Kravica was the site of the first mass executions on July 13th, 1995, where, according to the Hague tribunal and the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), more than 1.000 people were killed, followed by executions in Orahovac, Kozluk, Branjevo, and the Petkovci dam, where more than 7.000 Bosniaks were killed.
After a tender initiated by the Municipality of Bratunac, and partly financed by the Government of Republika Srpska (RS),four halls of the Agricultural Cooperative in Kravica will be reconstructed and rehabilitated, thus removing bullet damage that stands in memory of the Bosniak civilians killed in July 1995.
It has blown up in our face
Director of the Institute for Research of Crimes against Humanity and International Law, University of Sarajevo (UNSA) prof. Dr. Rasim Muratovic said that it was a matter of destroying the culture of memory, but also a crime.
”This is actually a continuation of Milosevic’s policy, the mantra he said back in The Hague, everything about BiH is not true, that it is all a lie, it is neither small nor big, but a pure lie. His ideologists and those who planned and organized the genocide in Srebrenica said that everything we planned we achieved, everything we did we will deny. So, this is first and foremost a denial of genocide and the erasure of traces. It is about destroying the culture of memory, and we have a bad historical experience of the Second World War, where from 1945 until 1990 we did not talk about what happened in the period 1941 – 1945 and, of course, it has blown up in our face,” said Muratovic.
Show consistency
He emphasizes that all places of suffering, especially the place of genocide such as Kravica, should be adequately marked.
”However, we see there are sides trying to cover it up and conceal it. This morning, the American Embassy, the international community reacted, only Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) reacted inadequately, who in some other cases, such as Kazani, and I of course congratulate them on that, were persistent, detailed, and cared about the size and type of letters and so on. I think that especially here when it comes to Kravica, we need to show consistency and we need all of the NGOs, state institutions, and the international community to show interest in this and prevent such an inhumane, immoral act that is actually a crime,” Muratovic concluded yesterday.
