EP passes resolution on Srebrenica

EP passes resolution on Srebrenica

As responsible for the mass execution of more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys from Srebrenica are marked "Bosnian Serb forces under the command of General Ratko Mladic, with the participation of paramilitary and irregular units."

"This is the biggest war crime that happened in Europe after the Second World War," said the draft resolution.

The resolution recalls that some 1,200 residents of Srebrenica are still missing, and that thousands of women and children were deported, and many women were raped.

"The tragic events at Srebrenica have have left deep emotional scars and create long-term obstacles to political reconciliation of the people of Bosnia-Herzegovina," the text reads.

It is pointed out to the responsibility of the United Nations, which did not fulfill the mandate to protect the inhabitants of the "safe zones."

The resolution strongly condemns not only the genocide in Srebrenica, but also all the other crimes in the war in the former Yugoslavia, and the families of the victims are offered condolences.

"The European parliament strongly condemns the Srebrenica genocide and solemnly announces that such a heinous crimes must never happen again and that it will do everything in its power that it is not repeated, refuses every denial, relativization and false interpretation of genocide," the document stresses.

The text of the resolution includes two amendment so Ivan Jakocevic, a Croatian MEP who proposed the resolution. They condemn the Russian veto at the UN on a British draft, commend the decision to proclaim July 11 a day of mourning in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Earlier today, the House of Representatives of the U.S. Congress unanimously adopted its resolution on Srebrenica defining the crime as genocide.

An EPP group demand to include the qualification that "irregular police forces that entered the Bosnian territory from Serbia also took part in the genocide" was not included in the final version.

Ivan Jakocevic previously stressed that the resolution was not directed against Serbia and the Serb people but was aimed at ensuring that such a crime is not repeated, and noted that everyone committed crimes in the war, including his country, Croatia.

He also said it was good and important that Serbian PM Aleksandar Vucic would attend the Srebrenica commemoration.

Almost all MEPs during the debate spoke about the need for reconciliation and building of a joint future, and pointed out that the EU, "built on the ruins of the Second World War," was an example this was possible.

Slovenian "extreme left-wing" MEP Miroslav Ransdorf was a rare dissonant voice today, who accused the United States for the war in Bosnia, and Muslim commander in the Srebrenica area Naser Oric for the tragedy there.

The document was adopted today despite the fact that last month, the EP press service announced that "the 20th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide would be marked, but that a special resolution would not be adopted."