The identities of the 50 people who were killed during a genocide in Bosnia, Srebrenitsa on 11 th july 1995 were discovered only recently, their bodies will be buried today (11 th of july.) Thus more pain will be added to the genocide in which at least 8372 civilians were killed. Those who were killed in the genocide will be remembered, the events of those days will be remembered in order to prevent something like this from happening ever again. To that end, we also must remember our brothers who were killed on july 11 th , we shall remember our pain and tell about it to the new generations. As Knowledgeable King Aliya Izzatbegovic left us this legacy:
“Do whatever you want but don’t forget the genocide because the forgotten things tend to happen again.”
Obviously we won’t forget the things that happened in Sarajevo and Srebrenitsa and we’ll fight with everything we have to prevent something like this from ever happening again. However, we also won’t forget that during those genocides the UN Peace Force was questioning whether or not did Bosnia attack itself and therefore didn’t intervene. We also shall not forget that Serbia wasn’t held responsible for the damages resulting from the genocide. On the other hand, sadly this genocide which we won’t forget is only one source of pain out many in our region. “We” unfortunately experienced similar to this situations in Kirkuk and Nagorno- Karabakh. Today we continue to see similar things in places such as Palestine, Arakan ve China’s Uyghur Xinjiang region. The problems in all of these regions are problems of humanity as much as they are our, therefore we must seek the solutions together. The damage injured upon the honor did not occur exclusively in Srebrenitsa, it was also an attack on the honor of the people in Lisbon. The states such as Holland and mechanisms that failed to stop the genocide 30 years earlier, may also stay silent in the face of something similar occurring in Lisabon –God forbid- for example. Unfortunately the fact that a genocide occurred in Srebrenitsa goes to show that the world hasn’t learned anything from the Holacoust or other genocides that occurred before it. Therefore, the humanity should condemn everything that led to this genocide, should oppose it and shouldn’t allow anyone to deny this happened.
There’s one more subject that we have to address here. We also have to address the fact that the things that happened in Bosnia –not only in Srebrenitsa but also in Markale and Sarajevo – are also directly connected to us. This is because to me it is impossible to think of people in Bosnia as different from people in Anatolia or people in Kirkuk. I can’t even imagine to not feel the pain that occurred during that genocide even though I wasn’t around at the time, I can’t see the issues in Bosnia as something less than a national issue. To me, I’m sure as to many other Turks, Bosnian lands are my homeland. Therefore just as we have to answer the “frozen” Bosnia question we also must work to correct the questionable decisions taken by the Hague.
Attorney Haldun Barış
ROSTRA STRATEJİ 