s-words.

  Because I tell you that the sky is too high and the ground is too hard.

  Bosnian proverb.

  Lo, with hardship comes ease.

  Sura Ash-Sharh, “The Relief.” Qur’an 94:5.

  Chapter 4.

  Father, take care of my children, look after my children.

  Mehmed Alić, a Bosnian Muslim victim of the Omarska camp, speaking about how he tried to defend his son Enver from Serb soldiers who were about to beat him. He testified on 23 and 24 July 1996 in the case against Duško Tadić. Mehmed Alić was transferred to the Manjača camp on 6 August and released on 26 August 1992. Alic’s complete “Voice of the Victims” statement is available through the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia at http://www.icty.org/sid/195.

  Chapter 5.

  I took my mother’s head into my hands and I kissed her. I never felt anything so cold before …

  Testimony of Indira Ahmetović, Srebrenica survivor. Her full statement is available through the Cinema for Peace Foundation at http://cinemaforpeace.ba/en/testimony/indira-ahmetovic/46.

  Chapter 6.

  Do you still believe that we die only the first death and never receive any requital?

  Sura As-Saffat, “Those Ranged in Ranks.” Qur’an 37:58–59.

  Muslims, you yellow ants, your days are numbered.

  Old Chetnik war song.

  Bend down, drink the water by the kerb like dogs.

  Emir Beganović, a Bosnian Muslim man, was severely beaten and held under horrific conditions at the Serb-run Omarska detention camp, located just outside Prijedor, Bosnia and Herzegovina. He testified on 19 July 1996 in the case against Duško Tadić and on 4 and 5 May 2000 in the case against Kvočka et al. His complete “Voice of the Victims” statement is available through the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia at http://www.icty.org/sid/10120.

  Give us some water first, then kill us. I was sorry to die thirsty.

  Witness O (he testified with name and identity withheld from the public), a seventeen-year-old survivor of the Srebrenica executions, speaking about their perpetrators. He testified on 13 April 2000 in the case against Radislav Krstić. Witness O’s complete “Voice of the Victims” statement is available through the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia at http://www.icty.org/sid/184.

  Chapter 7.

  Under a big pear tree there was a heap of between ten and twelve bodies. It was difficult to count them because they were covered over with earth, but heads and hands were sticking out of the little mound.

  Ivo Atlija, a Bosnian Croat, speaking about killings that occurred in the area around his village in 1992 in the Prijedor municipality of Bosnia and Herzegovina. He testified on 3 and 4 July 2002 in the case against Milomir Stakić. His complete “Voice of the Victims” statement is available through the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia at http://www.icty.org/sid/190.

  There’s never any joy.

  Saliha Osmanović, Srebrenica survivor, as quoted in “Srebrenica Memorial Day: Our Continuing Horror,” The Independent (10 July 2013).

  On Tuesday, there will be no bread in Sarajevo.

  Letter dated 18 October 1992 from the Permanent Representative of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the United Nations, addressed to the president of the Security Council. S/24677, 19 October 1992.

  The tragedy of Srebrenica will haunt our history forever.

  UN General Assembly, Report of the Secretary-General Pursuant to General Assembly Resolution 53/35: The Fall of Srebrenica, 15 November 1999, A/54/549, paragraph 503. Available at http://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6afb34.html.

  It took some persuasion to convince my Serb neighbor with whom I had lived my whole life that I was suddenly his enemy and that I was to be killed.

  Dr. Idriz Merdžanić, a Bosnian doctor who treated victims of the Trnopolje Camp, speaking about how he tried to have two injured children evacuated from the northwestern Bosnian town of Kozarac. He testified on 10 and 11 September 2002 in the case against Milomir Stakić. His complete “Voice of the Victims” statement is available through the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia at http://www.icty.org/sid/202.

  I am aware that I cannot bring back the dead.

  Momir Nikolić, “Statement of
Guilt” (29 October 2003). Momir Nikolić was an assistant commander for Security and Intelligence in the Bosnian Serb Army. Nikolić was at the center of the crimes that took place following the fall of Srebrenica in July 1995. He did not raise any objections when informed of the plan to deport Muslim women and children and to separate, detain, and ultimately kill Muslim men. Nikolić did nothing to stop the beatings, humiliation, and killing of thousands of Bosnian Muslim men. He also personally coordinated the exhumation and reburial of victims’ bodies. He testified in other proceedings before the Tribunal, including the trial of his two co-accused, Blagojević and Jokić. Nikolić was sentenced to twenty years’ imprisonment. His complete statement is available through the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia at http://www.icty.org/sid/218.

  Chapter 8.

  All my life I will have thoughts of that and feel the pain that I felt then and still feel. That will never go away.

  Witness 87 (she testified with name and identity withheld from the public), a Bosnian Muslim girl talking in court about the effects of the rape and the abuse she suffered during the nine months she was held captive by Serb soldiers. During this period she was also raped by Dragoljub Kunarac and Radomir Kovač. She testified on 4, 5 April and 23 October 2000 in the case against Dragoljub Kunarac, Zoran Vuković, and Radomir Kovač. Witness 87’s complete “Voice of the Victims” statement is available through the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia at http://www.icty.org/sid/10117.

  Chapter 9.

  I addressed one of the wingborn singers,

  who was sad at heart and aquiver.

  “For what do you lament so plaintively” I asked,

  And it answered, “For an age that is gone, forever.”

  Ruggles, D. F., “Arabic Poetry and Architectural Memory in al-Andalus,” Ars Orientalis, Pre-Modern Islamic Palaces (1993, Vol. 23), 171–78.

  Chapter 10.

  Easily predictable events have been proceeding inexorably in the cruelest, most atrocious fashion.