(MENAFN- Kuwait News Agency (KUNA)) The European Parliament (EP) condemned on Thursday in the strongest possible terms the genocide in Srebrenica of 11 July, 1995, saying that "such horrendous crimes must never happen again".
In a resolution adopted Thursday, the EP regrets that the UN Security Council failed to pass a resolution commemorating the genocide and called for acceleration of war crimes prosecution at international and domestic levels. "This is especially regrettable, as the International Court of Justice, the UN's primary judicial body, has determined that the crimes committed in Srebrenica were genocide," said the resolution.
MEPs commemorated and honored all the victims of the massacre and "all the atrocities during the wars in the former Yugoslavia". They expressed their solidarity with their families, many of which are still left without final confirmation of the fate of their relatives.
Out of more than 8 ,000 Muslim men and boys executed by Bosnian Serb forces and paramilitary units, the bodies of nearly 1,200 have not yet been located and identified, noted the resolution.
It rejected "any denial, relativisation or misinterpretation of the genocide", saying its 20th anniversary should be "a fresh reminder of the dangers of extreme forms of nationalism and intolerance in society, further exacerbated in the framework of war." MEPs also stress that regional cooperation and the European integration process "are the best way to promote conciliation and to overcome hatred and divisions." They invite the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (INTY) to accelerate and bring to an end the trials and appeals without undue delay. More needs to be done do prosecute war crimes at domestic level, too, they stress.
The resolution urges the political representatives in Bosnia and Herzegovina to "acknowledge the past" and to "work successfully together towards a better future" as well as welcome the decision of the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina, taken unanimously, to proclaim the 11th of July as Day of Moaning in the country.
The massacre of Srebrenica was recognized as genocide both by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Court of Justice. The act of genocide and ethnic cleansing was the biggest war crime in Europe since the end of the Second World War. (end)
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