ICTY prosecutor calls for reflection, reconciliation on Srebrenica anniversary

With the 20th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre coming up in July, Serge Brammertz, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), expressed hope that the international community has learned lessons.

Brammertz will attend a United Nations Srebrenica commemoration in New York on Wednesday and he will also go to the Srebrenica memorial in Potocari, Bosnia and Herzegovina, on July 11.

On that day, 20 years ago the enclave of Srebrenica fell to the Bosnian Serb army and around 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were killed in Europe's worst atrocity since World War II. The UN protected "safe haven" proved to be not safe at all and the Dutch battalion Dutchbat was not able to protect the victims and didn't get sufficient air support from the UN, according to reports.

"I hope the commemoration is about victims and about a clear commitment of the international community to keep searching for missing persons," Brammertz said during a press meeting here.

"We should reflect what should have been done and what our responsibility is," Brammertz added. "We all agree the international community failed in Srebrenica. For many reasons: it is too simple to say that a few hundred Dutch soldiers there were responsible for the failure to protect the victims. It was much more the responsibility of the international community."

Brammertz wants to use the commemoration to attract attention for the other crimes committed during the war. Besides reflection and justice, he said he hoped for reconciliation, but he knows it's a long road ahead.

"Twenty years after the genocide, 20 persons have been prosecuted by our Tribunal for the crimes committed in Srebrenica," said Brammertz. "Fifteen of them have already been convicted for the crimes in Srebrenica, several got a life sentence for genocide."

"It is of course extremely disappointing, frustrating and shocking that a number of politicians still deny that the genocide took place," he added. "Despite the videos and the convictions with hundreds of people testifying, despite well documented genocide in terms of evidence and images. Still a number of politicians deny the existence of the crimes."

The disagreement in Bosnia between the Serbs and the Bosniaks on the events in Srebrenica illustrates, according to Brammertz, the difficulties of the country.

"If you cannot agree on how the conflict is described in the history books on school, how can you move forward as a country? The three most important things are education, education and education to make sure new generations are really prepared to be critical, but also accept historical events."

Brammertz has served as chief prosecutor of the ICTY since January 2008. The end of his duties are in sight with the Tribunal set to close by the end of 2017, but some important cases are still running.

At the ICTY three trials are currently in the appeals stage and four trials are still running: of Goran Hadzic, Vojislav Seselj, Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic.

The latter two trials are directly related to Srebrenica, with a trial judgment in the Karadzic case expected in December 2015 and of Mladic in November 2017.

After that, the United Nations Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals (MICT), which has already taken over tasks of the ICTY, will deal with these cases in the appeal phase.

"In a year that we commemorate the massacre in Srebrenica those are very important decisions," Brammertz said.

"It has always been our theory that both Karadzic and Mladic are part of a joint criminal enterprise playing major roles in the preparation, decisions and implementation of the ethnic cleansing but of course also in the genocide in Srebrenica. In the case of Mladic I expect proceedings to be ready early next year and a judgment could follow earlier than November 2017. I have no doubts all verdicts will be delivered within the timeframe," he added. Enditem