[ALBSA-Info] 5 vjet nga masakra e Srebrenices

[Asti Pilika]

Sot u mbushen 5 vjet nga masakra e Srebrenices.
Familjet thone se jane vrare 10,000 vete. Jane gjetur
eshtrat e 4,000 veteve. 

Shkruhet se Karaxhici fshihet, por me siguri
paqeruajtesit refuzojne ta arrestojne.


Lexoni artikullin e NYTimes.

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July 11, 2000


Bosnian Muslims Remember Massacre in Srebrenica

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REUTERS INDEX | INTERNATIONAL | BUSINESS | TECHNOLOGY 
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Filed at 1:57 p.m. ET

By Reuters
SREBRENICA (Reuters) - Around 3,000 Bosnian Muslims
held a solemn prayer meeting amid tight security in
Serb-controlled Srebrenica Tuesday to mark the fifth
anniversary of the worst massacre of the Bosnian war. 

The Muslims, many of them back in their home town for
the first time since the devastating 1995 events,
lined up in front of the former headquarters of the
U.N. battalion where a group took shelter after
Bosnian Serb forces overran the town. 

Bosnian Muslim Srebrenica was one of six towns
designated by the U.N. Security Council in May 1993 as
a ``safe area,'' but 110 lightly armed Dutch U.N.
troops were powerless against a Serb onslaught on July
11, 1995. 

The Red Cross estimated that more than 7,000
inhabitants were ``missing'' after the attack on
Srebrenica and the remains of some 4,000 were later
found. 

Many other men were killed when they tried to break
out of the town through Serb lines. Their families say
10,000 people disappeared. 

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan said the
tragedy would forever haunt the world body. 

Groups of women among the crowd Tuesday -- who arrived
in a long column of buses driven through Bosnian Serb
territory amid heavy security by local police and
international police and troops -- began wailing when
they returned to the scene. 

FAMILIES BLAME UNITED NATIONS 

``Let them scream. We all need to scream,'' said
55-year-old Fahira, who said she had lost all her
adult male family members in the massacre. 

She earlier berated a passing U.N. official who turned
away from the crying women, some of them crouched over
in agony. 

``Why turn your head? Don't turn your head. You should
see our tragedy,'' she said. ``The last time I was in
Srebrenica I was here at this very site.'' 

Ismet Celikovic, one of the organizers of the
ceremony, which was much larger than last year's first
commemoration at the site, said the bus he came in had
been stoned by Serbs in Bratunac. 

A Western official said a woman had been arrested over
the incident, which followed the burning of an empty
Muslim house in Srebrenica overnight by unknown
arsonists. 

Bosnian Serbs lined the road on the way to the
ceremony in silence and some children gave the
three-fingered Serb salute when the buses passed but
there were no other incidents. 

One Serb from Bratunac said people there also felt
pain from the war. ``Our wounds are too recent, which
is why Muslims traveling to Srebrenica across Bosnian
Serb territory can't feel completely safe,'' said
Blazenka Nogo, 46. 

In Geneva, about 100 Bosnian Muslim survivors of the
massacre, along with relatives of those killed,
gathered outside the U.N.'s European headquarters. 

Children carried signs that said: ``Five years after
genocide in Srebrenica, where is my Daddy?.'' A white
banner read: ``10,000 missing civilians. Whoever
pardons a crime becomes its accomplice.'' 

``I was lucky to get out of Srebrenica after it
fell,'' Avdurahman Avdic told reporters at the
commemoration in Switzerland. ``We walked for seven
days to reach Tuzla, hiding in the forests by day and
walking at night. There was an immense column of
15,000 people, easy targets.'' 

SOME FAMILIES GOING BACK 

Two Muslim families have returned to Srebrenica
recently, encouraging international officials who are
trying to reintegrate a country still deeply divided
by the 1992-95 war. 

Asked if she would return, one mourner, Behara Alic,
said she had been to look at her house. ``I lost three
sons but I have no choice but to come back. God
willing I will,'' she said. 

Alija Izetbegovic, the Muslim member of the
three-person joint Bosnian postwar presidency, was
among many senior local and Western officials
attending the ceremony in Srebrenica. It was his first
visit to the area since it became Bosnian Serb
territory. 

Dragutin Bjelica, a 53-year-old Serb from Bratunac,
said the Bosnian Serb police lining the route should
have arrested Izetbegovic for war crimes, while Dragan
Bogdanovic, 34, said the whole event was a ``charade''
that had disgusted local people. 

The head of the local branch of the hard-line Serbian
Democratic Party (SDS), founded by Radovan Karadzic in
1990, said his party would hold a ceremony Tuesday
evening to mark the ``liberation'' of Srebrenica by
Serb forces. 

Karadzic, now in hiding, was indicted in 1995 for
orchestrating the capture of Srebrenica. 


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