We will never forget!
Srebrenica - July 1995 - July 2011
Peace action “We will never forget!” starts at 19.30, on July 10th 2011, at the Republic Square in Belgrade
With the peace action “We will never forget!” we, Women in Black, want to show respect of the dignity and humanity of the victims of the genocide that happened 16 years ago in Srebrenica. We express our regret for the destruction of life, and our solidarity and compassion for the suffering of the victims. All the killed ones are important to us, it is important that their suffering is recognized and respected, because, without that, their families and entire communities of victims of genocide in Srebrenica cannot overcome the past, nor can they accept reconciliation without accountability. Therefore, we will, during the action, read the names of 614 victims of genocide in Srebrenica, who will, after all this time, be buried on July 11th. We want to remind you that, out of 8372 persons killed during several days of July in 1995, the youngest one was 11 years old, and the oldest one 94 years old. Apart from one Croat, all the victims were Bosniaks. At least one woman was killed during the genocide.
With this peace action, we want to show that those murdered left the deepest marks in our lives, and that ignorance or indifference towards what happened to the victims is, in fact, the denial of their and our human dignity. We want to share the sorrow, compassion, solidarity and responsibility towards the victims of genocide with our fellow citizens. It is a prerequisite for building a just peace, and good neighbourly relations and confidence in the region.
Srebrenica genocide is a paradigm of all Serbian crimes - crimes committed in our name. Srebrenica is, like Auschwitz, the most profound ethical problem. As long as the general public does not recognize the genocide in Srebrenica on the criminal, political, moral and cultural level, we will continue to live in a moral decline. As long as the denial, relativization and forgetting of the genocide exist, the humiliation of the victims will continue. As long as vast majority of citizens in Serbia refuse to deal with the fact that there were criminals among their own people, they will act in solidarity with these criminals. Guilt is individual but the responsibility is collective; as long as the majority of people do not distance itself from crime and as long as the denial prevails, the majority will continue with the relativization and the denial of the genocide.
On this occasion, we want to point out again that the arrest and extradition of Ratko Mladic, indicted for genocide in Srebrenica and for other most serious war crimes, to The Hague Tribunal is extremely important act. However, as the arrest was made after 16 years, we demand from the representatives of the estate institutions to launch an investigation and find out who hid, protected and guarded Mladic all these years. In what military and/or other facility was he kept? How much has the hiding of Mladic cost the citizens of Serbia?
If, in due time, representatives of the state institutions do not provide the answers to these and other questions, it will be clear that the arrest was solely a pragmatic act, which has nothing to do with justice for victims, nor with the changing of the system of values and the abandonment of ideological, moral and cultural patterns that enabled and justified war and war crimes, and turned criminals into heroes.
Belgrade, July 9th, 2011.
