Srebrenica by Nicolas Kent

Author:Nicolas Kent [Nicolas Kent]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-78319-368-4
Publisher: OBERON BOOKS Ltd
Published: 2013-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Appendix: From the evidence of Witness A

This edited extract, from evidence given by an anonymous witness (Witness A) to the United Nations War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague on Thursday 4 and Friday 5 July 1996, was not included in the play as performed for reasons of space.

WITNESS A gave evidence from behind a screen, and was under the protection of the court. From his own account he was an elderly Bosnian farmer who fled from the Bosnian Serb Army invasion of Srebrenica on 11 July and was deported from Potocari by Bosnian Serb Troops under Ratko Mladic’s command on 12 July. The part of his evidence which follows describes the 36 hours after his capture.

WITNESS A: Ratko Mladic appeared at the door and all of us cried out: ‘What are you doing with us here? Why are you killing us? Why don’t you take us away? What are you doing?’ He replied, ‘Exchanges aren’t easy to arrange. If the exchange had been easier to arrange we would already have done it. But when the exchange is done you will go to Kalesia. We only need to count you to find out how many you are so that I can arrange the transport for each one of you.’ There was one amongst us who got up to count us and he said, ‘All together here there are 296 of us’, and he replied, ‘All right I will arrange transport for all of you’; and then he left. Then later on we heard the noise of the arrival of a vehicle. At that moment there was someone who said, once again, ‘Come on, buses have arrived, leave one by one.’ So, we got up and went out of the hangar. At nightfall the buses started up going in the direction of the River Drina and Serbia. We arrived at the bridge over the Drina. We didn’t cross it, we continued along the left bank of the Drina which is Bosnian territory. We arrived at a school. There the buses stopped and there once again there were fifteen Serbian soldiers who were waiting for us and gave us the order to get out. We got out and went into a room, the gymnasium of the school.

We sat down, and a little while later one could hear a car again, and again a group of younger men came in. They were brought into the hall. Maybe there were 50 or more of them. And they kept bringing in people until noon, and the hall became packed full. Then we cried out for water. There were people fainting. About midday Ratko Mladic appeared at the door, then we all as one cried out, ‘Why are you choking us in here? Why are you keeping us here? Why don’t you take us somewhere?’ And he said, ‘What am I to do with you when your government doesn’t want you, and I have to take care of you? I will move a group of you to Kladusa and another group to Bijeljina.

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