The declaration, carried by the Bosnian Catholic news agency on Friday, reads that these days all should remember with grief the massacre which the Bosnian Serb army and various paramilitary units committed in the eastern Bosnian Muslim enclave of Srebrenica in the summer of 1995.
"We particularly emphasise the fact that many of those who committed that crime have to date succeeded in evading to face their guilt. We also recall a shameful fact that many international leaders had hesitated for too long to stop the conflict," the Bosnian Catholic bishops said in their declaration, calling on governments in leading countries in the world to take necessary steps to bring war crimes suspects to justice.
The Iustitia et Pax commission also warns that the current state of affairs in Bosnia shows that the recent years in the country have proved that "the boundaries defined by the Dayton agreement formed very dangerous territories".
The unjust boundary lines have legalised unacceptable and immoral ethnic cleansing and thwarted efforts aimed at achieving a lasting peace, the declaration reads.
The state and society of Bosnia-Herzegovina needs political arrangements that will guarantee justice, and the time is now ripe to consider and rectify the injustices imposed by the Dayton peace accords, the Catholic commission said, calling for organising an international conference on Bosnia.
"Possible new failures of Europe and the international community to consistently carry out their duty and commitments in Bosnia would threaten the stability of the entire region, including prospects of neighbouring countries to become full members of Europe and the European Union. Finally, such a failure would present disappointments in the values of the European Union and the collapse of the common foreign and security policy," the declaration said.
The Catholic Primate in Bosnia, Cardinal Vinko Puljic, sent a letter to the leader of the Islamic community in Bosnia, Mustafa Ceric, on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre, expressing his solidarity as a human being and a believer with all the innocent victims and the families whose loved ones were killed.