THE manager of the empty roadside restaurant on the way to Srebrenica wanted to know where we were going. "It's not true what they say about Srebrenica, that we killed 10,000 Muslims there," he said angrily upon hearing our destination. "Look at the number, of them in Tuzla and Sarajevo. They are all there, they are not dead."
As for the mass graves now being discovered around Srebrenica, "the Muslims killed 1,000 of us in another town there in 1993. They're the bodies they are finding. Them and Serb soldiers killed during the war." The media always lied about the Serbs, he said. He hoped I wouldn't do so.
On his wall was the image of Dr Radovan Karadzic, the former Bosnian Serb leader, still reputed to be the major powerbroker in Republika Srpska, and wanted for war crimes at The Hague tribunal. "We were successful, we will continue," reads the slogan under his face.
All along the route taken by the Muslim voters were the reminders of just how successful Dr Karadzic had been. Muslim villages sit eerily empty and devastated.
Up to 120,000 had been expected to make the sad journey through their recent terrible past to vote in Republika Srpska, as an act of defiance against those who drove them out and massacred many of their friends and relatives. Fewer than 20,000 did so. Those who did were brought to isolated polling stations, well away from the towns.
Most international organisations are trying to put a positive gloss on the low figures. "The incentive to cross was substantially less because of the postponement of the local elections," said the international High Representative, Mr Carl Bildt.
Others said they were not really interested in voting in areas where the SDA leader, Mr Alija Izetbegovic, was not on the ballot.
But a spokesman for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees gave a less benign reason. "We are quite convinced that a lot of these people were quite simply afraid," he said yesterday.
At Mrkonvic Polje, south, of Srebrenica, five Serb election workers sat on a long bench outside a polling station on Saturday afternoon waiting for the Muslims. "We will be waiting for them until seven o'clock this evening. We have prepared everything," said Devidovic, one of the five.
His colleague, Elcic, explained that they had all moved from Sarajevo nine months ago when the Serb controlled suburbs were handed over to Bosnian government forces, as agreed at Dayton. "We will never go back to Sarajevo. Our history began at Dayton," he said. He was living in a local house formerly owned by a Muslim.
Muslims who had fled, the area could well be living in his former house 200 kilometres away in Sarajevo, he agreed. Two busloads of Muslims had arrived earlier in the morning and "we welcomed them and wished them a good trip back."
After they had voted, he said, the Muslims had waited around for an hour, some talking to local policemen who they used to know, catching up with old times. "They are very welcome," said Devidovic, without any noticeable trace of sarcasm. "The only thing we haven't got for them is flowers," said Elcic, letting the mask slip.
Ten kilometres is Simici, and a further kilometre up a dirt track was another polling station, where a group of Republika Srpska policemen were waiting for the Muslims. The polling station had opened at 7 a.m., now it was 3 p.m., and not one ballot had been cast there.
"We would like them to come," said one officer, "but we don't know where they are. I hope they vote. We are a democratic republic."
He repeated this several times as his colleagues leaned against their cars, smiling.