An important step towards reappraising and dealing with the crimes committed in Bosnia

The Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) welcomes the decision of the European Parliament of Thursday to declare the 11th July as the official day of commemoration for the victims of the massacre of Srebrenica (11.7.1995).

„Our international human rights organisation has always supported the initiative of the mothers’ associations of Srebrenica and the Islamic Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina in making the 11th July the European Day of Commemoration for the victims of Srebrenica”, said Fadila Memisevic (Sarajevo), committee member of the GfbV International, in Göttingen on Friday. „The gesture of the European Parliament is an important step in reassessing and dealing with the crimes. It will be a contribution to reconciliation in the region.” This weekend the Annual General Meeting of the GfbV-International takes place in Göttingen, to which delegates of the GfbV sections from Germany , Bosnia and Herzegovina, Austria, Switzerland, South Tyrol/Italy, the USA and Iraqi Kurdistan are expected.

This day of commemoration will not only remind all European states that they just looked on at the mass murder in Srebrenica, said Memisevic. The 11th July will also commemorate throughout Europe the more than 8,000 boys and young men who were murdered within one week in 1995 by Serb troops. More than 3,000 victims have already been buried in the cemetery of Potocari and more continue to be found in exhumations.

„This decision should commit us to make sure that genocide never occurs again”, said Memisevic. The governments and parliaments of Serbia and Montenegro , which supported the genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina , should be the first countries in the western Balkans to pass this resolution in their own parliaments.

The Serb government of Slobodan Milosevic was responsible for the crimes throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina , to which more than 150,000 civilians fell victim. More than 30,000 of them died in Serb concentration camps. Memisevic drew attention to the fact that more than 20,000 women were raped, some 2.2 million people were driven out and hundreds of villages destroyed. Ratko Mladic, one of the two chief war criminals, has, thanks to the support of the Serb authorities, Serb militia and the inactivity of most of the western countries, been able to remain in hiding until the present day.