Archbishop of Sarajevo remembers victims of Srebrenica massacre
By Lisa Zengarini
As Bosnia and Herzegovina commemorate the tragic anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide during the 1992-1995 Bosnian War, the Archbishop of Sarajevo Tomo Vuksic, says the graves of the victims “preach” peace in today’s world.
The worst episode of mass murder within Europe since World War II
In July 1995 the town became a global symbol of suffering and genocide as a result of the infamous attack by Bosnian Serb forces on what was supposed to be a UN ‘safe haven’ there.
Ignoring a Security Council resolution that declared Srebrenica a protected area, the Bosnian Serb army under the command of General Ratko Mladic and the political direction of the then president of the Bosnian Serb entity Republika Srpska Radovan Karadžić, attacked the city, and after placing the women, children, and elderly aboard buses directed to Bosniak-held territory, executed some 8,000 Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) boys and men.
Some killings occurred on the evening of July 12, but mass evacuations of mostly blindfolded Bosniak males to execution sites began in earnest on the evening of July 13. It was discovered later that many of the victims of the massacre had had their arms and feet bound. Many of the bodies also showed signs of mutilation.
In addition to the killings, more than 20,000 civilians were expelled from the area while over 6,000 homes mosques, schools, factories and infrastructure were torched.
The massacre, which was the worst episode of mass murder within Europe since World War II, helped galvanize the West to press for a cease-fire which led the 1995 Dayton Accords ending three years of warfare in the former Yugoslavian republic.
However, the war has left deep emotional scars on survivors and enduring obstacles to political reconciliation among Bosnia’s three main ethnic groups: Croatian, Serb and Bosniak.
Responsibilites of Bosnian Serb army and of the United Nations
The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia — established before the massacre to scrutinize ongoing military conduct—concluded that the Srebrenica slayings, compounded by the mass expulsion of Bosniak civilians, amounted to genocide.
It placed the principal responsibility on senior officers in the Bosnian Serb army, but the United Nations also accepted a portion of the blame for having failed to protect the Bosniak civilians.
Fraternal compassion for the victims
In a message issued on the eve of the 28th anniversary of the massacre commemorated annually on 11 July, the Archbishop of Sarajevo, Tomo Vuksic, expressed his deep condolence to all those mourning their loved ones who perished in the killings, underlining how "each victim was a father or mother, brother or sister, son or daughter, wife or husband, boyfriend or girlfriend, someone's friend or acquaintance".
“For the rest of us – he continued - they are our brothers and sisters whose life was taken away, so our fraternal compassion towards them is sincere".
The Archbishop of Sarajevo turned his thoughts in particular to the families of those whose remains will be buried only this year, after being exhumed from more mass graves and whose identification hadn’t been completed until recently.
The victims' message
Archbishop Vuksic defines "the graves of the victims as great messengers of peace" who "demand that every life be respected and preserved". This, he said, is "their greatest message and lesson for all ".
The message concludes with a prayer to God, “our merciful creator and only Lord of life" so that “He may grant all the deceased eternal life" while "hope may be born of the sorrow of the living".
The culprits of the massacre
Since the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, the government of the Republika Srpska (now formally part of Bosnia and Herzegovina) issued an apology in 2004 and acknowledged that an estimated 7,800 were murdered. Also Serbian President Tomislav Nikolić issued an apology in April 2013 although he didn’ call it genocide.
Over the years the UN criminal tribunal indicted more than 20 people for their involvement, several of whom were condemned. In 2016 Karadžić was found guilty of genocide, as well as nine other war crimes and crimes against humanity, and sentenced to 40 years in prison, while in 2017 Mladić was sentenced to life imprisonment for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.
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