The Czech Parliament today held a commemoration ceremony to mark the 30th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide.
Ambassador Martina Mlinarević greeted parliamentarians, diplomats, Czech veterans who served in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as representatives of the Bosnian community in the Czech Republic, mentioning in her speech all the horrors that occurred in Srebrenica in July 1995, with special reference to the surviving mothers and women who were victims of rape as an act of war.
Ambassador Mlinarević also spoke about the repeated denial of genocide and the glorification of war criminals, and pointed out how difficult it is to talk about “never again” in the context of not repeating genocide, when we see the humanitarian crisis every day and everything that the innocent children of Gaza are going through, and she also reminded us of war-torn Ukraine.
On this occasion, the President of the Parliament of the Czech Republic, Markéta Pekarová Adamová, addressed the audience and recalled her visit to Srebrenica last year and the mothers of Srebrenica. President Pekarová Adamová spoke about the shocking experience left by that visit and all that Bosniak men and boys experienced in July 1995 at the hands of the aggressors.
She expressed her belief that the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina will never again have to go through similar traumas and sufferings, but neither will anyone else in the world, and that we must be clear in our efforts to prevent history from repeating itself.
President Pekarová Adamová also spoke about Bucha in Ukraine, which she also visited.
This was followed by the speech of the representative in the Czech Parliament, Jan Hoffman, who is a member of the Interparliamentary Group of Friends for Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was formed in 2022 at the initiative of Ambassador Mlinarević. Representative Hoffman spoke about the future of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which will always have Czech support on the path to Euro-Atlantic integration, and that it is their human and moral duty in the context of the war suffering and genocide in Srebrenica to provide all possible support to BiH today, which they are doing as a country through hundreds of extraordinary projects, scholarships for BiH students, etc.
Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic Jan Marian also addressed the audience and said that the denial of genocide by certain officials of the Republika Srpska is unacceptable, and he also spoke about the Czech vote for the Resolution on Srebrenica, which established the International Day of Remembrance of Genocide, which they marked with today’s act of commemoration in Parliament.
