Today, July 11th, is Srebrenica Memorial Day, “when we pay tribute to the victims of the Genocide, sending a clear message to future generations to say ‘Never Again’”. Those words are taken from the website of the organisation Remembering Srebrenica who had a stand at our Liverpool conference last March.
There have been events marking the 20th anniversary of the massacre all over the country this week, and they will culminate today. Here is a list of the events across the country.
This genocide happened in Europe “on our watch”. It is just appalling to contemplate the cold-blooded horror of the massacre of innocent men and boys, just herded out of trucks and shot – mostly in the back. But let’s today at least spend a moment to remember the victims, their families and friends, and to focus on what we can do to make sure such horrors never recur.
* Paul Walter is a Liberal Democrat activist and member of the Liberal Democrat Voice team. He blogs at Liberal Burblings.
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6 Comments
We could also remember that during the war/s in the former Yugoslavia a Britiish government with a Conservative majority took in batches of the most vulnerable people, initially one thousand, and several subsequent batches.
We should also remember that these people were too vulnerable to be put through the asylum process. They did not need to be in UK jurisdiction. They did not need to be interviewed about past history of persecution or claimed risk of persecution on return.
They were selected by UNHCR. The UK government gave them grants of leave to enter or remain in the UK.
The financial cost/s for hospital treatment were substantial, for instance at Great Ormond Street.
When these grants of leave expired they were renewed with out needing asylum applications.
How does the current government compare?
This, from the Today programme: a survivor of the mass execution!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02wt85r
I have posted about the atrocity on another thread.
As with Nazi Germany – and in Argentina and Chile – this episode should remind us of what the ruling classes of educated liberal Europeans can do when succumbing to demagogy. There is nothing at all to suggest that any people in the world are somehow immune from this tendency when it emerges.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!
This is what happens when weak democratic politicians such as Major and Clinton lack the back bone and willingness to use armed force to stop those who will use force on those who are weaker. Croatia leaving Jugoslavia which had a large Serbian minority as Serbia was moving from a communist to a nationalist government was only going to lead to violence. Many in Croatia had fought with the Nazis and murdered Serbs.
Kohl supported Slovenia and Croatia in leaving Jugoslavia and forced Major to do likewise. Kohl supporting Slovenia and Croatia was red rag to the Serbs.
A NATO led force which was allowed to use armed force to protect the innocent could have stopped the worse of the civil war. The fact that Christians allowed Christians to murder European Muslims in Jugoslavia when the West had spent $Bs fighting Iraq in order to liberate Kuwait, persuaded many extreme muslims to support Bin Laden against the West. By the mid 1990s , Bin Laden was a joke, even Sudan was prepared to sell him to the West. Serbs being allowed to murder muslims and the West being totally impotent and this information being beamed via satellites TVs throughout the W, was a major source of recruitment for bin Laden.
@ Tony Dawson.
So very true.