MEMORIAL CEREMONY HELD ON 12TH ANNIVERSARY OF GENOCIDE IN SREBRENICA
SREBRENICA,Bosnia - An estimated 30,000 people gathered in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica yesterday to bury 465 newly identified genocide victims and remember Europe's worst mass murder since the Second World War. 465 genocide victims from Srebrenica were reburied yesterday, their relatives sobbing as the green coffins were laid in the ground on the 12th anniversary of the genocide in Srebrenica.
A child read aloud the names of the 465 genocide victims identified after being found in over 60 mass graves around Srebrenica and other locations. Before the ceremony, sobbing women moved among the coffins, searching for their loved ones' names and hugging each other for comfort.
Up to 10,000 Bosnians were mass murderd by the genocidal Serbian aggressor on July 11, 1995, and over next several days in the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica. It was the worst mass murder in Europe since World War II.
Every year, more genocide victims' bodies are found in dozens of mass graves around Srebrenica. DNA tests and other forensic methods have led to the identification and burial of more 2.907 genocide victims, including Wednesday's 465.
The bodies were laid to rest at the Genocide Memorial Centre in the Srebrenica suburb of Potocari, which consists of a huge cemetery, a small museum and a row of marble blocks on which the names of the genocide victims are engraved.
Beyond the sea of 2.907 genocide victims' graves lies a huge field awaiting the estimated 7,000 yet to be excavated from mass graves that have still not been found.
"Every year, we bury a few hundred. This will go on for another decade until we find and if we find and bury them all," says Mehmed Kolenovic, 54, who survived the genocide in Srebrenica.
The United Nations declared the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica - which had been besieged by the Serbian aggressor throughout the 1992-95 Serbian aggression against Bosnia - a U.N.-protected safe area, but then did nothing to prevent the genocide.
In July 1995,the genocidal Serbian aggressor led by Serbian war criminals Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic overran the enclave. The outnumbered U.N. troops never fired a shot and could only watch as the Serbian aggressor rounded up the entire Srebrenica Bosnian population in the Dutch compound and took mainly the men and boys away for execution.
"Only when you come here and see this field of graves, and meet the families, you start to understand the scale of the crime - genocide - that took place here 12 years ago," said Bosnia's recently appointed top international official, Miroslav Lajcak.
“This is only one of the many sad days in Srebrenica. We have been feeling pain since 1995 every day, even before that, in 1992 and 1994 when we had had nothing to eat. Our sorrow reached its peak the day they killed our children, our loved ones”, a mother said while looking for the name of her son among the coffins.
July is a sad month in Srebrenica. A mother said a long time ago that Srebrenica is the town of sorrow and misery – it is the capital of sorrow.
Bosnia grieved yesterday. 465 coffins containing the remains of the genocide victims were placed at the Musale location, in the Srebrenica Genocide Memorial Center complex. After the religious ceremony, the remains of the genocide victims were placed to the ground and those Bosnians will finally rest in peace.
Some of them were murdered in Potocari,a suburb of Srebrenica,and many of them were found in over 60 mass graves around the town and other locations.Parts of some bodies were found in different mass graves, for the Serbian aggressor had tried to conceal the crime by transferring the bodies.
Today, the total number of the genocide victims buried at the Srebrenica Genocide Memorial Center is 2.907.And there are so many personal stories involved in the tragedy.
Hazim Mehmedovic was 3 years old at the time, and was carried along the path in his father's arms.Hazim, now 16, arrived a few days ago from Copenhagen, Denmark, where he is living with his mother. The genocide survivors from Srebrenica today live in 107 countries around the world as refugees, he said.
For the past few days, he walked the escape route the other way from Tuzla to Srebrenica and arrived for the anniversary.
"I don't remember anything and wanted to see where it happened. The Serbians shelled our group and killed dad while he was holding me in his arms. Someone else, I don't know who, carried me the rest of the way to Tuzla," he said.
The body of Hazim's father, Edhem, was found in a mass grave along the route and buried last year in Potocari.
Among those participating in yesterday's ceremony in Srebrenica was Hasan Nuhanovic, a Bosnian who worked as a translator for the Dutch U.N. forces. He said he survived genocide because, as a translator for the Dutch forces, he was protected by the troops. His father could also have stayed, but he decided to leave with his wife to join another son who had been forced out of the Dutch military base. Hasan learned only last month that his father was the Srebrenica genocide victim. He still does not know what happened to his mother, brother and other relatives.
Hasan told Dutch television it was a painful decision to bury his father yesterday. "Many families have a big dilemma of what to do. Whether they should bury just one part of the (skeletal) remains, or they should wait for more remains to be found, so joined. It's a quite a painful process for all of us. In my father's case they said they found 75 percent of his skeletal remains. So I decided that he should be buried," he said.
And he said there will be more burials he will have to take care of. "Some, you know, of those scientists who are studying this phenomena say this is kind of a closure. But I don't see it as a closure. I had to do other things as well. I had to contact this company that deals with burials, to ask them to reserve another three graves next to [my father's] grave, otherwise there will be a problem in the future. It means one grave needs to be reserved for my mother, another one for my brother."
Srebrenica was described by former Secretary General Kofi Annan as the darkest page of U.N. history.
Former leaders of the Serbians living in Bosnia,Serbian war criminals Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, both indicted for genocide, are still in hiding. Mladic is believed to be in Serbia, while Karadzic's whereabouts are unknown.
Carla del Ponte, the chief prosecutor at the U.N. war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, attended yesterday's ceremony. She has been pressing for the arrest of Serbian war criminals Karadzic and Mladic for years.
The OSCE Acting Head of Mission, Ambassador Vadim Kuznetsov, attended a commemoration ceremony in Srebrenica honouring the genocide victims.
“The terrible crimes committed in Srebrenica 12 years ago remain a painful reminder not only for the citizens of Bosnia but also for the rest of the world community”, said Ambassador Kuznetsov.
“All of us present in Srebrenica today will express sincere condolences to the families of the victims. The International Community in Bosnia will continue honoring the victims and supporting their families in their grief and pursuit of justice”, added Ambassador Kuznetsov.
Bosnians have cited the genocide in Bosnia in their arguments for ending the country's postwar territorial division.Srebrenica ended up in the territory controlled by the Serbians living in Bosnia ("the RS entity"). Bosnians consider the existence of "the RS entity" in Bosnia an award for the perpetrators, achieved through genocide.
"These innocent victims fell because of a project not worthy of human kind," said Haris Silajdzic,a member of the Bosnian Presidency. He called for the division to be dismantled and "for Bosnia not to be the way the perpetrators of this crime wanted it to be."
"The way things now stand it is politically incorrect to speak of genocide, and it would be best if we remained silent and forgot everything, however this will not happen," a member of the Bosnian Presidency Haris Silajdzic said.
