Srebrenica is our eternal sorrow and a living wound for every Bosniak

By: Muamer Bandić, member of the Presidency of the Party of BiH and representative in the KS Assembly

The Council of Ministers of BiH did not pass the Decision on declaring July 11th a Day of Mourning in Bosnia and Herzegovina this year either, despite all the rulings of the International Court of Justice and the United Nations resolution. With this move, the state government is directly involved in the denial and negation of the genocide in Srebrenica!

There is no relaxation of relations, nor can there be with the deniers of the genocide in Srebrenica, because Srebrenica is our eternal sorrow and a living wound for every Bosniak. Whoever does not respect Srebrenica does not respect our people and thereby shows us again that they do not want peace, coexistence, and the building of a normal and better future for the generations to come, in our common homeland, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Let our hand be extended to every human being, and just as firmly clenched into a fist for every inhuman.

By denying the genocide, inhuman beings have been monstrously tormenting and mocking the most painful event in the history of our country and our people for 29 years, year after year. The murdered are killed again. The survivors are tormented again, all in order to tire them out and make them give up the pursuit of justice.

Secondary and tertiary collective traumas are systematically created, all with the aim of relativizing and letting the most monstrous crime on European soil after World War II fall into oblivion. And while the perpetrators of the genocide and their accomplices fight for Srebrenica to be forgotten, our fight is to never forget and never give up the pursuit of justice for the victims of the genocide.

It is our civilizational duty to speak and bear witness to the truth on July 11th every year and to fight in this way for those who cannot seek justice in this world today. It is our human, moral, and legal obligation not to forgive in their name those who have not repented for their crimes, nor those who obstruct the discovery of truth and the punishment of criminals.

We are obliged to do so by little Fatima, born and died on the same day, July 12, 1995, in Potočari. We are also obliged by the 14 victims of genocide buried today, the youngest of whom was only 17 and the oldest 68 years old. The remains of some of them were found in as many as 4 different locations, secondary or tertiary graves, which shows the full brutality of the intention, scale, and systematic nature of the crime of genocide.

Our silence can only help the criminals achieve their sick goals. Therefore, let us speak, and let us speak loudly, as loudly as we can NeverForgetSrebrenica.