Clinton will be joined by members of Congress and ex- Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
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Despite the fact that 20 years have passed since the Srebrenica genocide, the remains of victims are still being discovered and funeral ceremonies are still being carried out in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
“We could have prevented this horror”, he said. “We believe a country has the right to choose its own path of development and foreign policy”.
Goati, the political analyst, said Serbia’s reaction to calling Srebrenica a genocide is characteristic of any people or individual accused of an atrocity. However, after two decades reconciliation remains a live issue which requires continued nurturing. Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin called the resolution “not constructive, confrontational and politically-motivated”, arguing that it unfairly singled out Bosnian Serbs for war crimes.
“If the United Nations is to make good on its commitment to protect civilians”, Mr. Zeid told Council members via video link from Geneva, “it must be resolute, undivided and clear about its intention”.
The verdict found that the crime in Srebrenica was planned by the highest officers of the Bosnian Serb Army – and that those most responsible were the staff of the Main Headquarters and the Drina Corps command.
Angola, China, Nigeria and Venezuela abstained from the vote at the 15-member Security Council while 10 other countries voted in favor of the text that also condemned genocide denial.
As the top Bosnian Serb leaders of the time, Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic are the alleged chief architects of the Srebrenica massacre.
Since the Bosnian War the Balkans state has been split into two semi-independent entities – the Serbs Republika Srpska and the Muslim-Croat Federation. They are being tried on war-crimes charges at the worldwide Criminal Tribunal for the ex- Yugoslavia. He was arrested on a Serbian warrant.
The Netherlands boasts a long tradition of peacekeeping, but at Srebrenica they “were confronted with their helplessness”, according to Ko Colijn, worldwide political and security researcher at The Hague’s Clingendael Institute.
Mladic’s troops brushed aside the UN’s lightly armed Dutch peacekeepers, loading thousands of Muslim men and boys onto trucks before executing them in a nearby forest and burying them in mass graves. The atrocity occurred near the end of Bosnia’s inter-ethnic war that claimed some 100,000 lives. It was part of a complex power-sharing structure aimed at mending the wounds and building a new, unified Bosnia.
The vote at the United Nations on Wednesday coincided with the 20 anniversary of incident and took place despite appeals from both Moscow and Beijing.
Relatives of the victims cried as coffins were put on board. Others he’s still digging for – 20 years later.
In Srebrenica, organizers expect some 50,000 people to attend the funeral along with global delegations.
Russia’s Churkin began his speech before the vote asking for a minute of silence in memory of the victims of Srebrenica and everyone in the Security Council stood, many bowing their heads.
Among the 136 victims to be laid to rest on Saturday are 18 minors.
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Munira Subasic, president of the Mothers of Srebrenica, called for Nikolic to accept the truth.
