Bosnian Serb govt indoctrinating children over Srebrenica, U.N. tribunal head says

Record ID: 1561412

  • Title: Bosnian Serb govt indoctrinating children over Srebrenica, U.N. tribunal head says
  • Date: 8th July 2020
  • Summary: BODY IN RIVER (AUDIO OF SMALL ARMS FIRE
  • Embargoed: 22nd July 2020 13:32
  • Keywords: Bosnia and Herzegovina Judge Carmel Agius Radovan Karadzic Ratko Mladic Srebrenica United Nations denial genocide massacre tribunal war crimes
  • Location: THE HAGUE, THE NETHERLANDS / SREBRENICA, MOUNT OZREN AND POTOCARI, BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA / UNIDENTIFIED LOCATIONS
  • City: THE HAGUE, THE NETHERLANDS / SREBRENICA, MOUNT OZREN AND POTOCARI, BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA / UNIDENTIFIED LOCATIONS
  • Country: Netherlands
  • Topics: Conflicts/War/Peace
  • Reuters ID: LVA004CLY993B
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text:EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: EDIT 0343-BOSNIA-SREBRENICA/FILE CONTAINS MORE FILE ABOUT THE SREBRENICA MASSACRE
    EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: THIS EDIT CONTAINS GRAPHIC FOOTAGE (AT SHOT 9) AND PROFANE LANGUAGE
    EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: THIS EDIT CONTAINS MATERIAL WHICH WAS ORIGINALLY 4:3
    The Bosnian Serb government is indoctrinating children with denials of the 1995 genocide in Srebrenica of 8,000 Muslim men and boys, and wrecking attempts at reconciliation, the head of a U.N. court said in an interview on Tuesday (July 7).
    The 1992-95 Bosnian war claimed roughly 100,000 lives and left Bosnia deeply divided along ethnic lines, split into two autonomous regions joined by a weak central government.
    Members of the Republika Srpska government have repeatedly questioned the number of Bosnian Muslims killed in Srebrenica a quarter of a century ago this week. They also accuse the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal of anti-Serb bias.
    "What you find is a humongous effort on the part of the authorities to indoctrinate their children with their own version of the events," Judge Carmel Agius, president of the court completing war crimes trials stemming from the breakup of Yugoslavia, told Reuters.
    The Serb member of Bosnia's tri-partite presidency, Milorad Dodik, last year called the Srebrenica genocide "a fabricated myth". He has also opened a student dormitory named after former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, who is serving a life sentence after being convicted of genocide for Srebrenica.
    Last month in the northern town of Gradiska Bosnian Serbs put up a huge mural at a primary school of Ratko Mladic, military leader of Bosnian Serb forces as they overran Srebrenica, which had been declared a U.N. safe area in 1993 and was protected by lightly armed Dutch troops.
    The Bosnian Serb army seized the area on July 11, sending the women away in buses and transporting the men to dozens of execution sites. Their bodies were dumped in mass graves.
    Mladic has appealed his conviction for genocide over Srebrenica, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
    In 2018 Bosnian Serb authorities withdrew a 2004 report by their predecessors acknowledging the genocide and established a panel to review the number of victims.
    Agius said the international war crimes cases have left no room for misunderstanding: "They all came to one conclusion: namely that what happened in Srebrenica was genocide."
    He added that unhealed ethnic divisions in Bosnia were driving the younger generation away in their tens of thousands and urged authorities to "come to terms with reality" and move forward.
    "And moving forward means reconciling with your past," he said.
    (Production Hortense de Roffignac, Stephanie Van Den Berg)
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