SREBRENICA, 12 July 2005 — In a moving ceremony marking the tenth anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre, another 610 victims were laid to rest yesterday at the Potocari Memorial Center.
The caskets with the remains of identified victims were laid in graves as the ceremony remembering Europe’s worst post World War II atrocity drew to a close in the eastern Bosnian town.
The youngest victims buried were Amer Bosnjakovic and Esad Bajraktarevic, who were 14 years old when murdered. The oldest to be buried was a 96-year-old woman, Fatima Osmanovic.
All were laid to rest beside 1,327 other identified victims of Bosnian Serb troops who slaughtered up to 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men after capturing the former eastern Bosnian Muslim enclave of Srebrenica on 11 July 1995.
A total of 2,070 Srebrenica victims have been identified so far, out of more than 7,000 bags of victims’ remains exhumed from 42 mass graves in the Srebrenica area.
The 43rd mass grave containing some 40 remains of the Srebrenica victims was opened last Friday at Potocari, and was visited yesterday by numerous international delegations.
Some 50,000 people, including high delegations of around 50 countries, came to Potocari near Srebrenica to pay tribute to the victims.
More than 60 intellectuals from all over the world also came to Potocari to participate in the international conference on genocide, aimed at establishing scientific facts on the Srebrenica massacre.
“Srebrenica must not be forgotten, and those responsible for the massacre must face justice,” the Muslim member of Bosnia’s tripartite State Presidency Sulejman Tihic said at the commemoration.
The commemoration was overshadowed by the two main architects of the massacre, former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his army commander Gen. Ratko Mladic, remaining at large.
Serbian President Boris Tadic, who arrived in Potocari as the first Serbian president to attend a commemoration to the Srebrenica victims, was quoted by media as saying that Mladic, believed to be hiding in Serbia, would be arrested in a couple of days.
Theodor Meron, president of The Hague-based UN War Crimes Tribunal, said: “It is fitting on this occasion to call once again for the arrest and transfer to The Hague of Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic.
“The crimes committed in Srebrenica were not simply murders; they were targeted at a particular human group with the intent to destroy it. They were so heinous as to warrant the gravest of labels: genocide.” It was the responsibility of the tribunal, he added, that “the people responsible for those unspeakable offenses are tried and punished”.
Of the events in Srebrenica, a Bosnian Muslim enclave under UN protection, Meron said: “The human imagination cannot truly grasp the reality of the crimes that were committed here ten years ago.
“This much is certain — mere words can neither capture nor convey the horror of these atrocities. The meaning of what transpired is written in the lives that were lost, the prayers that still go out, the hearts that continue to weep.” The United States ambassador-at-large for war crimes issues, Pierre Richard Prosper, read a message from US President George W. Bush who called on the apprehension of war criminals, above all Karadzic and Mladic.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw stressed: “It is sickening that ten years after the massacre in Srebrenica Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic are still free.” Mourning their own victims of the recent terrorist attacks in London, Straw said, the British people would also remember Srebrenica.
Passing on a message from British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Straw said the thoughts of the British people would be with Bosnians for the 10th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre.
Besides mentioning Karadzic and Mladic as those responsible, Tihic also called on the United Nations to accept responsibility for failing to protect the unarmed people of Srebrenica from Serb troops.
“For the sake of the past and as a foundation for the future I have to say that the UN failed to protect people in Srebrenica. Instead, the UN troops handed them over to the Serb troops who massacred them,” he said.
Special envoy of the UN secretary-general Mark Brown said the truth about Srebrenica “is a hard one to face” for those who served the UN. “We can say, and it is true, that great nations failed to respond adequately. We can say that it should have been a stronger military force in place and the stronger will to use them,” said Brown.
“We cannot,” he added, “avoid our own share of responsibility.” But those who planned and carried out the massacre, and those who harbored them, must face justice.
Earlier yesterday, Bosnian media cited EU Force (EUFOR) commander in Bosnia Gen. David Leakey as saying that EUFOR is getting closer to Karadzic and Mladic following recently collected information.
Less than two weeks after the massacre in Srebrenica the UN War Crimes Tribunal raised indictments against both Karadzic and Mladic, charging them with war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity and severe breaches of the Geneva Conventions.
