ONLY a few weeks remain until Srebrenica Memorial Day which is marked every year on July 11 to commemorate the genocide of Bosnian Muslims during the 1990s war in the former Yugoslavia.
The Bosnian genocide was conducted against the Muslim population of the Balkan country by Serb forces, in particular the 1995 murder of more than 8000 men and boys in Srebrenica. It was the worst atrocity in Europe since the Nazi genocide during the Second World War.
READ MORE: Tory leadership contest is more horror show than beauty pageant
During the war more than 100,000 people died, while between 20,000-50,000 women were raped. Many of the more than 2.2 million people who were displaced during the conflict are still unable to return to their homes to this day. Economically Bosnia-Herzegovina was devastated with a 75% drop in GDP and the large-scale destruction of its infrastructure.
After the end of the conflict in Bosnia the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in the Hague ruled that the 1995 Srebrenica massacre was genocide. The Presiding Judge stated that: “By seeking to eliminate a part of the Bosnian Muslims, the Bosnian Serb forces committed genocide. They targeted for extinction the 40,000 Bosnian Muslims living in Srebrenica, a group which was emblematic of the Bosnian Muslims in general. They stripped all the male Muslim prisoners, military and civilian, elderly and young, of their personal belongings and identification, and deliberately and methodically killed them solely on the basis of their identity”.
Since then charities like Remembering Srebrenica have worked hard to ensure that the lessons of the Bosnian genocide are not forgotten and that future generations learn about the genocide. I led the first of its Scottish delegations to Bosnia-Herzegovina, returning to the war-torn region for the first time since I was there during the war as a journalist. Visits continue to Srebrenica to this day under the able leadership of Rev Lorna Hood, the former Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and David Hamilton of the Scottish Police Federation.
We live in a time with strong claims of fake news, where holocaust denial still does exist and sadly political extremism of many hues radicalising next generations who have not learnt the lessons of history and are prepared to repeat the mistakes of the past.
READ MORE: Ian Blackford: 'Toxic' Tory leadership contest lurches to extremes
This week the respected Wolfson Prize was awarded to Professor Mary Fulbrook who has written the masterful and troubling Reckonings: Legacies of Nazi Persecution and the Quest for Justice.
She explores in great detail how wide the association was with the Nazi machinery of destruction, how few people were held to account for their actions and how many went on to live untroubled comfortable lives after the war.
Despite millions of people being directly the Nazi crimes just 106,000 people were investigated in West Germany; of whom only 6000 were brought to court, and 4000 were sentenced.
That is less than the number of camp guards and administrators at Auschwitz alone, of whom only 50 were ever prosecuted.
When it comes to dealing with the legacy of the war in Bosnia, efforts have been made to try the guilty in the Hague, including Radovan Karadžić and General Ratklo Mladić.
SADLY others escaped justice like Željko Ražnatović, better known by his nom de guerre Arkan. The Serbian career criminal who was on Interpol’s most wanted list for murders and robberies in the 1970s and 1980s, was later indicted by the UN for crimes against humanity for his role during the wars.
Arkan’s war crimes were well documented, including the 1992 murder of Bosnian civilians, photographed by Time magazine.
A number of years after this the Observer newspaper reported that British based oil company Vitol paid the war criminal $1 million as a "fixer" following the collapse of a controversial oil deal in the former Yugoslavia.
Ian Taylor has been Global CEO and then chairman of Vitol since 1995 and is a major donor to the Conservative party, to the 2014 anti-independence “Better Together” campaign and now to the Tory leadership candidate Sajid Javid, whose most prominent supporter is Ruth Davidson.
READ MORE: Javid's Tory campaign donor has links to war criminal Arkan
Like me, Ruth Davidson has been to Bosnia-Herzegovina. She has seen the thousands of gravestones of genocide victims at Potočari and met with the mothers of Srebrenica.
Like me, Sajid Javid has spoken publicly about the horrors of Srebrenica and why it is important to teach about the consequences of unchecked hatred: "After every genocide, we say 'never again'. This important work will help ensure we really mean it."
If they really meant it they would not take money from someone whose company had business dealings with one of the worst war criminals in Bosnia.
Why are you making commenting on The National only available to subscribers?
We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.
So that’s why we’ve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Let’s get that debate started!
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel