As part of the commemoration of the 28th anniversary of the genocide in Srebrenica, Bosnian associations in Germany, in cooperation with the Consulate General of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Germany, organized the traditional commemoration of the Genocide in Srebrenica in Stuttgart, reports Anaola.
Member of the BiH Presidency Željko Komšić attended the commemoration and addressed several thousand present Bosnians and Herzegovinans.
“No memory of Srebrenica can begin, so I do not begin this speech without thinking of all those who were victims of genocide. It is impossible to talk about Srebrenica and not have pictures of underage boys in front of my eyes. Those people who are not even allowed to in life they try to realize their dreams, and they certainly had them, just like every normal person has them. As one of our poets says – now they would be fathers, now they are gone. And there are no those who were fathers either. They are gone to see what their children grew up to be, those who survived without them, as poor people. And many of them grew up to be good and successful people,” said Komšić.
He added that the memory of Srebrenica cannot pass without the image of emaciated old men who are also at the end of their, usually difficult lives, deprived of it in a brutal and humiliating manner.
“There is something disgusting and undignified in such treatment of an elderly person, because if you are able to attack an old and emaciated, and at that, unarmed, you are nothing but a simple coward, and the only ones who are worse and more miserable than them are those who make them heroes because of it think. What was the genocide in Srebrenica? Nothing but the savage killing of people just because they were Muslims, Bosniaks, savage exploitation of the weak and powerless. However, we must never forget that there was indeed system and order in that madness. Institutions, today’s of a smaller entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina, that is, the army and the police, which were formed contrary to the then Constitution and during the armed aggression of the Republic of Serbia against Bosnia and Herzegovina, and which inherited the structure and command structure from the Yugoslav People’s Army, committed the crime of genocide. was the crown of the genocidal operation that those institutions, with the political, intelligence, and paramilitary support of neighboring Serbia, carried out in the period from 1992 to 1995. Crimes which in their character are the same as the genocide in Srebrenica were committed even before July 1995 in the municipalities of Eastern Bosnia, where even more people were killed than in the July days of 1995. However, in July 1995, in just five days, as a result of the fall of Srebrenica as a supposedly protected zone of the United Nations, the military and political leadership of the Bosnian Serbs, with the support of Serbia, killed over eight thousand people,” said Komšić.
He said that the crime of genocide was proven thanks to the systematicity of the perpetrators of genocide who left behind clear material evidence, decisions and records of genocidal intent, as well as evidence of genocidal action.
“Nothing during the commission of the crime of genocide in Srebrenica was left to chance. International courts during long-term trials, following the evidence, established the direct guilt of the President of Republika Srpska Radovan Karadzic and the political leadership of that creation, as well as the direct guilt of the commander-in-chief General Ratko Mladić and others. Courts have also established the guilt of the direct perpetrators, that is, those who carried out the tasks. From the entire series of evidence and the series of convicts, the criminal hierarchy is clearly visible, as well as the commitment to the act of crime from an ordinary soldier and policeman to the president and general of the Republika Srpska army,” Komšić reminded and added:
“The genocide in Srebrenica is an internationally established legal fact. However, it is only a fact. The fact that it was established in accordance with international law does not mean, and we witness this almost every day, that this fact has anything to do with the universal principle of justice. And after all, well even after changes to the Criminal Code were imposed by the former high representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina, according to which it is forbidden to deny the genocide, the political and ideological perpetuators of the genocide, publicly, in today’s authorities of the Republika Srpska entity, continue to glorify the perpetrators of the crime of genocide, and continue with by promoting them into national heroes. They consider them heroes not because they think they are not guilty of crimes, but precisely because they believe that committing the crime of genocide against Bosniaks is an expression of the historical right and heroism of the Serbian people.”
He emphasized that the aforementioned amendments to the Criminal Code, according to which the denial of genocide is allegedly punishable, remained a dead letter.
“The foreigners who imposed that law are not honestly behind that imposition, but that is why they are behind some other impositions, even when the Constitution is suspended for one day, which is an unprecedented example of legal violence in the world. Bosniaks, but also everyone else in Bosnia and Herzegovina who perceive Bosnia and Herzegovina as their only homeland, and especially the direct victims of genocide, feel completely outraged and deceived. They feel deceived because at one point they believed that the West would use its authority to make it impossible for the perpetrators of genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina that they celebrate the crime of genocide and thereby cause additional pain to the victims. That hope of the Bosniaks and every good person in Bosnia and Herzegovina turned out to be naive, and now the Bosniaks, like all free-minded people of Bosnia and Herzegovina, rightly feel indignation because they have been deceived by the West once again and betrayed,” said Komšić.
He added that it was believed that the Law on the Prohibition of Genocide would finally work under pressure from the West, but that there was joint pressure from separatist policies in Bosnia and Herzegovina on the one hand, and political representatives of Western countries on the other, to make numerous concessions and concessions to damage to the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina for the sake of so-called peace at home.
“Unfortunately, and under pressure from the West, political structures were found in Bosnia and Herzegovina that are ready for these concessions. The result is the following; these concessions were made, to make things even worse – new and bigger ones are sought, the state is weakened, its enemies have been strengthened, and the Law on the Prohibition of Genocide Denial does not work at all, because judicial institutions have been occupied by sympathizers of separatist policies precisely thanks to the mentioned concessions that were made at the insistence of Western political representatives. At first glance, all this seems completely bizarre and incomprehensible, but it is regrettably true. All this produces justified frustrations, not only among Bosniaks, but among all citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina who consider it their only homeland,” said Komšić.
He stated that Bosniaks’ trust in the West, as well as “every normal person in BiH, has never been less”.
“Which should not be surprising, because after the genocide that was survived, which the West calmly observed, the same political factors, in the same way, tolerate the political and ideological continuation of the genocide. It is the same today when the separatists who did not give up on breaking Bosnia and Herzegovina try to break it by they attack its institutions or by infiltrating them they seek to paralyze them and thus create legal prerequisites for the overthrow of the state. Western political officials who swear to support the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Bosnia and Herzegovina pretend not to see what is behind such attempts. They instead to clearly mark those who are responsible for destabilization, they very often resort to a general relativization of responsibility, whereby the truth is that the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina suffers the greatest damage. It is the same state that is such a guarantor of the existential survival of the people over whom it is at the end of the 20th century, Genocide was committed in front of the world and TV cameras,” said Komšić.
He pointed out that the frequent expression of condolences by “international officials, ambassadors, excellencies and other foreigners who come and pass through BiH, with honorable exceptions, through the recognition of the fact of genocide, is very ugly used as a kind of emotional blackmail with the aim of obtaining certain political decisions to the detriment of Bosnia and Herzegovina, even to the detriment of the genocide victims themselves”.
“If we judge by what is currently happening, one could draw the conclusion that for years in the West, many people only pretended that they were hurt and touched by the mentioned tragedy, and today we clearly see that this is not the case at all. All those citizens Bosnia and Herzegovina, who are for Bosnia and Herzegovina, I believe that I can live with this unpleasant realization. And not only live, but we will also build Bosnia and Herzegovina, only now without illusions that anyone will help us in this, but with the awareness that what we build is only ours and we are nothing to anyone, so we do not owe any explanation, even a simple one,” said Komšić.
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