Srebrenica Ceremony Marks 10 Years Since Massacre

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...E&refer=europe

July 11 (Bloomberg) -- The families of Bosnian Muslim men and boys who were killed by Serb forces in the mining town of Srebrenica are gathering today to mark the 10th anniversary of the massacre, the worst slaughter in Europe since World War II.

More than 7,000 Bosnian Muslim males died when Srebrenica was overrun by soldiers commanded by General Ratko Mladic, who has been indicted by the United Nations war-crimes court in The Hague on charges that include genocide in connection with the massacre during Bosnia's 1992-1995 civil war.

Mladic and former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic are the tribunal's two most wanted suspects. The court's chief prosecutor, Carla del Ponte, said she wasn't attending today's ceremony in the nearby town of Potocari, to protest the failure of Serb authorities to hand over the two men.

``She's not attending because how can she face the families of the victims, the people to whom she's not been able to bring justice?'' said Florence Hartmann, a spokeswoman for del Ponte, in a telephone interview today. ``We collected the evidence and made the indictment, but we can't do anything if the Serb authorities won't even arrest these people.''

The Bosnian Serb government last November publicly apologized Nov. 10 for the massacre. President Boris Tadic arrived in Srebrenica today to attend the ceremony, becoming the first Serbian official to visit the site, Agence France-Presse reported.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia is mandated to complete its trials by 2008 and review all appeals by 2010. There are 20 fugitives who should face trial in The Hague, more than dozen of them living freely in Serbia, del Ponte said in a report to the UN Security Council in November.

i practically know nothing about this war.Who started it?

It was a very comlicated and nasty civil war which erupted after the fall of the Soviet Union and raged throughout the 90's.

http://home.versatel.nl/gerardvonhebel/yugoslavia.htm

It was a very nasty and brutal affair with many atrocities and massacres, mainly committed against Bosnian Muslims by Christian Serbian militias supported by the Serbian government.

The link provided will give you a decent history of the wars of the former Yugoslavia.

I'm personaly from Bosnia and my father was actually tortured by Serbs during the war.

What happened was, Croatia and Slovenia left Yugoslavia for economical purposes and also because they wanted a sovereign country.
The bosnian muslims felt that they didnt want to stay in a country (Yugoslavia) that would now de-facto be Great Serbia, since Croatia and Slovenia left the country. Since muslims are in majority in Bosnia, the majority voted for independence in a referendum.
Serbs could not accept this so they started a campaign where the muslims would be killed and driven out of Bosnia (and the serbs in Serbia and Montenegro helped the local bosnians serbs in this).

Asalamu Alaykum
Abu Zakariya sorry about your family being tortured by the Serbs. May Allah help the Muslims gain indepenedence. Ameen. Mansha Allah. And that baby in the picture is sooooooooo adorable.

same unheard of issue in kosovo and chechnya...