openDemocracy: We must not forget Srebrenica

Along that way, they have found some measure of each. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia has determined that genocide was committed in Srebrenica and convicted some of the war criminals that orchestrated and took part in it. And grass-root organisations are overcoming great obstacles to starting the difficult journey to reconciliation. [...]

They demand that their loved ones be found: but the slow identification process can only inflict additional suffering. They demand health care to treat their trauma, and they get substandard therapy. They demand accountability, but many war criminals still go free and unpunished. They demand recognition, but their suffering is ignored, vilified or denied. [...]

Mono-ethnic schools and the “two-schools-under-one-roof” system still characterises education in Bosnia and Herzegovina.It is also characterised by the ignorance of the past and manipulation of the facts about the recent war. [...]

Like the Holocaust and the Rwanda genocide, the Srebrenica genocide was not an accident. It began well before it occurred.

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Al Jazeera: The Ratko Mladic disease infecting Europe

This verdict will not change anything in the lives of people in Bosnia, or those living in the diaspora around the world. But at least we can comfort ourselves that some kind of justice does exist in this world and that those who are responsible for such horrific crimes, sooner or later, will end up in prison. [...]

A new Europe was born and people were promised to live in unity and solidarity, under the rule of law, in respect of human and civil rights. However, that Europe was not wise or brave enough to find a way to prevent, or, at least, to stop the killings in its very heart. [...]

Instead, they were trying to find a way to negotiate with murderers, while using gentle terms to describe what was going on in Bosnia, like "ethnic cleansing", "conflict", or "civil war". It took them a long time to even recognise that war crimes were committed. Then, it took them almost four years to act and stop the war, four years that cost us over 100,000 lives and more than 2 million refugees. [...]

If the Karadzic's and Mladic's of the Balkans had been stopped on time, and their ideas proclaimed dangerous, it could have been a clear message to all those who support ultranationalist and fascist ideas. But, everybody forgot the lesson we should have learned in the 1990s in Yugoslavia - that fascism is like a disease; it spreads easily and can infect anyone.

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