Srebrenica

Srebrenica
Srebrenica; Сребреница
	Location of Srebrenica within Bosnia and Herzegovina
Country	Bosnia and Herzegovina
Settlements	81
	Government
- Mayor	Osman Suljić (Alliance of SDA and Party for Bosnia and Herzegovina)
	Area
- Total	527 km2 (203.5 sq mi)
	Population (1991)
- Total	?
- Municipality	36,666
Time zone	CET (UTC+1)
- Summer (DST)	CEST (UTC+2)
Area code(s)	56
Website	www.srebrenica-opstina.org

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Panorama of Srebrenica

Srebrenica (Cyrillic: Сребреница, pronounced [ˈsrɛbrɛnitsa]) is a town and municipality in the east of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Srebrenica is a small mountain town, its main industry being salt mining and a nearby spa. During the Bosnian War, it was the site of the Srebrenica massacre, determined to have been a crime of genocide.^[2] On March 24, 2007, Srebrenica's municipal assembly adopted a resolution demanding independence from the Republika Srpska; the Serb members of the assembly did not vote on the resolution.^[3]

[edit] Demographics

In 2005 there were about 4,000 Bosniaks in the municipality, about a third of the population.

Year of census	total	Muslims	Serbs	Croats	Yugoslavs	others
1991	36,666	27,572 (75.19%)	8,315 (22.67%)	38 (0.10%)	380 (1.03%)	361 (0.98%)
1981	36,292	24,930 (68.69%)	10,294 (28.36%)	80 (0.22%)	602 (1.65%)	386 (1.06%)
1971	33,357	20,968 (62.85%)	11,918 (35.72%)	109 (0.32%)	121 (0.36%)	241 (0.72%)
1961	29,283	14,565 (49.74%)	12,540 (42.82%)	71 (0.24%)	1,967 (6.71%)
1953	46,647		23,545 (50.47%)	106 (0.45%)	22,791 (48.86%)
1948	39,954		20,195 (50.55%)	52 (0.13%)		19,671 (49.23%)
1931	35,210	17,332 (49.2%)	17,766 (50.5%)	103 (0.29%)

The borders of the municipality in the 1953 and 1961 census were different. In 1953 Muslim by Nationality was not an option for the census, so the group called themselves Yugoslav. Yugoslav was not an option in 1948, so they were classified as other.

[edit] The town of Srebrenica

Year of census	total	Bosniaks	Serbs	Croats	Yugoslavs	others
1991	5,746	3,673 (63.92%)	1,632 (28.40%)	34 (0.59%)	328 (5.70%)	79 (1.37%)

[edit] Economy

Before 1992, there was a metal factory in the town, and lead, zinc, and gold mines nearby. The town's name (Srebrenica) means "silver mine," the same meaning of its old Latin name Argentaria.

[edit] Local communities

The municipality (општина or opština) is further subdivided into the following local communities (мјесне заједнице or mjesne zajednice):^[4]

[edit] History

The earliest reference to Srebrenica was in 1376, by which time it was already an important centre for trade in the western Balkans, based especially on the silver mines of the region. The existence of ore was already known at the time of the Roman Empire, and the settlement of Domavia was near a mine. By the time of the first reference to Srebrenica, a large number of merchants of the Republic of Ragusa were established there, and they controlled the domestic silver trade and the export by sea, almost entirely via the port of Ragusa (Dubrovnik).^[5] During the 14th century, many German miners moved into the area.^[6]

In the middle of the 1420s, the army of King Tvrtko II of Bosnia fought to gain control of the town, which was conquered by the Ottoman Empire in 1440.^[7] The Franciscan monastery was converted into a mosque, but the large number of Catholics, Ragusa and Saxon, caused the transformation of the town to Islam to be slower than in most of the other towns in the area.^[8]

With the town in the Ottoman Empire and less influenced by the Republic of Ragusa, the economic importance of Srebrenica went into decline, as did the proportion of Catholics in the population.

[edit] War, genocide and demographic transformation

Main article: Srebrenica massacre

The town of Srebrenica came to international prominence as a result of events during the War in Bosnia (1992–1995). The strategic objectives proclaimed by the secessionist Bosnian Serb Presidency included the creation of a border separating the Serb people from Bosnia's other ethnic communities and the abolition of the border along the River Drina separating Serbia and the Bosnian Serbs' so-called Republika Srpska.^[9] The Bosnian Muslim/Bosniak majority population of the Drina Valley posed a major obstacle to the achievement of these objectives. In the early days of the campaign of forcible transfer (ethnic cleansing) that followed the outbreak of war in April 1992 the town of Srebrenica was occupied by Serb/Serbian forces. It was subsequently retaken by Bosniak resistance groups. Refugees expelled from towns and villages across the central Drina valley sought shelter in Srebrenica, swelling the town's population.

The town and its surrounding area was surrounded and besieged by Serb forces. On 16 April 1993, the United Nations declared the Bosnian Muslim/Bosniak enclave a UN safe area, to be "free from any armed attack or any other hostile act", and guarded by a small unit operating under the mandate of United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR).

Srebrenica and the other UN safe areas of Žepa and Goražde were isolated pockets of Bosnian government-held territory in Eastern Bosnia. In July 1995 despite the town's UN-protected status it was attacked and captured by the Army of Republika Srpska. Following the town's capture, all the men "of fighting age" who fell into Bosnian Serb hands were massacred in a systematically organised operation. The women of the town and men below 16 years of age and above 55 were transferred by bus to Tuzla.

The Srebrenica massacre is considered the worst massacre in post-WWII European history to this day.^[10]

In 2001 the Srebrenica massacre was determined by judgment of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia to have been a crime of genocide (confirmed on appeal in 2004).^[11] This finding was upheld in 2007 by the International Court of Justice. The decision of the ICTY was followed by an admission to and an apology for the massacre by the Republika Srpska government.^[12]

Under the 1995 Dayton Agreement which ended the Bosnian war Srebrenica was included in the territory assigned to Bosnian Serb control as the Republika Srpska entity of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Although guaranteed under the provisions of the Dayton Agreement the return of survivors was repeatedly obstructed. In 2007 verbal and physical attacks on returning refugees continued to be reported in the region around Srebrenica.^[13]

[edit] Fate of Bosnian Muslim Villages

In 1992, Bosniak villages around Srebrenica were under constant attacks by Serb forces. According to the Naser Oric trial judgement:^[14]

"Between April 1992 and March 1993, Srebrenica town and the villages in the area held by Bosnian Muslims were constantly subjected to Serb military assaults, including artillery attacks, sniper fire, as well as occasional bombing from aircrafts. Each onslaught followed a similar pattern. Serb soldiers and paramilitaries surrounded a Bosnian Muslim village or hamlet, called upon the population to surrender their weapons, and then began with indiscriminate shelling and shooting. In most cases, they then entered the village or hamlet, expelled or killed the population, who offered no significant resistance, and destroyed their homes. During this period, Srebrenica was subjected to indiscriminate shelling from all directions on a daily basis. Potočari in particular was a daily target for Serb artillery and infantry because it was a sensitive point in the defence line around Srebrenica. Other Bosnian Muslim settlements were routinely attacked as well. All this resulted in a great number of refugees and casualties."

[edit] Gallery

Panorama of Srebrenica	The franciscan Catholic chapel	The White Mosque	Fast Food Seka, on the place of a pre-1990s-war mosque (tombstones on the right)
The main road toward west	The main road from west toward the centre	The old town (Stari Grad)	Ruins of Mount Guber thermal centre
Potocari Genocide Memorial	Potocari Genocide Memorial