The remains of 520 newly-identified genocide victims were formally reburied at the Potocari Memorial Cemetery outside Srebrenica, eastern Bosnia, on Wednesday as part of a ceremony commemorating the 17th anniversary of the genocide committed by Bosnian Serb forces against Bosniaks in Srebrenica in July 1995.
Thousands of people attended the ceremony, including many Bosnian officials and representatives of the international community. The Croatian delegation was led by Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic.
The Mayor of Srebrenica, Camil Durakovic, said that the reburial was giving the victims back their dignity and was saving them from oblivion. "We are here today because we believe in justice, we put our faith in the truth and we wait for freedom," he said.
Durakovic warned that a new injustice was being done to the victims by those denying the genocide had occurred. He described Srebrenica as a holy place where all citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina were defending their right to live.
The Rabbi of the Park East Synagogue in New York, Arthur Schneier, was the only foreign speaker at the ceremony. He was given a chance to speak because of his repeated advocacy of tolerance and reconciliation.
In an emotional speech, Schneier said that he too had borne witness to inconceivable crimes committed by the Nazis during the Second World War when most of his family had been killed in concentration camps.
I know the anxiety and despair that you feel because your loved ones were brutally murdered for nothing but their religious and ethnic affiliation, the rabbi said. He said that the brutality of what happened in Srebrenica could never be forgotten because survivors' accounts could not be contested and historical facts changed.
It was a crime against Europe, against the faith and against the natural order. It was a crime against humanity and against God, Rabbi Schneier said. Noting that the international community was also partly to blame for allowing the crime to happen, he called for building a better world based on understanding among different religions.
The head of the Islamic community in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Mustafa Ceric, thanked Rabbi Schneier for his words, saying that he clearly understood the depth of the suffering of the Bosniak people in Srebrenica. He expressed hope that a similar massacre would never happen again anywhere.
Some of the participants took the opportunity to express their attitude towards Bosnian politicians, booing Foreign Minister Zlatko Lagumdzija and Presidency Chairman Bakir Izetbegovic and greeting the Croat member of the country's Presidency, Zeljko Komsic, with applause.
At least 8,372 Bosniaks are estimated to have been killed at Srebrenica in July 1995, and the bodies of several hundred of them have not been found to date. The total number of genocide victims buried at Potocari is 5,657.
