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Srebrenica Muslims Mark Massacre Anniversary
SARAJEVO, July 11 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Some 5,000 Muslims from all over Bosnia converged Wednesday on Potocari, north of Srebrenica, to commemorate the sixth anniversary of Europe's worst massacre since World War II, news agencies reported.
A score of buses left the town of Kladanj carrying hundreds of survivors of the massacre. Members of the NATO stabilization force, SFOR, searched them before they were allowed to board the buses.
The uncovering of a marker stone -- at the memorial and cemetery to be built in Srebrenica for the 7,000 - 8,000 Bosnian Muslims killed by Serbian forces who overran the U.N.-proclaimed safe zone -- will be the central feature of Wednesday's simple ceremony.
Five women, whose children and other relatives were killed in the massacre, will unveil the three-ton heavy marble stone with the inscription "Srebrenica, July 11, 1995."
There will be no political speeches, only prayers attended by representatives of the international community from Sarajevo, AFP reported.
Representatives of the Bosnian Serb leadership will also attend the commemoration.
In a statement, the Republika Srpska's parliament said it wished to show "respect to victims of the four-year-long tragic conflict in Bosnia.... All those who lost their dearest ones, unfortunately, are equal in sorrow and pain."
Taji Belimustafic, one of the Muslim survivors who lost his brother in the massacre, said, "I feel sadness today. I think it's very significant for us that this monument is to be built."
Another survivor, Jamzia Omerovic, said she was convinced that one day she would be able to return to Bratunac, 20 kilometers (12 miles) northwest of Srebrenica, which she had been forced to flee.
Sacir Ferhatbegovic, however, questioned whether this would be possible "since the executioners are still at liberty."
Six years since the massacre, the open graves around Srebrenica daily yield the remains of bodies believed to be those of Muslim civilians brutally murdered by the Serbian forces.
Srebrenica is now located in the Serb-run Bosnian entity of Republika Srpska (RS). Its pre-war inhabitants currently live in the other Bosnian entity, the Muslim-Croat Federation.
Authorities have prepared massive security measures to prevent inter-ethnic violence. U.N. spokesman in Sarajevo Douglas Coffman said that some 1,300 Bosnian Serb police, including anti-riot units, would be deployed for the ceremony.
He said the size of the force will be twice that deployed for last year's anniversary, and around 300 U.N. police would also be on duty to monitor the work of the local RS officers.
In addition, a representative of the Muslim-Croat Federation police was aboard each bus carrying survivors, Coffman said.
On May 5, a group of angry Serbs attacked Muslims who came to mark the rebuilding of a mosque in Trebinje.
Two days later, some 4,000 Serb protesters attacked Muslims and international officials at a ceremony marking the rebuilding of a mosque destroyed in 1993 in Banja Luka. The incident left a Bosnian Muslim dead and around 30 other people injured.
Wednesday's commemoration comes soon after the transfer of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic to The Hague. He stands accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity and is seen by many as being largely responsible for the crimes committed during the war in Bosnia.
It also coincides with renewed pressure on the RS authorities to arrest the former political and military leaders of the Bosnian Serbs, Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, both considered directly responsible for the massacre.
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