The commemoration at the Potocari memorial complex, outside the town of Srebrenica, pooled tens of thousands of people and many state delegations and representatives of the international community, including Croatian President Stjepan Mesic.
For the first time Serbia's President Boris Tadic attended the ceremony, and political representatives of Bosnian Serbs, Borislav Paravac, who is the Serb member of Bosnia-Herzegovina's three-man presidency and Dragan Cavic, the president of the Bosnian Serb entity were also at the commemorative meeting.
For the first time the Bosnian Serb television network covered the commemoration live, which was also done by the Bosnian state-run television and the Croat-Muslim entity's public broadcasting networks.
The Muslim member of the Bosnian presidency, Sulejman Tihic, said that the truth about Srebrenica must be clearly said, as this was the only way to build a better future.
Tihic cited Serb troops "from both sides of the Drina river", and their commanders as responsible for the crime. The Drina river is the border line between Bosnia and Serbia.
Tihic also pointed the finger at the United Nations for what he called its undoubted responsibility for allowing the massacre to happen.
He emphasised the importance of the individualisation of the guilt so as to avoid blaming the entire people and that's why it is important to bring Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic to justice, he added.
The war-time Bosnian Serb leaders Karadzic and Mladic, who are believed to be masterminds of the Srebrenica massacre, are still at large.
"War criminals cannot be national heroes, because they have neither nation nor faith," Tihic said.
Mark Brown, a special envoy of the UN Secretary-General described Srebrenica as a bitter and hard experience and memory for all who during its fall were engaged as staff of the World Organisation.
The tragedy of Srebrenica will always haunt the history of the UN, Brown said, reading Annan's personal message. Annan also underlined the necessity of arresting and transferring Karadzic and Mladic to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).
World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz said that this year's commemoration in Srebrenica has the meaning as the confirmation of the determination not to allow a similar crime to occur.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who spoke on behalf of the current Presidency of the European Union, said that Srebrenica is a great shame for the entire international community.
It is shameful of us to have allowed the massacre happening before our eyes. I am really embittered and deeply sad because of it, Straw said.
The US Ambassador in charge of war crimes, Pierre Richard Prosper, also insisted on the apprehension of war crimes indictees.
Addressing the commemoration, the US diplomat said that the job which started with the Dayton peace accords cannot be finished until all indictees wanted by the tribunal are transferred to The Hague.
Prosper reiterated that he expected authorities in Serbia and the Bosnian Serb entity to arrest Karadzic and Mladic and Croatia to do the same with Ante Gotovina.
There must not be any mistake. They are not heroes and they are not a future, Prosper added.
The president of the UN war crimes tribunal, Theodor Meron, blamed the Serbian government for being the most responsible for the fact that Mladic and Karadzic were still at large.
With the extradition of those two men Serbia will do the greatest favour to its own citizens, Meron said.
Meron recalled that the ICTY had no doubts about what had happened in July 1995 in Srebrenica, as the tribunal characterised this as genocide in the verdict delivered in the case of Bosnian Serb General Radislav Krstic.
During the commemoration at Potocari, the remains of 610 victims, earlier exhumed from mass graves, were buried at the cemetery. The religious service was held by the leader of the Islamic community in Bosnia, Mustafa Ceric, who said that justice must be the only act of revenge.
To date, 2,070 victims of the Srebrenica massacre have been unearthed from mass graves. Of them, 1,441 have been buried in the Potocari memorial complex.