Srebrenica 20th Anniversary Marked with Tears and Anger

Huge crowds of mourners and dozens of international dignitaries including former US President Bill Clinton gathered in the eastern Bosnian town on Saturday to mark the anniversary of the worst atrocity in Europe since World War II.

People arrived in buses, cars and on foot, with thousands trekking to the Srebrenica memorial centre along the route taken by those who fled the killings of more than 7,000 Bosniak men and boys by Bosnian Serb forces after they overran the UN-declared ‘safe area’ in July 1995.

But simmering tensions ahead of the anniversary spilled over when Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic – who refuses to call the massacres genocide – was attacked by some of the mourners who threw stones and water bottles at him before he was hustled away by security officers and fled the commemoration.

The remains of 136 more Srebrenica victims were laid to rest during the ceremony at the memorial centre at Potocari, which in 1995 was a base for UN peacekeepers who failed to prevent the massacres.

Among those buried were 18 minors; the two youngest were 16 years old when they were killed, while the oldest victim was 75.

The mayor of Srebrenica, Camil Durakovic, told the ceremony that some of those who were laid to rest were his schoolmates.

“Those were all my peers. I am alive by accident. Most of the boys I played with are here in the memorial centre or in unknown graves. With them, my childhood was killed,” Durakovic said.

One of the men who was buried was Mehmed Avdic, who was 19 years old when he was killed. “There was so much pain for 20 years… but at least I know that he was found. So many families have loved ones who are still missing,” his sister Nasa Becirovic told BIRN.

Serbian premier Vucic attended the ceremony amid heightened political tensions after a UN Security Council resolution condemning the massacres as genocide was vetoed this week by Serbia’s ally Russia.

Russia said the proposed resolution was anti-Serb and “not in the interest of reconciliation”, which caused anger among Bosniak politicians.

The massacres have been defined as genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, the International Court of Justice and the Bosnian state court. But this definition is strongly contested by Serbian and Bosnian Serb officials, who claim that the crime did not amount to genocide.

Although the Serbian PM was welcomed at the event on Saturday by a member of the Mothers of Srebrenica victims’ group, other mourners tried to attack him and chased him away from the ceremony. Local police said several objects hit Vucic in the face and that his glasses were broken.

Afterwards Vucic accused extremists of planning to attack him despite the fact that he “behaved with dignity” and offered “the hand of reconciliation”.

“I am sorry that people didn’t acknowledge my sincere intentions to build friendship between Serbs and Bosniaks,” he told a press conference after returning to Belgrade.

Joining the mourners alongside former US President Clinton, who brokered the Dayton peace agreement that ended the Bosnian war in 1995, were Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davitoglu, Britain’s Princess Anne and the Macedonian and Slovenian Presidents, Gjorge Ivanov and Borut Pahor.

Clinton apologised that the peace deal was only signed after more than three years of war. “I am sorry it took me too long,” he told the mourners.

The European Union’s foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said in a statement meanwhile that the mass killings were Europe’s “shame”.

“Europe failed to stand up to the promise of our founding fathers and to the dreams of their grandsons: no more war in Europe, no more murders in the name of race or the nation. No more genocides,” Mogherini said.

The chief prosecutor of the Hague Tribunal, Serge Brammertz, told the ceremony that the killings have been legally proved to have been genocide. “This was not a spontaneous military operation. It was a plan to on purpose destroy one group [of people]. These are the facts we proved several times so far,” Brammertz said.

Plans by Serbian peace activists to hold a commemoration in Belgrade on Saturday were blocked when the interior ministry banned all public rallies, citing security fears.

The ministry imposed the ban after right-wing nationalist groups said they would hold counter-demonstrations against the activists’ planned commemoration outside parliament.

Instead, some 200 people lit candles in silence in front of the Serbian president’s office on Friday night in homage to the victims, despite a protest by right-wingers singing nationalist songs.

International and Bosnian courts have so far sentenced a total of 37 people to around 630 years in prison for genocide and other crimes against Bosniaks from Srebrenica in 1995.

The former Bosnian Serb Army chief and political leader, Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic, are both still on trial in The Hague for alleged genocide and other crimes.