European Forum

Tens of thousands of people gather to commemorate Srebrenica massacre

Tens of thousands of people attended a memorial ceremony yesterday (11 July) marking the 15th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre, when Bosnian Serb paramilitaries executed more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys toward the end of the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The massacre, deemed genocide by the UN war crimes court and the International Court of Justice, was the worst atrocity in Europe since World War II. The ceremony at the Potocari cemetery near Srebrenica included the burial of 775 recently identified victims, who will join the 3,749 already there.

Serbian President Boris Tadic, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner were among the dignitaries attending the event. Among those addressing the ceremony was U.S. Ambassador to Bosnia, Charles L. English, who said "We have a sacred duty to remember the cruelty that occurred here and to prevent such atrocities from happening again." Serbian President Tadić expressed regret over the war crimes and placed a wreath at the memorial complex reading: 'To the innocent victims, from Serbian President Boris Tadić'. Speaking about the main perpetrator of the atrocities, General Ratko Mladić from the army of Republika Srpska (RS), who is still at large and believed to be hiding somewhere in Serbia, Tadić said: "With the arrest of General Mladić I would know that part of my job were finished. We need this for the future, for building confidence, and for our forthcoming generations."

On a symbolic ‘March of Peace’, some 5,000 people, including relatives of the victims, arrived in Potocari after hiking for three days through the woods, retracing the path of the men and boys who fled Srebrenica ahead of the advancing Serbian troops in July 1995.

Srebrenica massacre
Nearly 8,000 Muslim men and boys were systematically killed over several days after the fall of Srebrenica to Bosnian Serb troops, led by General Ratko Mladic, on 11 July, 1995. They were taken away by Serbian forces who overran the enclave, designated a UN safe area, as it was under the protection of UN peacekeepers – Dutch soldiers. The victims were shot and buried in mass graves, and reburied again haphazardly later in more than 70 sites in a bid to cover up the evidence of the massacre. The remains of some 6,500 people have been identified so far by forensic experts who exhumed the bones from the mass graves over the last few years. The bodies of many more victims are still awaiting identification with DNA testing.

Many Bosnian Muslims blame UN peacekeepers for failing to protect Srebrenica victims. Mladic, charged with genocide by the UN war crimes court, is still on the run. The other alleged mastermind behind the genocide, Bosnian Serb wartime political leader Radovan Karadzic, was arrested in Belgrade in 2008. He is currently on trial for war crimes before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

In 1999, then UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a report that the UN failed at Srebrenica because of errors, misjudgement, and "an inability to recognise the scope of the evil confronting us." The Dutch troops were cleared of blame by an independent study by the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation, which concluded the troops were outnumbered and undersupplied and had orders to shoot only in self-defense. However, the Dutch government has accepted "political responsibility" for the mission's failure. It has since allocated tens of millions of dollars to Bosnia.

Sources: RFE/RL; Balkan Insight; Euractiv; Volkskrant (Dutch)