Monday Jan 17 - Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) stations across the United States aired a major documentary on the Srebrenica Massacre, where the Serb army under the command of General Ratko Mladic massacred thousands of Muslim men in July 1995. Srebrenica was a U.N. Safe Area at the time. The 90-minute documentary, "Srebrenica: A Cry From The Grave," was the story of Europe's worst atrocity since World War II.
The documentary offered first-hand accounts, previously unseen footage and footage recorded on camcorders by Serb and Muslim soldiers, civilians and Dutch peacekeepers. The film won the Special Jury Award at the 1999 Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival.
Five years after they witnessed the terror of Srebrenica's Muslims, many survivors (mostly widowed women) gathered at the former U.N. forces headquarters where they sought refuge from the Serbs. Saliha Osmanovic and Hasan, who lost all their family members, were among them. Hasan narrates the fate of his murdered family members and other victims:
"I remember that day of July 14, the heat, the smell, the wretched thousands of old men, women and children, the realization that the U.N. had not only failed to protect a 'safe area' but had allowed some terrible evil to occur. Already the fate of the missing men was being accounted for with tales of summary execution and mass murder.
"A photographer telling me that children had shown him a young woman in a white dress and red cardigan hanging from a tree. Nobody knew who she was. People were fleeing to the woods once they saw the Serbs approaching. Some hanged themselves for fear of not being slaughtered by the 'Chetniks.' There were many of these chaotic scenes.
"Meanwhile, the shelling continued. It was a hellfire, the bombs were coming from everywhere, Srebrenica was under siege and the U.N. forces were reluctant [to intervene]. I was working as a translator; my father, my mother and my brother were among the refugees inside the U.N. headquarters in Srebrenica. The Dutch soldiers, who were in charge of protecting Srebrenica from the Serbs, forced the Muslim refugees to leave the U.N. headquarters, my family members being among them. I didn't see them from that moment, I believe they were killed," Hasan said.
Damir and Fatimah lost their mother and father, who like thousands of Muslim men, would have been taken to a field, wondering if the Serbs would really kill them until a blindfold and the cocking of machinegun bolts confirmed his worst fears as last thoughts.
The children speak quietly in the documentary as they recollect what happened to them and though their aura of sadness is immediately apparent, they talk with precision.
Their account of what happened in the summer 1995 is difficult to bear. Their father, Selman, a locksmith, had refused to leave them and flee to the hills from the Serb forces as they entered Srebrenica. Serb soldiers pulled him away from his hysterical wife and his family never saw him again.
The massacres were executed massively by firing machineguns and throwing grenades in warehouses and schools crowded with Muslim men. The Serbian tanks and their heavy arms heavily shelled Muslims, who were trapped in the woods. Few of them succeeded in reaching the Muslim line after walking for 15 days and crossing landmines.
The documentary clearly pointed to the complacency of the U.N. forces - the Western European force - which not only failed in protecting the Muslims of Srebrenica, but also befriended the aggressor Serbs. The sequences of soldiers smiling and drinking wine with General Mladic, the expulsion of Muslim refugees from U.N. bases and the sequence of allowing the Serbs to arrest Muslim men and kill some of them in the presence of U.N. forces are some examples of what the producer wanted to show as proof of the Western complacency in the Srebrenica massacre.
The Srebrenica massacre was one episode in a series executed by the Serbian killers under the command of such butchers as Mladic, Karadzic and Arkan. The latter (Arkan) was killed last Saturday after terrorizing thousands of Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo and after killing more than 200,000 Muslims in a barbaric way: "ethnic cleansing."
Bosnians will not be satisfied until the truth is told and as Hasan mentioned in this documentary: " We will not live quietly till we see justice." Justice, not only to bring to the court butchers such as General Mladic and Karadzic, but also to expose the western complacency and render accountable all the military and political decision-makers who were in charge during the Bosnian war 
