NPWJ commemorates the fourteenth anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide and calls for the arrest of Ratko Mladic

Brussels - New York - Rome, 10 July 2009

 

Press release in Italian
 
Fourteen years ago, Bosnian Serb forces under the command of General Ratko Mladić executed more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys and forced another 25,000 women, children and elderly people to leave their homes. The massacre was found to constitute genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in 2004, a finding reaffirmed by the International Court of Justice in 2007.
From this year, the European Union joins the countries that recognise 11 July as the Day of Commemoration of the Srebrenica Genocide. This token of remembrance is denied within Bosnia and Herzegovina, as representatives of the Serb Republic in the Bosnian parliament are still blocking initiatives to recognise a national day of remembrance.
 
Statement by Sergio Stanzani and Niccoló Figa-Talamanca, President and Secretary-General of No Peace Without Justice:
 
“No Peace Without Justice (NPWJ) and the Nonviolent Radical Party, Transnational and Transparty (NRPTT) honour the victims of the Srebrenica massacre and their surviving loved-ones, many of whom were themselves subjected to ethnic cleansing by forces under the command of Bosnian SerbGeneral Ratko Mladic. The fact that General Mladic, indicted in 1996 by the ICTY for genocide and crimes against humanity, still remains at large today is a profound moral failure for Serbia and for the international community; most importantly, it is an affront to the memory of those who died and to the suffering of those who survived.
 
“NPWJ and NRPTT call on the Government of Serbia to redouble its efforts to secure the arrest and transfer of General Mladic to the ICTY to face trial, along with former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, who is currently standing trial before the tribunal following his arrest last year. The European Union should take all possible measures to ensure Serbia’s cooperation in this regard. The UN Security Council should restate that the ICTY will remain in operation until General Mladic has been arrested and his trial concluded.  If the ICTY closes its doors without having tried General Mladic, this will be a victory of violence over justice, calling into question the very core objective of the Tribunal.
 
“As 533 newly-identified victims of the massacre will be buried and several thousand mourners will arrive in Srebrenica after a 110 km ‘Peace Walk’ from the town of Nezuk, NPWJ and NRPTT stand with the victims’ central message that those responsible for the crimes committed at Srebrenica must be brought to justice, so that sustainable peace and reconciliation can be possible among the peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina.”
 
Download the press release in pdf format
 
For further information, contact Alison Smith on asmith@npwj.org or +32-486-986 235 or Nicola Giovannini on ngiovannini@npwj.org or +32-2-548-3913.