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Irish Times
11-07-2025
- Politics
- Irish Times
Leaders join thousands of mourners in Bosnia to mark 30 years since Srebrenica genocide
International officials joined thousands of mourners in eastern Bosnia on Friday to mark 30 years since Serb forces massacred 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica . They also attended the burial of victims whose remains are still being pieced together from mass graves. Leaders of western states and most neighbouring countries called for a renewed commitment to prevent genocide anywhere in the world, while Serbia and Bosnian Serb officials continue to reject international court rulings that the massacre was genocide. 'In this moment of remembrance, we reaffirm our unwavering commitment to accountability and truth,' European Council president Antonio Costa said. He was speaking at a commemoration ceremony at the vast cemetery at Potocari, just outside Srebrenica, where 6,772 Srebrenica victims are buried after seven were laid to rest on Friday. Srebrenica genocide: Why Bosnia is still divided 30 years on Listen | 39:42 'There is no room in Europe - or anywhere else - for genocide denial, revisionism, or the glorification of those responsible. Denying such horrors only poisons our future. It is our duty to confront and acknowledge the full truth. This is the first step in ensuring that such atrocities never happen again,' Mr Costa said. READ MORE A flower is seen on a monument with the names of those killed in the Srebrenica genocide. Photograph: Armin Durgut/AP 'Even as we are all together to mourn and remember, we also carry the promise of renewal ... A journey from war and genocide to peace and prosperity. The European Union is a project of peace, born from the ashes of a tragic war and driven by a vision of reconciliation. This is the same vision that inspires us on the enlargement to the western Balkan countries. We believe the place of Bosnia ... is in the European Union.' Bosnia's progress towards the EU is stymied by a dysfunctional political system imposed by the Dayton Accords - which ended a 1992-1995 war that killed 100,000 people – and by Serb rejection of deeper integration in the Muslim-majority country and their refusal to accept genocide was committed at Srebrenica. [ 'I'm remembering Srebrenica while Srebrenica is happening in Gaza' Opens in new window ] Serbian and Bosnian Serb leaders acknowledge that grave crimes took place, but deny that it was genocide against Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims). A woman reacts as she sits among gravestones at the memorial cemetery in the village of Potocari on the 30th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre. Photograph: Andrej Isakovic/AFP 'Today marks 30 years since the terrible crime in Srebrenica was committed,' Serbian president Aleksandar Vucic said on social media. 'We cannot change the past, but we must change the future. Once again, on behalf of the citizens of Serbia, I express my condolences to the families of the Bosniak victims, confident that a similar crime will never happen again.' The wartime Bosnian Serb political and military leaders, Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic , were convicted of committing genocide at Srebrenica by a United Nations tribunal at The Hague, and two international courts ruled that genocide took place. Srebrenica had been declared as a UN 'safe haven' for Bosniaks from a Serb campaign of so-called ethnic cleansing in eastern Bosnia. However, the UN, Nato and western governments stood idle as Mladic's forces overran the area on July 11th, 1995, expelled Dutch peacekeepers and seized thousands of Bosniak civilians. [ 'Facing the past is still our biggest problem': Bosnia divided 30 years after Srebrenica genocide Opens in new window ] The men and boys were separated from the women and executed over the following days in fields, forests, warehouses, farm buildings, cultural centres and other locations. Later, Serbs excavated mass graves with bulldozers, moved bodies across the country in dump trucks and reburied them to hide war crimes. As a result, the remains of many victims were dispersed between multiple graves, and only pieced together over time using advanced DNA identification techniques. 'The mass identification of victims in Bosnia…has demonstrated that the fog of war cannot completely obscure the truth – and when the truth is recovered, justice becomes possible,' said Munira Subasic, president of the Mothers of Srebrenica movement and Kathryne Bomberger, director-general of the International Commission on Missing Persons, in a joint statement.
Irish Times
09-07-2025
- Politics
- Irish Times
‘It's an honour to be able to send a warning': Defiant Sarajevo a scarred survivor of Bosnia's war
Sarajevo is now bustling with tourists from around the world, many of whom must wonder at the centuries of coexistence that allowed synagogues, mosques and Orthodox and Catholic churches to be built side by side – and at the scars of a vicious ethnic war in the 1990s that tore apart and still mark Bosnia's capital . Serb forces besieged Sarajevo from April 1992 to February 1996, shelling its mostly Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) population from surrounding hills and terrorising them with sharpshooters who turned a central avenue into a deadly 'sniper alley'. The longest siege of a major city in modern history killed more than 11,000 people, including 1,600 children. Some buildings and pavements are still pockmarked by bullets and shrapnel. Statues and plaques honour the dead. Museums on the war, the siege and the July 1995 Srebrenica genocide now feature alongside the city's historic places of worship on the itineraries of most visitors. There has been no serious ethnic violence in Sarajevo and Bosnia since the end of the siege and implementation of the 1995 Dayton Accords, which halted three years of fighting between Serb, Bosniak and Croat forces that claimed about 100,000 lives. READ MORE Yet the legacy of the war – preserved and entrenched in some ways by the very peace deal that concluded it – still shapes the daily lives of many Bosnians from children in segregated schools to staff at national museums, galleries, libraries and archives who struggle to secure funding from politicians who work along ethnic lines. Bosnia's historical museum in central Sarajevo is one of seven national cultural institutions that were 'orphaned' by the war and a settlement that established two ethnically based, semi-autonomous 'entities' – Serb-run Republika Srpska and the Muslim-Croat Federation – linked only by weak central authorities in Sarajevo. That set-up put no one in charge of the sensitive issues of culture and education at state level, leaving postwar policy and funding to regional and local officials who favour ethno-nationalism over more inclusive narratives. By allocating posts according to ethnicity, the Dayton-imposed political system perversely rewards such an approach. People walk past marks made by a mortar strike in central Sarajevo during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war. Photograph: Daniel McLaughlin 'We are hearing for 30 years that we are nobody's responsibility, because no one wants to take responsibility for delivering things to everyone, to all communities,' Elma Hasimbegovic, director of the historical museum, says. 'We are a national museum, but there is no direct state institution that could take over the founding rights of the museum. 'Dayton made a system in which nobody has responsibility for anything ... So everyone is passing the ball and no one is taking responsibility. Officials have no responsibility and live comfortably, that's why they don't want to change Dayton. And we are suffering because of this.' The museum survives by seeking grants on a project-by-project basis, which makes for a precarious existence. At the same time, it preserves the museum's independence and national approach in a country where ethnic loyalties colour every aspect of public life. 'If we were integrated into state structures as they are now, it would bring us into a corrupted and toxic system, into the system of a state that is not functional and that would make us think about being Bosniak or Serb or Croat. So far, we've managed to stay out of this system and this way of thinking,' Hasimbegovic says. 'We don't want some politicians in parliament deciding about our politics, about our cultural work ... Even if we might get more security in our funding, it would be the end of our institution's promotion of shared history and heritage and culture.' Elma Hasimbegovic, director of the historical museum of Bosnia. Photograph: Daniel McLaughlin Dozens of schools across the country remain ethnically segregated three decades after the war, with children from different communities following different curriculums in different classrooms, only mingling at break times or the end of the day. 'It is not good,' Christian Schmidt, the international high representative for Bosnia, says of the state of reconciliation efforts. 'This incredible structure of 'one roof, two schools' ... is so counterproductive for cohesion and European integration. Some of those who promote this ... have never realised that European integration needs acceptance of others, it needs working together.' The Bosnian war has been investigated and documented in great detail, particularly by the United Nations tribunal for former Yugoslavia in The Hague , which heard from more than 4,500 witnesses and produced more than 2.5 million pages of transcripts between 1993 and its closure in 2017. Yet there is no sign of a national consensus emerging on the war, and Serb officials still reject international court rulings that Serb forces committed genocide 30 years ago by massacring 8,000 Bosniak men and boys in and around Srebrenica. They also threaten to take Republika Srpska out of Bosnia rather than allow deeper integration in the Muslim-majority country. Hasimbegovic suspects there will 'never' be a national school textbook on the history of the war, because Bosniak, Serb and Croat narratives are irreconcilable. 'They are training kids to be nationalists and don't give them constructive dialogues about the past or a critical point of view,' she says. 'Even if kids don't know much [history], they are trained to think 'correctly' as regards the politics around things.' Pulitzer-prize winning Bosnian photographer Damir Sagolj. Photograph: Daniel McLaughlin Damir Sagolj served with the Bosnian army in the war before becoming a Pulitzer-prize winning photographer. He now has an exhibition in Sarajevo to mark the 30th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide. 'It's something we have to get out, because if we don't then very soon it might be too late and certain pages of history would be left blank,' he says of the need for his generation to document the war and its aftermath. 'And that would be the worst thing, because then everybody would be invited to write whatever s**t they want there.' Bosnia 'never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity', he says. 'We could have rebuilt the pillars of civil society, but instead we kept building nationalists parties, churches and the rest.' The interior of the restored Vijecnica, Sarajevo city hall, which was severely damaged by Serb shelling in 1992. Photograph: Daniel McLaughlin The Vijecnica, Sarajevo's city hall, was opened in 1896 when Austria-Hungary ruled Bosnia. That ended with the first World War , which was sparked by the June 1914 assassination of Habsburg archduke Franz Ferdinand just 400 metres away after he had visited the building by the Miljacka river. The Vijecnica was severely damaged by Serb shelling in August 1992 when it served as Bosnia's national library, destroying more than two million books, magazines and manuscripts. It reopened as the city hall in 2014 after meticulous renovation. 'I was 14 years old when the war started, and for the whole war I was in Sarajevo,' mayor Predrag Puharic says in his office in the Vijecnica. 'For me and generations afterwards it is important to spread the word globally – to spread the warning globally ... We survived the war, the siege, atrocities, in Sarajevo and the whole of Bosnia. Maybe it is an honour to be able to send a warning.' Predrag Puharic, mayor of the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo. Photograph: Daniel McLaughlin Puharic, who is a Serb, condemns denial of the Srebrenica genocide, and the corruption and zero-sum ethnic politics that still blight Bosnia. 'What is frustrating ... is that we don't want that kind of politics and narrative any more. What is in the national interest of all people here is to be in the European Union – not decisions that favour some politician's family or something,' he says. 'Ten or 15 years ago, most people left Bosnia because of the economic situation. Now even people who are in a pretty good financial situation are leaving because of the politics.' Despite its wartime scars, Sarajevo can still be a symbol of tolerance, Puharic says. 'I have friends who are Srebrenica survivors. It's not news every time we have coffee, but it would be news if we ever had a fight. We must remember that we've had no fighting since the war,' he says. Mosques, Catholic and Orthodox churches and a synagogue cluster close together in Sarajevo's old town. Photograph: Daniel McLaughlin 'Just across the street you can see a pro- Palestine protest and 40 metres down the street is a synagogue. And there is no police presence. Mosques and churches are side by side. 'The Sarajevo mayor is not a Bosniak. Can you find another city in the region where a person who is not from the majority community is leading the city? And when I was appointed, nobody cared – we just had a new mayor.'
Irish Times
08-07-2025
- Politics
- Irish Times
‘Facing the past is still our biggest problem': Bosnia divided and dysfunctional 30 years after Srebrenica genocide
Faces of the dead line the main road into Srebrenica, but they are not photographs of the 8,000 Muslim men and boys massacred by Serb forces in and around this town in eastern Bosnia 30 years ago. They are pictures of hundreds of Serbs allegedly killed by Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) troops in this area during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war. Placed on the approach to the vast Srebrenica burial ground ahead of Friday's commemoration events there, they are also part of Serb attempts to relativise or deny the genocide that have not diminished over time. The refusal of Serb officials to acknowledge the genocide is the most emotive of many obstacles to reconciliation in Bosnia, which still labours under a postwar political framework that paralyses decision-making and only entrenches ethnic divisions. 'Those pictures are of soldiers, veterans of the Bosnian Serb army, so the message is the same as always – it is still denial, and they are glorifying those people,' says Camil Durakovic, a Bosniak former mayor of Srebrenica who still lives in the town. READ MORE 'Now it's 30 years and I don't see progress. In fact, I see us going backwards ... This government is reversing anything good that was done since the war ended,' he adds. 'Facing the past is still our biggest problem.' Camil Durakovic, a Bosniak vice-president of Republika Srpska in Bosnia and a former mayor of Srebrenica. Photograph: Daniel McLaughlin Durakovic is referring to the government of Republika Srpska, the Serb-run region linked by a weak central government in Sarajevo to Bosnia's other 'entity', the Bosniak-Croat Federation. The federation is subdivided into 10 cantons, each with its own government and parliament. Bosnia also has an international high representative – with broad powers to issue edicts – who oversees implementation of the Dayton Accords, a 1995 peace deal that imposed this convoluted administration on the shattered former Yugoslav republic after fighting had killed about 100,000 of its people. Western capitals and a series of high representatives in Sarajevo have tried for three decades to make Bosnia more cohesive by strengthening state institutions, and by holding out the promise of eventual European Union membership if reforms succeed. Yet Republika Srpska resists attempts to transfer any of its powers to the state, and its long-time leader, Milorad Dodik, frequently threatens to seek secession for the region rather than allow its deeper integration in the Bosniak-majority country. Milorad Dodik, the long-time leader of Republika Srpska, frequently threatens to seek secession for the region. Photograph: Fehim Demir/EPA Alongside leaders of neighbouring Serbia and with support from Russia , Dodik and his allies in Republika Srpska deny that Serb forces committed genocide in Srebrenica, flying in the face of international court rulings and the convictions for genocide at a United Nations tribunal in The Hague of Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, respectively the wartime political and military chiefs of the Bosnian Serbs. 'Serbs in Srebrenica did not commit genocide,' Dodik said on Saturday, while describing the July 1995 massacre as a 'terrible crime' but also calling himself a 'comrade' of Mladic and Karadzic. [ Ratko Mladic: 'Terminally ill' Bosnian Serb general serving life for genocide seeks release Opens in new window ] He was attending an event in the town of Bratunac, 10km from Srebrenica, to honour thousands of Serb civilians and soldiers that locals say were killed by Bosniak forces in the area during the war. Although Bosniaks and Croats were convicted at The Hague, many Serbs believe their crimes have never been adequately punished and are overlooked or diminished by the Bosnian state and the West. 'They know everything, just as we do ... All we can conclude is that Sarajevo is defending the crime committed here in Bratunac,' said Dodik. 'They tried to portray Serbs as criminals and other nations as victims. I no longer trust them at all,' he added, noting the absence of western diplomats at the commemoration. 'They are not here today – even if they were, I wouldn't know what to say to them. I am proud of the Russian ambassador, who is always with us.' The Bosnian flag flies over the graves of many of the more than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys massacred by Serb forces in and around Srebrenica in July 1995. The cemetery at Potocari outside Srebrenica will host a 30-year commemoration event on Friday. Photograph: Daniel McLaughlin Before Russia launched armed aggression against Ukraine in 2014, the countries of former Yugoslavia were the main European arena for geopolitical rivalry between Moscow and the West. Russian volunteers fought for the Bosnian Serbs during the war, and the Kremlin later opposed Kosovo's independence from Serbia and blocked a 2015 draft resolution in the United Nations to recognise the Srebrenica massacre as genocide. Dodik is a frequent visitor to Russia, and has continued to travel there since a Bosnian state court gave him a one-year jail term in February and banned him from politics for six years for defying decisions from the high representative. A verdict on his appeal against the conviction is expected in the coming weeks. Already under US sanctions for alleged corruption and undermining Bosnian statehood, Dodik rejected the authority of the court and the high representative, and his allies in the Republika Srpska parliament barred state police and judicial authorities from acting on the region's territory. Dodik (66) has found support from the Kremlin's other allies in the region – Serbia and Hungary. Budapest sent up to 300 members of a police special forces unit to Republika Srpska for unannounced 'training' that coincided with the February court verdict, in what could have been a show of strength or preparations to protect him from arrest. Last week, Republika Srpska deputies voted to create an auxiliary police force. Dodik's allies say the reserves will help the region cope with emergencies, but critics say it is another step towards creating a police state dedicated to protecting the region's president. Christian Schmidt, a veteran German politician who is now international high representative for Bosnia in Sarajevo. Photograph: Daniel McLaughlin 'I wouldn't exclude that some are thinking about him as a kind of politically destructive player, on strings. I hope he is wise enough [to see that] normally this is not healthy for those playing this game. These are not reliable partners,' Christian Schmidt, Bosnia's current high representative, says about Moscow's closeness to Dodik. 'I see that there is a challenge from Russia, perhaps coming to use the western Balkans as a second-level playing field, maybe somehow to draw attention from Ukraine,' he warns, while insisting that the 'situation is manageable.' Balkans expert Jasmin Mujanovic describes Dodik as an 'eager, pliant proxy of Russia' who 'remains the most significant threat to peace and security' in Bosnia and the region. 'But his political power has also weakened significantly in recent years,' says Mujanovic, a non-resident senior fellow at the Washington-based New Lines Institute. 'He is not strong enough to dismantle the state, but the relevant authorities in Sarajevo also appear to lack the courage to use the full weight of the legal-security apparatus to bring him to heel.' After defying the national authorities for months, Dodik made a surprise appearance for questioning at the prosecutor's office in Sarajevo last Friday. A court then lifted an arrest warrant and ordered him to report regularly to the state authorities. 'The deal he made with the public prosecutor is obviously a slap on the wrist and the [Bosnian] public is, rightfully, aghast,' Mujanovic says. 'Yet it also shows he was not able to simply ignore the state authorities, nor could he secure his desired secession from the state.' A billboard in Serb-run Srebrenica announcing a commemoration event for Serbs killed by Bosniaks during the 1992-5 Bosnian war. The gathering last Saturday was called 'Thirty-three years of crimes without punishment.' Photograph: Daniel McLaughlin Durakovic, now a vice-president in Republika Srpska, also believes Dodik is running out of options and can no longer be certain of support from Serbia, where autocratic president Aleksandar Vucic is under pressure from massive student-led street protests. He thinks the crunch will come if Dodik loses the appeal against his conviction and is banned from holding office in Bosnia. 'In a month we'll have a different situation,' Durakovic says. 'Then we'll see what direction we'll go. Let's hope it's positive.'
