CLINTON OPENS MEMORIAL COMPLEX IN SREBRENICA

SARAJEVO/SREBRENICA, Sept 20 (Hina) - Former US president Bill Clinton opened a memorial complex in the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica on Saturday commemorating the victims of a massacre committed by Bosnian Serb forces in July 1995. Speaking at the opening ceremony, Clinton said that the tragic events that occurred eight years ago were a culmination of the "genocidal madness" of leaders lusting for power. The search for the most responsible leaders must continue until they are apprehended and handed over to the tribunal in The Hague, Clinton said, referring to Bosnian Serb wartime leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic who are still at large. He confirmed that the massacre prompted the NATO intervention that ended the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The former US president said he was in favour of the present international peacekeeping force staying in the country as long as that was necessary and that US troops should remain part of the force. Clinton called on Bosnia-Herzegovina's three largest ethnic communities -- Muslims, Serbs and Croats -- to establish a lasting and just peace, overcome fears and distrust, and secure a peaceful and safe life for their children. The Muslim member of the Bosnian presidency, Sulejman Tihic, thanked the former US president for everything he had done to end the war. Tihic said the Bosnian Serb authorities and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia were directly responsible for the massacre, and accused the United Nations of doing nothing to save Srebrenica as a UN- designated safe haven. Tihic said that the presence at the ceremony of representatives of prisoner-of-war associations from Republika Srpska, Serbia and Montenegro, and Croatia was encouraging because it indicated their readiness to condemn crimes committed by their ethnic kin. The bodies of 107 persons identified after their exhumation from mass graves were reburied at the Potocari cemetery today. Among them were four children and all four male members of the Delic family: a father and three sons. The bodies of 882 victims were buried at the cemetery earlier this year. According to available information, more than 8,000 men, children and elderly people were killed during the fall of the Srebrenica enclave in 1995. Clinton was invited to open the memorial centre by associations of the families of missing persons who consider him most responsible for the international military intervention against the Bosnian Serb forces that ended the war. Clinton said he hoped his arrival would help in further efforts to find missing persons. (hina) vm