The draft resolution has kicked up a storm in the Balkans where Bosnian Serb leaders have refused to recognize the killing of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in July 1995 as a genocide.
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The massacre was the worst event in Europe since World War Two.
It came amid the bloody break-up of Yugoslavia into independent states.
The victims were in what was supposed to have been a UN-protected “safe area”, but the Dutch soldiers guarding it were powerless to stop the Serb forces led by Gen Ratko Mladic, who is now on trial in The Hague for genocide.
Bosnian pathologist Rifat Kesetovic examines skulls of victims, in a hospital in the northern Bosnian city of Tuzla, taken from mass graves and in wooded areas following the 1995 massacre in the Muslim enclave of Srebrenica, in this March 28, 1997 file picture.
A memorial will be held on Wednesday in Cardiff, hosted by the first minister of Wales, Carwyn Jones, and in St Giles’ Cathedral in Edinburgh on Friday, hosted by Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon. Also the Princess Royal will travel to the site of the massacre in Bosnia for an global memorial on Saturday.
Kirklees Council are hosting a private event, The Srebrenica Genocide: Young People’s perspectives, at Dewsbury Town Hall on Tuesday July 7.
There will also be a formal reception in the Houses of Parliament hosted by Speaker of the House John Bercow. “The money for Srebrenica commemoration is useful but what would be even more useful is a further shift in British and European policy on Bosnia today – or at the very least, a recognition that Srebrenica was not an isolated incident and that we need to talk about a broader campaign of genocide in wartime Bosnia and the lasting consequences of that strategy today”, Balkan analyst at the University of York Jasmin Mujanovic also told the newspaper.
Cameron said Monday that “we must never, ever forget what happened at Srebrenica” and that “we must reaffirm our determination to act to prevent genocide in the future”. We are told ‘You should not deny.’ How not to deny a lie?
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Those who died will be remembered in Srebrenica on July 11, where Ireland will be represented by Ambassador Pat Kelly.
