British attempts to use the upcoming anniversary of the worst war crime in the former Yugoslavia to unite all sides in the wars in mutual forgiveness have collapsed, receiving an angry rebuff from the Bosnian Muslim leadership.
The UK Foreign Office had been quietly circulating proposals in the Balkans, suggesting the leaderships of Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia should issue a common declaration of "reconciliation and apology" in Srebrenica, where Serbs conducted a minutely planned massacre of some 8,000 Bosnian Muslim males almost 10 years ago.
World and regional leaders are to gather at Srebrenica in nine days' time to mark the 10th anniversary of the worst crime in Europe since the Holocaust. The mass murder, which was the climax to the 1992-1995 Bosnian war, is the sole officially decreed act of genocide in the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s.
British diplomats appear to have badly misjudged the local mood, floating the notion of a common declaration aimed at healing wounds which, in the case of Srebrenica, remain fresh for the tens of thousands of relatives of the dead, many of whom have yet to locate their loved ones' remains.
"This is completely unacceptable," said Edin Dilberovic, foreign policy adviser to Sulejman Tihic, the co-president of Bosnia and leader of the Bosniak or Bosnian Muslim community.
"Srebrenica is the wrong place at the wrong time for a declaration of reconciliation and forgiveness. Srebrenica is special. It was a real, organized massacre. [The British] can't be serious," he said.
Officials in Bosnia and Croatia ascribed the proposal to UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, and said it had been floated a few weeks ago by British embassies in the Balkans.
"There's no formal proposal by Straw," a British source responded.
A senior Croatian official said he had been surprised when told of the idea.
"There are only two parties who could and should apologize in Srebrenica -- the Serbs and the Dutch," said Tomislav Jakic, foreign policy aide to President Stipe Mesic of Croatia.
Dutch peacekeepers stationed in Srebrenica in 1995 have been criticized for abandoning the Muslim enclave to the invading forces of the Bosnian Serb commander, General Ratko Mladic.
Mladic has been indicted for genocide and has been on the run from international justice for 10 years, along with his co-indictee, Radovan Karadzic.
"The [British] idea is that everyone should apologize to everyone else ... It's misrepresenting what happened," Jakic said.
A Bosnian official said the idea was "grotesque."
Srdjan Dizdarevic, the head of the Helsinki human rights committee in Bosnia, said: "This is absolutely stupid, totally unacceptable that on the 10th anniversary there should be forgiveness for everything."
The Serbian parliament has refused to adopt a declaration denouncing the Srebrenica massacre.
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
‘SHORTSIGHTED’: Using aid as leverage is punitive, would not be regarded well among Pacific Island nations and would further open the door for China, an academic said New Zealand has suspended millions of dollars in budget funding to the Cook Islands, it said yesterday, as the relationship between the two constitutionally linked countries continues to deteriorate amid the island group’s deepening ties with China. A spokesperson for New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters said in a statement that New Zealand early this month decided to suspend payment of NZ$18.2 million (US$11 million) in core sector support funding for this year and next year as it “relies on a high trust bilateral relationship.” New Zealand and Australia have become increasingly cautious about China’s growing presence in the Pacific
Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki yesterday erupted again with giant ash and smoke plumes after forcing evacuations of villages and flight cancelations, including to and from the resort island of Bali. Several eruptions sent ash up to 5km into the sky on Tuesday evening to yesterday afternoon. An eruption on Tuesday afternoon sent thick, gray clouds 10km into the sky that expanded into a mushroom-shaped ash cloud visible as much as 150km kilometers away. The eruption alert was raised on Tuesday to the highest level and the danger zone where people are recommended to leave was expanded to 8km from the crater. Officers also
RSS