"Srebrenica shattered the illusion that the end of the Cold War would sweep away such madness," said Clinton

SREBRENICA, September 20 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Former U.S. president Bill Clinton arrived in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica Saturday, September 20, to join some 20,000 Bosnian Muslims in opening a memorial cemetery for thousands of victims of Europe's worst atrocity since World War II.

Clinton, who served as U.S. president from 1993 to 2001, was invited by survivors of the Srebrenica slaughter to open the memorial because of his contribution to ending Bosnia's bloody 1992-1995 war, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

More than 7,000 Muslims are believed to have been summarily executed in July 1995 in just a few days after Serb forces overran the eastern enclave of Srebrenica, which was under U.N. protection at the time.

"We must pay tribute to the innocent lives, many of them children, snuffed out in what must be called genocidal madness," the BBC News Online quoted Clinton as addressing thousands of victims' relatives at the memorial.

"Srebrenica shattered the illusion that the end of the Cold War would sweep away such madness… Children should be taught to trust, not to hate - to choose the open hand over the clenched fist," he added.

Clinton, who arrived from Sarajevo where he spent the night after a stopover in Kosovo, was also scheduled to meet with representatives of the victims' families.

They wanted to ask him to press for the arrest of fugitive war crimes suspects, notably Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic.

Karadzic, a Bosnian Serb wartime leader, and Mladic, his army chief, were indicted in 1995 by a U.N. court in The Hague for genocide and war crimes committed during Bosnia's war, notably in Srebrenica. The two still remain at large.

Although Clinton urged Kosovan Albanians to seek reconciliation with their Serbian neighbors, many feel reconciliation can only occur when Karadzic and Mladic are brought to justice.

After the ceremony the remains of 107 Srebrenica victims aged between 16 and 75, identified after being exhumed from several mass graves in the region, are to be buried.

The remains of 882 other people were buried there in moving ceremonies earlier this year.

The new memorial - which took a year to build and cost about 5 million dollars - lies just across the road from the old U.N. base where thousands of Bosnian Muslims sought sanctuary in vain, said the BBC.

In some places several members of one family were to be buried together, including Selim Delic to be laid to rest with his three sons -- Aziz, Azem and Eniz, who were 33, 25 and 20 years old respectively when they were killed.

"It is hard for me to explain how I feel. It is so sad, but it is better to have found them late rather than never," Hazim Delic, 31, the fourth brother who survived the massacre along with his mother, told AFP.

Support For Muslims

Bosnian Muslim women pray as bodies of their relatives are transported for burial

Widows of those who died wanted Clinton to be the person to open the new memorial site, with one telling the BBC: "He is the only man with the moral authority to do so."

Clinton was the key advocate of NATO air strikes against Bosnian Serbs in September 1995 that forced them to sit down at the negotiating table.

The Bosnian war ended after marathon U.S.-led negotiations in Dayton, Ohio, led by Clinton's Bosnia envoy Richard Holbrooke in November 1995.

The peace accord split Bosnia into two highly-autonomous entities -- the Serbs' Republika Srpska and the Muslim-Croat Federation -- and brought in NATO-led peacekeepers to maintain security.

But Bosnian Serbs are unhappy with Clinton's visit considering it to be a clear sign of his support for Muslims.

"It is a continuation of support to the other side," said Sreten Pavlovic, a Serb, referring the Muslims. "He is again labeling us as the aggressors," he added.

Others took a more cynical attitude.

"Clinton is not coming here for us or for them, but rather so that his picture from Srebrenica will be broadcast in the United States," said Serb Novo Mladenovic.

Clinton's visit takes place as he reemerges on the U.S. political scene to boost Democratic electoral candidates against their Republican rivals as the U.S. political scene heats up ahead of presidential elections in November 2004.