Kravica, June 9: Today we leave for Srebrenica with Beba Hadzic, the director of Bosfam. I cannot help thinking, as we pull away from Tuzla, that we’re traveling the same route as the women and children who were bussed away from Srebrenica almost ten years ago, leaving their sons and fathers behind in the hands of Serb killers.

When Srebrenica fell to the Serbs on July 11, 1995 the besieged population headed in two different directions. About 20,000 walked down the road to the village of Potocari, to seek safety from the UN Dutch battalion. The men and boys over the age of 15 were taken off to be killed, and the women put on buses and driven to Kladanj, still in Bosnian Serb territory. Some of the elderly and even some women were killed – the rest were left to walk to Tuzla.

Several thousand others – some say as many as 15,000 – decided to take to the woods in a desperate attempt to reach Tuzla across the mountains. The plan was that soldiers would go in the front and follow up in the rear, so as to provide protection for the civilians in between.

The advance guard engaged the Serbs near Zvornik and broke through the lines. Some 3,000 managed to get through. But the Serbs rushed in reinforcements, regrouped, and systematically picked the rest of the column apart. There were countless ambushes. Those who were not killed were taken off to Bratunac, where they were held until while the Serbs decided where they were to be murdered.

About 1,500 Muslims were rounded up and taken to the village of Kravica, which lies on the road between Tuzla and Srebrenica. Many were taken into an agricultural cooperative center where they were stabbed, beaten or shot to death.

The center still stands, rusted and peeling, beside the main road, and the sight of it sends a shudder through Beba. It’s a mystery why the Serbs haven’t pulled the wretched building down, but Kravica was overrun for a time by the Muslim army from Srebrenica during the war, and hatred between the Serbs of Kravica and the Muslims of Srebrenica runs deep. Beba says that the villagers of Kravica come out to jeer when Muslims return to Srebrenica to commemorate the events of July 11 every year.

Five kilometers out of Srebrenica, the fields of Potocari, where the 20,000 Srebrenicans were assembled and separated in 1995, are being turned into a massive, dignified, memorial site. The memorial has evolved from a small granite stone, constructed in 2000 (which the local Serbs accepted with very bad grace), into something quite grand, with water fountains and elegant mown lawns.

The last time I was here, on March 31, 2003, the scene was one of frantic desperation as thousands of relatives buried the bodies of 600 victims who had been identified. The scene will be repeated again this coming July 11, when more bodies will be buried, but today there are almost no visitors. Many plots have space reserved for relatives who are known to have died but have yet to be found. Beba, who lost a brother-in-law and nephew in the massacre, is anxious to be on her way. She does not like this place.]

The challenge ahead: most of Srebrenica is still in ruins.The memorial is run by a foundation which has even received funds from the government of the Serb Republic (as part of a legal settlement). The foundation is administered from an office in the otherwise derelict battery factory on the opposite side of the road. It was here that the UN Dutch battalion was headquartered, and here that the townspeople sought refuge on July 11, 1995.

This squat and ugly building has become infamous as a symbol of the UN’s inability to protect victims of war, and it is perhaps fitting that there are plans to turn it into a museum, containing a definitive list of those who have disappeared, photos, and personal belongings of victims. Something like the Holocaust museum. This is all part of remembering the past, and no doubt valuable. But a part of me wishes that the international community would put as much effort and money into tracking down those who did the killing and into the needs of the survivors.

We continue up the winding road to Srebrenica itself, past a bombed-out milk factory where I served as an OSCE election monitor in November 2000. This brings back some strange memories. During election night, our Serb vote counters smoked incessantly and praised democracy, because in this ward at least hard-line Serb nationalists were certain to be elected. Every now and then I would go to the back of the room where a shell had gouged out part of the wall and peer out at the moonlit battery factory, as a sort of reality check.

I also remember how meticulously our Serb counters tallied up the votes, and how they chided me for presuming to monitor their own elections while America’s electoral system was the laughing stock of the world. (This was the time of Bush v Gore and the hanging chads of Florida). These vote counters from Srebrenica were determined to show they could do it better. I later heard that at least several had probably killed Muslims during the 1995 massacre.

Before reaching Srebrenica, we stop briefly at the house of Magbula, one of the most experienced Bosfam weavers who has returned from Tuzla to Srebrenica. Magbula lost her husband, a son, brother and two nephews in the massacre, and her sorrowful profile (written by Peter Lippman of our project) can be found on the website of the International Campaign to raise funds for the Victims Trust of the new International Criminal Court.

But today, in Srebrenica, Magbula has become a symbol of hope. Her house has been repaired with international aid. Its whitewashed walls glisten in the sunshine and the garden is alive with color. Magbula has a small loom on loan from Bosfam and we all hope that she will soon start to make carpets for Bosfam.

Magbula is not here to welcome us in person because her daughter-in-law has just given birth to a child in Tuzla. It’s a wondrous event for Magbula, her sole surviving son, and her friends at Bosfam. After so much pain and death, Magbula is once again experiencing the joy of birth. I wonder if the same can ever be true of Srebrenica.