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Arnesa Buljušmić-Kustura

@Rrrrnessa

23 Oct

Let's talk about what is currently happening in Bosnia and why there's suddenly more fear than usual about another war breaking out.

If you've been following me for a long time, you know that due to the Dayton Agreement which ended the war, Bosnia was split by ethnic lines.

After the Serbs committed genocide and all sorts of human rights abuses in the 1990s, they were rewarded with their own entity- courtesy of the International Community. Milorad Dodik is currently the Serb leader of that entity as well as a member of the Bosnian presidency.

Milorad Dodik was once called a "breath of fresh air" by Madeline Albright. Initially, he was an "anti-nationalist", admitted genocide happened and that Serbs perpetrated it. But that changed quickly as he gained more power.

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Arnesa Buljušmić-Kustura

@Rrrrnessa

20 Oct

A little tidbit of information about all the anti-vax people complaining about having to be vaccinated in order to work. When I came to the USA as a refugee, my first week in the country, I was taken to a doctor's office and given literally 14 shots. Get. Over. It.

I had many of these shots as a child in Bosnia. Some I received upon birth, some later but the requirement of my entry to the United States was a full vaccination regardless of my prior status. I was not allowed to go to school and my parents could not work until we got vaxxed.

When I had my daughter in the United States, at birth she got vaccinated too. When she started school, I was told that she could not attend unless she had her full immunisation and of course she did. The laws around vaccinations have always existed. You are not oppressed.

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Arnesa Buljušmić-Kustura

@Rrrrnessa

11 Jul

On this day in 1995, following Ratko Mladic's entry to Srebrenica, Serb forces proceeded to murder en masse 8,372 Bosniak-Muslims. Elderly, women, and even children were not spared. An industrialised & systematic plan to exterminate the Muslim population of Bosnia.

I remember.

As they split the women from the men, they did not spare all the women from the same tragedy that befell the men. Many women in Bosnia are still missing. Many of them were victims of a systematic genocidal rape campaign.

I remember them too.

Srebrenica was the final act of a 4 year long campaign of genocide. For 4 years, Serb forces looted and pillaged Bosniak villages and towns. For 4 years they seized cities and shelled them to oblivion. For 4 years they tortured Bosniaks in concentration camps.

I remember.

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Arnesa Buljušmić-Kustura

@Rrrrnessa

10 Jul

I'm very anxious today. Very on edge. My head hurts. I've cried a lot. These days are so painful and so difficult. Every year I get older July triggers me even more. It's difficult to be a survivor. It's difficult to remember. Srebrenica really is this collective pain of Bosnia.

For me, July is a month of mourning. But also a month of reflecting. I cannot divorce Srebrenica from the events in Visegrad, in Sarajevo, in Prijedor, and all through Bosnia. So, I cannot divorce Srebrenica from my own personal loss and experiences as a child of genocide & war.

Sometimes, I feel full of bitterness really. I get angry at how much was taken away from me. From us. An entire country. An entire future. Generations of families. My entire childhood. Peace and happiness. Things I deserved too but did not get because of ethno-nationalism.

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Arnesa Buljušmić-Kustura

@Rrrrnessa

7 Jul

Every year, without fail, an uncle sends me this long message thanking me for my work. Every year I try to get him to share his story of surviving genocide and this year he has allowed me to do so as long as I don't say his name. This is how he survived the Bosnian genocide:

He was only 19 years old when the war broke out and his life changed forever. He lived in a small village near Visegrad. His village was burned, looted, and destroyed. His mother killed and his father taken away. His father's remains have yet to be found.

As fighting continued and Serb forces expanded both their cruelty and ethnic cleansing, he ran where he could. When Srebrenica was declared a safe area, he found himself trekking miles to get there. He had absolutely nothing. He walked with torn clothes and was dying of hunger.

Read 19 tweets

Arnesa Buljušmić-Kustura

@Rrrrnessa

7 Jul

It's Srebrenica Memorial Week and Genocide denialism is already in full force. Attacks on Bosnian genocide survivors are the norm as is the glorification of Ratko Mladic. It's disgusting and unsurprising. Year in and year out, I don't know how they don't get exhausted by it.

I don't know how anyone can look at the tears of the mothers who've lost so much, at the tears of the children who have had their precious childhoods stolen from them in the name of hatred and still go on to celebrate Mladic and deny the Bosnian Genocide. It's soulless.

Every year we have to deal with those who wish we had died alongside our families, deny the reality of our experiences. To them, the mass graves, the bones of our dead, the thousands missing, the concentration camps, the shelling, the rapes, the murders...it's all made up.

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