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Neither Here

Nor There

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Table of Contents

Introduction

War in the Balkans

Bosnia-Herzegovina

Serbia

World War II to 1992 - Fueling the Balkan War

Bosnian Refugees

United Nations Failure

Dayton Peace Accords

Bosnia-Herzegovina Flag

Bosnian Elections

International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP)

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia

Summary

Resources

Questions to Consider

What You Can Do

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Neither Here Nor There is an intimate portrayal of the Selimovic family from Srebrenica in Eastern Bosnia, who resettled in Columbia, Missouri after the fall of the former United Nations “safe area” that resulted in Europe’s worst massacre since World War II. The story follows a Bosnian War widow, Fatima Selimovic, and her family living in the heartland of America and still searching for home. Filmed over a three-year period, Neither Here Nor There traces the complexities of starting over in a new place when ties to the past remain unbreakable.

In July 1995, more than eight thousand Muslim men and teenage boys were murdered in the small town of Srebrenica, Bosnia during a five-day period by Bosnian Serbs. Since then, Missouri has become home to the largest Bosnian population outside of their homeland, which includes approximately 60,000 Bosnians refugees living in St. Louis, Mo. Having survived one of the bloodiest battlegrounds of the Balkans and the mass execution of their family and friends, Fatima Selimovic and her family find themselves struggling to resettle in a peaceful middle-class college town.

Fatima works as a house keeper at the Holiday Inn and her teenage daughter works nights, full-time at a book factory while attending high school by day. Her oldest daughter is hoping her husband can join their family in the U.S. Meanwhile, she must be the single parent to their one-year old son. The past comes back to haunt the family when Fatima learns that her father is identified in a mass grave in Bosnia. The film follows the family back to their homeland for the first time to bury her father at a mass funeral in Srebrenica. Fatima’s father, including 600 newly-identified remains, are buried at the memorial, which is attended by thousands of mourners, including world leaders.

Neither Here Nor There is an example of the strength of women and an intimate portrayal of the U.S. refugee program. The Selimovic’s story is told from the viewpoint of the film’s co-director, also a refugee caseworker, as she tries to help the family become self-sufficient. Would it be better if Fatima and her children stayed in Bosnia? Or, is America truly the land of opportunities? Sometimes a refugee’s home is neither here nor there. It’s somewhere in-between.

Introduction

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Excerpts from Center for Balkan DevelopmentThe former Yugoslavia consisted of six republics,

including Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, Serbia, and Montenegro.

As Communism collapsed in the 1980’s, Eastern Europe looked for solutions to provide economic

and political stability in a post Cold War world.Serbia’s Communist Party leader, Slobodan

Milosevic, began pandering to Serb nationalism, and through his control of the state-run media, he

became the most powerful figure in Yugoslavia. During the Balkan Wars of the 1990’s, four of the

republics declared independence while Serbia and Montenegro remained part of Yugoslavia. In 2006,

Montenegro and Serbia declared independence, ending their union and the last remaining vestiges

of the former Yugoslavia.

War in the Balkans(1992-1995)

(pre-war population 4.4 million): Bosnia has the most complex mix of religious traditions among the former Yugoslav republics: 44% Bosniaks (Muslims), 31% Bosnian Serb (Eastern Orthodox), and 17% Bosnian Croat (Roman Catholics). Bosnian Muslims are Slavs who converted to Islam in the 14th and 15th centuries after the Ottoman Empire conquered the region. From World War I until the end of the Cold War, Bosnia was part of the newly-created country of Yugoslavia. Bosnia declared independence in March 1992.

Bosnia-Herzegovina

(including Kosovo and Vojvodina with pre-war population 9.8 million): This republic is the largest and most populous. Sixty-six percent are ethnic Serb of traditionally Eastern Orthodox religion. Until 1989, Serbia also had two autonomous regions,” Kosovo and Vojvodina. Kosovo, bordering Albania, was the historic seat of a traditional Serbian kingdom and the site of the famous Battle of Kosovo in 1389, when the Serbs were conquered by Ottoman forces. Today, Kosovo’s population is 90% ethnic Albanian, most of them Muslims. In 2008, Kosovo’s Albanian leadership declared independence from Serbia, which is recognized by many members of the United Nations, including the U.S. Still, the process of the UN General Assembly adopting a formal resolution is on-going. China and Russia have indicated they would veto membership of Kosovo.

Serbia

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During World War II, armed groups claiming allegiance to various ethnic factions fought against each other and against the Nazi occupiers. By 1945, almost one million Yugoslavs had lost their lives, most of them at the hands of other Yugoslavs. Croatian fascists (Ustashe) were the most notorious for killing Serbs, Jews, Gypsies, Communists, and political opponents, but Serb Chetniks were also responsible for many mass killings. The Communist-led Partisans fought against both groups and were victorious (with Allied support) at the war’s end. The Partisan leader, Josip Broz (Tito), ruled the country as a one-party socialist state. Despite using repressive tactics and centralized control, Tito understood the importance of apportioning power evenly among the Yugoslav ethnicities and he kept the peace. Under Communist rule, it was a serious crime to openly express ethnic aspirations of any kind.

After Tito’s death in 1980, the nation slid into economic and political decline as a collective leadership began to squabble over power and the allocation of shrinking resources among the republics. With the final collapse of Communism in the 1980s, Serbia’s Communist Party leader, Slobodan Milosevic, quickly became the unchallenged ruler of Serbia. One of Milosevic’s first acts was to change Serbia’s constitution and void the autonomy of Kosovo. He began a campaign of repression against the ethnic Albanian Kosovars, making him a hero in the eyes of Serb nationalists throughout the former Yugoslavia.

Milosevic’s attempts to seize control of the federal government and his repressive tactics in Kosovo drove the newly elected non-Communist governments of Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia to seek independence. The Yugoslav National Army (JNA) responded with brutal attacks supported by Serb nationalist militias in Croatia and Bosnia. Ironically, when the war began in Croatia in 1991 and Bosnia in 1992, many Croats and Bosnians thought the Yugoslav National Army would protect them. They soon learned that the national army --the fourth largest in Europe --was clearly in the hands of Milosevic and being used to create Greater Serbia.

World War II to 1992 – Fueling the Balkan War

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In March 1992, Bosnia’s Muslims and Croats called for a referendum for Bosnian independence. Fierce propaganda from Serbia, depicting Muslims as extremist

fundamentalists, caused many Bosnian Serbs to support Milosevic’s plan for ethnic cleansing as a means of creating Greater Serbia. Since the Bosnian Serbs did not inhabit

a single specific territory in Bosnia and lived alongside Muslim and Croat neighbors, the stage was set for war throughout the country. On April 6, 1992, the Bosnian Serbs

began their siege of Sarajevo. Through three cold winters, Sarajevans dodged sniper fire as they collected firewood, searched for food, and tried to get to their jobs. More

than 12,000 residents were killed, 1,500 of them children.

Throughout Bosnia, Bosnian Serb nationalists and the Yugoslav National Army began a systematic policy of genocide to establish a “pure” Serb republic. They drove out all

other ethnic groups by terrorizing and forcibly displacing non-Serbs through direct shelling and sniper attacks. Entire villages were destroyed. Thousands were expelled from their homes, held in detention camps, raped, tortured, or summarily executed. Those on the outside watched passively as multi-ethnic communities were violently

torn apart. While ordinary Bosnians suffered and died for months that turned to years, opportunities to effectively intervene were greatly ignored by Europe and abroad.

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The Dayton Peace Accords, signed on December 14, 1995, by Presidents Milosevic, Izetbegovic, and Tudjman, carved Bosnia into two autonomous and ethnic-based entities,

separated by a demilitarized zone. Despite their unbridled aggression, the Serbs, in control of the Republika Srpska, received 49% of the territory of Bosnia. The Bosnians were granted

the remaining 51% of the country, called the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, an uneasy alliance of Bosnian Muslims and Croats. Each entity has its own government,

military, and police. A central government handles banking and foreign policy. Most non-Serbs have been cleansed from Serb-held areas and are not welcome or safe to return to

their homes. The same is true for many Serbs who have left Federation-controlled territories.

Dayton Peace Accords

The failure of the UN to stop the killing in Bosnia seriously harmed its credibility. When Sarajevo came under attack by Serb artillery in April 1992, the UN forces pulled out to avoid casualties, leaving behind only a small and lightly armed contingent of peace-keepers to discourage attacks by Serbian nationalists.

The United Nations declared a “safe-zone” of the Eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica to be under peace-keeping protection of poorly-equipped Dutch soldiers. By July, 1995, Srebrenica easily fell to Bosnian Serb militias. Within a week, 8,000 Bosnian Muslim civilian men and boys in this “safe zone” were murdered. The world learned of the atrocities through the courageous efforts of print and TV. Wrenching scenes were broadcast around the world showing hundreds of emaciated men and women behind barbed wire with their eyes hollow from hunger and despair. Following the massacre of Srebrenica, a NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) bombing campaign against the Army of the Republika Srpska helped bring the war to an end.

United Nations Failure

Few people could have predicted that the war would last for almost four years, and with such barbarism. More than 200,000 Bosnians out of

a population of 4.4 million were killed. Some 200,000 were injured, 50,000 of them children.

Millions of people were deported or forced to flee their homes. Sixty percent of all houses in Bosnia,

half of the schools, and a third of the hospitals were damaged or destroyed. Power plants, roads, water systems, bridges, and railways were ruined.

Throughout these horrors, the international community failed to respond. It resulted in the

worst case of genocide in Europe since WWII.

Bosnian Refugees

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Bosnia-Herzegovina Flag

Although elections after the war were held to select a three-member presidency (a representative of Croats, Bosniaks, and Serbians) and a national parliament, most international observers claim there was widespread voter fraud and intimidation. The political system set-up after the Dayton Peace Accords was meant to be a short-term fix. Still, this flawed system exists today, well more than a decade later.

Bosnian Elections

ICMP was established to support the Dayton Peace Agreement. Its primary role is to ensure the cooperation of governments in locating and identifying those who have

disappeared during armed conflict or as a result of human rights violations. Since November 2001, ICMP has led the way in using DNA as a first step in the identification of large numbers of persons missing from war. ICMP has developed a database of relatives

of missing people, and bone samples taken from human remains exhumed from mass graves in the countries of former Yugoslavia. By matching DNA from blood and bone samples, ICMP has been able to identify more than 15,000 people who were missing

from the Bosnian War. In addition to its work in the Balkans, ICMP is involved in helping governments in various parts of the world to establish effective identification systems in

the wake of conflict or natural disaster.

International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP)

The United Nations Security council established The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in 1993. Based in The Hague, the Netherlands, it has announced indictments of hundreds of individuals, including former Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic, excused of genocide and crimes against humanity during the war. In 2006, the former Serb leader died of a heart attack in prison before a verdict was reached in his five-year long trial. Today, many war criminals have not been brought to justice and are in hiding, and there has been a lack of will by the international community to push for their arrest.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia

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The civilian population caught in war zones in Bosnia-Herzegovina faced life and death in circumstances over

which they had little or no control. Many Bosnians made the painful decision to seek status as refugees in other

countries as the “ethnic cleansing” of their homeland continued unabated throughout the war. The danger of land mines, still in existence, and the threat of continued ethnic violence, has made it difficult for former residents

to return. More than two million Bosnians -- nearly half the total population -- became refugees.

State-run media, a resurgence of nationalism, and ill-founded beliefs that the massacre in Srebrenica never

happened, has further complicated reconciliation in the Balkans, still to this day. While the Dayton Peace

Accords was signed in 1995, the aftermath of the war leaves Bosnia and its people with a broken government, joblessness, and an infrastructure that bears the mark of

a war that seemed to end only yesterday.

Summary

Center for Balkan Development

International Commission on Missing Persons

United Nations High Commission of Refugees

U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants

U.S. Department of State Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration

Refugees International

Human Rights Watch

Resources

End Game – The Betrayal and Fall of Srebrenica by David Rhode

After the Fall – Srebrenica Survivors in St. Louis by Patrick McCarthy

Books

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Why do you think Europe and the West did little to stop the genocide in Bosnia?

Srebrenica, Bosnia was a designated “Safe Haven” of the United Nations. Why was the United Nations ineffective in safeguarding the civilian population?

A peace activist group in Serbia provided shocking footage to news and film organizations that showed part of the massacre of Srebrenica in order to prove the atrocities did happen. How did the scene leading up to the execution of civilian young men affect you? Should that scene have been in the film or left out?

State-run media fueled much of the hatred and mistrust in the Balkans. Could a free press make a difference?

Is the Selimovic family better off in their former homeland or in the U.S. today?

Are there any refugees or immigrants in the audience? If so, why did you immigrate? What has been your experience resettling here?

How do refugees and immigrants in the U.S., today, compare to persons who immigrated or came here as refugees 50 or 100 years ago?

What do you think is needed for refugees to be self-sufficient in their new country? Is our country providing what is needed for refugees?

How should we, as a community, provide for refugees?

After seeing the film, have your ideas about refugees changed in any way?

Why do you think immigration laws bring such heated debate? How should we debate the issue? Is change in our policy needed?

What should be the immigration policy in the U.S? Should the U.S. be more restrictive of its borders or move toward an open door policy?

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Learn about the needs of the refugees in your community. Start with a local immigration and refugee services agency, and find a way to help. Many church organizations are involved in assisting refugees. Check out the Resources section of this guide to find organizations that are working on these issues.

Resettlement agencies, case workers, and other volunteers help newcomers with their transition; including teaching English, help with locating housing, finding jobs, applying for aid, using public transportation, providing clothing and furniture, seeking medical and mental care, and much more. To raise money, plan a fundraiser for the organizations in your community that supply transition assistance to new immigrants. You can find a list of resettlement agencies working in the U.S. at www.refugees.org

Investigate the roots of conflicts and how groups are attempting to resolve these problems. Be informed. Support a free press society.

If you’re a business owner, provide a job to refugees in your area. Extend your friendship to refugees who attend school, live, or work near you. Being a caring friend can often mean the most to newcomers.

Support this film by showing it to others, along with other documentaries that tell about the lives of refugees and how society can work towards conflict resolutions and peace.

For More Action Ideas and Ways to Use the Film:http://www.refugeefilms.org/NeitherHereNorThere/Take_Action.html

What You Can Do

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Produced by Refugee Filmswww.refugeefilms.org