The Ministry of Human and Minority Rights is preparing an initiative to adopt a regulation declaring July 11th the day of remembrance for the victims of the Srebrenica genocide, which, upon completion, will be sent to the Government and proposed for its adoption.
This was told to "Vijesti" by the department he heads. Fatmir Đeka, answering the question - whether, as they announced, they had sent this initiative to the executive branch, and if so - when it will be presented at the Government session.
In 2021, the Assembly adopted a Resolution on the Srebrenica Genocide, condemning the crime and prohibiting its denial. Article 5 of the document stipulates that July 11 be declared a day of remembrance for the victims of that crime.
The United Nations (UN) General Assembly voted at the end of May last year to pass a resolution declaring July 11th as the International Day of Remembrance for the Srebrenica Genocide.
The document was also supported by Montenegro, and its amendment was accepted, clarifying that "responsibility for genocide, under international law, is individualized, and cannot be attributed to an ethnic, religious or other group."
The Ministry of Human and Minority Rights told the editorial board in early July that by adopting the resolution and supporting its adoption at the UN, Montenegro "clearly stood by the principles of justice, human dignity and the culture of remembrance."
"By adopting a decree declaring July 11th the day of remembrance for the victims of the Srebrenica genocide, our country will assume an institutional and moral obligation to preserve the truth. The Ministry of Human and Minority Rights will submit an initiative to the Government to adopt a decree," the ministry headed by Đeka said at the time.
Seventy-six Montenegrin non-governmental organizations (NGOs) last year demanded that Montenegro declare a day of remembrance for the crime in Srebrenica and ensure its official commemoration. This year, over 100 NGOs, the Bosniak Council, and civic activists have also appealed, calling for them to pay tribute to the victims, express solidarity with the survivors and their families, and protest the failure of the Montenegrin authorities to declare a day of remembrance despite the UN General Assembly resolution.
On July 11th of this year, Potočari marked the 30th anniversary of the systematic killing of over eight thousand unarmed Bosniaks aged 14 to 70 by members of the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) in 1995. Over six hundred children were also killed, the youngest victim being a baby born on July 13th, 1995, exhumed from a mass grave near Srebrenica in 2012.
The Srebrenica genocide is the most massive crime committed on European soil since World War II. This crime was established by the judgments of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the judgment of the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
National courts in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), Serbia, Croatia, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Netherlands have also found that members of the VRS, as well as special units of the Republic of Serbia (“Scorpions”), committed genocide and other war crimes in Srebrenica.
The ICTY and the International Residual Mechanism have convicted 21 people for crimes in Srebrenica, seven of whom for genocide, based on over 1.500 testimonies and around 28.000 pieces of evidence. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, 31 people have been convicted for the same acts by a final verdict, 14 of whom for genocide, five in Serbia, and two in Croatia. See. V.
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