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 t
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