Elham Asaad Buaras
Thousands of mourners from across Bosnia and Herzegovina and abroad gathered in the eastern town of Srebrenica on July 11, to bury the recently identified 27 men and three teenage boys killed in the 1995 genocide, Europe’s first post- Holocaust genocide.
Muslim Bosniak civilians slain by forces of the Bosnian Serb Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) during the Bosnian War were reburied in an ever-expanding memorial cemetery just outside Srebrenica, which also houses 6,721 additional victims.
An estimated 100,000 people were killed and 2.2 million were displaced and 50,000, mostly Bosniak, women were raped during the Bosnian War between April 1992 and December 1995.
The burials were attended by several thousand state officials, foreign dignitaries, and Bosnians and were preceded by a 68 miles peace march, a three-day hike with 6,000 participants.
Montenegrin Prime Minister Dritan Abazović, and Turkish Minister for Family and Social Services, Mahira Özdemor Göktaş, were among those in attendance.
“The genocide must never be denied. The truth sets you free, and I believe that when we all accept the truth, the region will take a different path, the path of reconciliation and progress,” said Abazović.
Montenegrin President Jakov Milatović, in a video message, said the genocide in Srebrenica was the biggest human tragedy in Europe after the Second World War. Bulgarian Foreign Minister Mariya Gabriel said, “We must never forget what happened in Srebrenica.”
Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti said Srebrenica’s Genocide Remembrance Day holds many unspeakable tragedies. “A day we remember the murder of 8,372 innocent people and countless crimes of rape and torture. It is also a reminder that the truth is not honoured but denied by Serbia, itself an inhuman crime,” said Kurti.
Relatives of the victims can only bury the partial remains of their loved ones, as they are typically found scattered over several mass graves, sometimes miles apart, as was the case of Mirsda Merdžić, who buried her father.
“Only very few bones of his were retrieved because he had been found (in a mass grave) near the Drina River,” she said while huddled next to a casket shrouded in green burial cloth. “Maybe the river washed him away.”
After reburying some of her father’s bones several years ago, Selma Ramic always returns to town on the anniversary to honour others who suffered the same fate.
“One photo is the only thing I have left of my father, but I have a love for him in my heart,” said Ramic, adding: “He still lives in us; he will live on as long as we are alive.”
The Srebrenica killings were the bloody crescendo of Bosnia’s 1992–95 war, which came after the breakup of Yugoslavia unleashed nationalist passions and territorial ambitions that set Bosnian Serbs against the country’s two other main ethnic populations—Croats and Bosniaks.
On July 11, 1995, Christian Bosnian Serbs overran a UN-protected haven in Srebrenica. They separated at least 8,000 Muslim Bosniak men and boys from the women before chasing them through the woods around the town and slaughtering them.
After ploughing their victims’ bodies into hastily dug mass graves, the perpetrators dug up the graves with bulldozers and scattered the remains among other burial sites to hide evidence of their crimes.
Bosnian Serb wartime political leader Radovan Karadzic and his military commander Ratko Mladić were both convicted of genocide in Srebrenica by a special UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
In all, tribunals and courts in the Balkans have sentenced close to 50 Bosnian Serb wartime officials to more than 700 years in prison for the Srebrenica killings.
The ongoing denial of the Srebrenica Genocide was a prominent topic at the anniversary commemoration. Proposals have included an International Day of Remembrance, unrelenting prosecution of individuals guilty of denying genocide and glorifying war crimes, and a more robust response to challenges to the authority of the Office of the High Representative (OHR) of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
“That a genocide was committed in Srebrenica is not a matter of opinion. It is a historical fact, legally established by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the International Court of Justice, and domestic courts,” said Dunja Mijatović, Commissioner for Human Rights at the Council of Europe, who has proposed making July 11 an official International Day of Remembrance.
She called the denial of the Genocide “an insult to the victims and a serious threat to justice and peace in the region. This culture of genocide denial must be eradicated.
“In the face of widespread denial of the Srebrenica genocide, it is high time for the international community to stop looking the other way. Establishing a day of remembrance would show that the international community stands by their side.”
High Representative Christian Schmidt warned leaders in Republika Srpska, the country’s Serb-majority entity, that his office was ready to use all of its resources to assist Bosnia in prosecuting genocide deniers.
“We must have decisive moves by the prosecutor’s office,” Schmidt said at the commemoration.
“Those who deny the genocide, wherever they live and stay, are committing a criminal offence because the changes to the law that my predecessor, Valentin Inzko, brought two years ago are rigid and clearly state that denying the genocide is a criminal offence. Don’t forget that this law applies to the whole of Bosnia-Herzegovina,” he said.
Denis Bećirović, the Muslim member of the Bosnian tripartite presidency, warned that “the danger of genocide over Bosniaks being repeated hasn’t been removed yet.” And that certain politicians want to destroy constitutional order, insult victims, and glorify war criminals.
“Today, not only Bosnia-Herzegovina but also the entire civilised part of the world offers deep condolences to the victims of the only genocide committed in Europe after World War II,” he said. “All those who offer Bosnia-Herzegovina a forgetting strategy don’t have good intentions for our country.”
Years of ethnic tensions between Republika Srpska’s Serbs and Bosnia’s central authority boiled over in the months leading up to the anniversary, culminating in Republika Srpska’s parliament voting on June 27 to suspend recognition of Bosnia’s multiethnic Constitutional Court.
Dodik challenged the OHR’s authority on July 8 by filing a “criminal complaint” against Schmidt “because he has been dealing with the affairs of the high representative without authorization for a long time, for which there is no UN Security Council decision.”
Dodik claimed that, intending to cause “damage to Republika Srpska, Schmidt falsely presented himself as an official knowing that he was not appointed under Annex 10 of the Dayton peace accords,” which give Schmidt the power to impose laws as the final interpreter of the state constitution, though his decisions can be reviewed and questioned by the Constitutional Court of Bosnia if the OHR approves.
A day before filing the complaint, Dodik signed into law controversial changes approved by the National Assembly of Republika Srpska. These changes effectively disregarded Schmidt’s decisions as an international envoy.
With this latest step, Schmidt has joined Washington and EU authorities in accusing Dodik of violating Bosnia’s constitution and undermining the Dayton Accords.
Johann Sattler, EU Ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina, said in Srebrenica that reconciliation is key, but its basis is having perpetrators face justice.
Photo: Thousands assemble at a memorial cemetery in Srebrenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina, on July 11, to commemorate the 28th anniversary of the 1995 slaughter and to bid farewell to 30 newly identified genocide victims. (Credit: Samır Jordamovıc/Anadolui Agency)
