Member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), Denis Becirovic, attended yesterday in Kozarac the commemoration of the 33rd anniversary of remembrance and paid tribute to the victims of severe war crimes with elements of genocide in Prijedor and the Sana Valley.
“We are here to express reverence and to bow to the shadows of more than 3.176 innocently killed civilians, among whom were 102 murdered children. Crimes against humanity and other war crimes committed in this part of BiH are among the gravest war crimes in Europe after the Second World War,” he emphasized.
As he stated, the war crimes were committed within the framework of a great-state project of aggression against the independent, sovereign, and internationally recognized state of the Republic of BiH.
“We remember, and we have the obligation to speak about it, write about it, and also to undertake activities that will lead to the sanctioning of all war criminals,” he stressed.
He recalls that the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) proved that serious war crimes were committed against the civilians of Prijedor and the surrounding area, characterized as crimes against humanity.
“In the verdict against Radovan Karadzic, the Hague Tribunal clearly established that Prijedor was ‘one of the centers of ethnic cleansing in BiH.’ I quote: ‘The municipality of Prijedor was a place where Bosniaks and Croats were systematically killed, imprisoned, and persecuted with the aim of their permanent removal,'” he said.
Becirovic emphasizes, “To the whole world, on the 33rd anniversary of crimes against humanity in Prijedor, we want to send the message: We will never give up on searching for our missing! We will never stop prosecuting war crimes,” he stressed.
In Prijedor and the surrounding areas, the non-Serb population was, he says, forced to wear white armbands.
“That population was marked as in the darkest days of European history. That must not be forgotten. The criminal ideology centered on blood, soil, and the idea of a heavenly people has always brought unprecedented suffering and destruction. Wherever the ideology of a Greater Serbia prevailed, death prevailed as well. Evil must not be forgotten or underestimated,” he said.
Becirovic recalls that the renowned United States (U.S.) prosecutor Robert H. Jackson delivered one of the most important speeches in courtrooms remembered by history on November 20th, 1945, in Nuremberg.
“On that occasion, he said, among other things: ‘The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant, and so devastating, that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored, because it cannot survive their being repeated.’ Even today, well-meaning people are obliged to say, like Prosecutor Jackson, that the committed war crimes in Prijedor and the Sana River valley must not be forgotten, because the path from forgetting to repetition is short. It is our duty to be the voice of those who are no longer with us and to fight for their dignity. We have the strength to speak without hatred, aware that hatred is the most obvious sign of weakness. Well-meaning people must fight against hatred, prejudice, and the stigmatization of others just because they belong to a different religious, ethnic, or other group,” he said.
Becirovic emphasizes that “over the next 100 years, the vast archival material of the courts in The Hague is one of our most important books of collective memory.”
“In that archival material are millions of printed pages, audio and video recordings, which are important not only for preserving the truth but also for understanding our reality. That is why, for more than two years, I have been working intensively for the United Nations (UN) to adopt a fair solution and deposit the original archive of the Tribunal in Sarajevo – the capital of our country. We need long-term strategies, policies, and actions that have long-term value for the state of BiH. All of us must be guardians of the truth,” he stated.
As he emphasized, the fight for truth does not last one day a year. It is continuous and conducted in various fields: in the adoption and implementation of laws, in education, in institutions, in every memorial, every textbook, every classroom…
“By advocating for the truth, we are making the best contribution to the future of BiH. Let us not forget that killing the truth is also killing both the past and the future. We are against hatred, we advocate for peace and tolerance. We are against forgetting; we affirm remembrance. We remember, because if we stop remembering, evil can happen to us again. Our remembrance is not a matter of ordinary choice; it is fatefully important for us. It is our moral obligation to remember all those killed and to pay tribute to them in a dignified manner. Civilized states learn and draw long-term lessons. We must never stop telling the truth about the innocent victims of Prijedor and the Sana Valley,” emphasized the member of the Presidency of BiH Denis Becirovic on the occasion of marking the 33rd anniversary of remembrance for the victims of serious war crimes with elements of genocide in Prijedor and the Sana Valley, as stated in a release from Becirovic’s Cabinet.
Yesterday’s event in Kozarac was attended by the families of victims, surviving camp detainees, representatives of victims’ associations, Grand Mufti Kavazovic, and representatives of the executive and legislative authorities.
