Holbrooke at Cemetery Site Near Srebrenica, Bosnia
REMARKS BY UNITED STATES AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS RICHARD
HOLBROOKE
Cemetery Site near Srebrenica
Potocari, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Thursday, October 26, 2000
AMBASSADOR HOLBROOKE: I've come here today to bear witness, as one
must, to the scene of the most serious war crime in Europe since the
end of World War II. Of course the world knows now what happened in
Srebrenica and the name Srebrenica will go down in history with Lidice
and Babi Yar and Oradour as one of the symbols of the inhumanity of
people towards each other. It is very evocative of the hillside
outside Kigali in Rwanda that my colleagues and I visited only a few
months ago where the same thing happened under very similar
circumstances when UN peacekeepers failed to protect people who had
expected protection. So the people of Africa should understand that we
commemorate their loss as well as the people of Europe. It was the
same situation, the same circumstances and the same failure of the
United Nations peacekeeping. Even as we stand here in Srebrenica, the
United Nations Security Council is about to begin a meeting with
Wolfgang Petritsch to discuss the situation in Bosnia. It will start
in about a half an hour. At the same time, an intense effort is
underway to improve the UN peacekeeping so that this kind of thing can
never happen again.
Kofi Annan, who was head of peacekeeping at the time of Srebrenica,
has, as Secretary General, bravely issued a report pointing out the
failures in Rwanda and another report even more courageously pointing
out the UN's failures here in Srebrenica. At American insistence there
has been a new peacekeeping study made which has resulted in
far-ranging recommendations. We support those recommendations because
we think they're essential to reform the UN so as to prevent this sort
of thing from ever happening again. We cannot simply remember the
tragedy, we must learn from it and take actions to prevent it from
happening again.
I know that our friends in the Bosnian media want to talk only about
this area, but the world should understand that the United Nations
cannot allow this sort of thing to happen when it is assigned a
responsibility. And Srebrenica was a designated safe area of the
United Nations, and the United Nations failed, and we must take action
to prevent that from happening in the future. For this reason, and
taking into account the growing burden on the United Nations and
peacekeeping, and bearing in mind the lessons of Srebrenica, President
Clinton asked for a substantial increase in the United States'
commitment to peacekeeping operations of the United Nations in the
budget for the current fiscal year. Some of that money will go to
Bosnia and some of it will go to Kosovo. The Congress is currently
completing its deliberations so I can't give you a final report, but I
am hopeful that there will be a very significant increase in American
support of UN peacekeeping in the new fiscal year. So we come here to
bear witness and to commit ourselves to preventing these things from
happening again.
I am very pleased that High Representative Wolfgang Petritsch
designated the cornfield behind you as the future memorial site and
cemetery for the victims of the crimes that were committed on this
land that is soaked with Bosniak blood.
As for what we've seen in the town of Srebrenica, it's a mixed
situation as you all know. I am profoundly moved by the courage of the
Mayor, a Bosniak, and of the Serb members of the City Council of
Srebrenica. Their courage and their willingness to seek a
reconciliation is remarkable. On the other hand, there are men in that
town who are destroying the houses of Muslims when they come home.
There are war criminals in that town and the situation is far from
satisfactory.
Now, the Serbs who moved into Srebrenica and who want to go home to
their homes in Sarajevo or in Brcko or in any other part of the region
should be able to do so. That is the right of the Serbs who are here
themselves as refugees occupying other people's homes. I support that
right. But when Muslims wish to return to this town, which was mostly
theirs before 1995, they must have the right to do so as well. Well,
these are rights that are enshrined in the Dayton Peace Agreement,
signed almost exactly five years ago, and that agreement was signed by
all the participants in this war. But some of the people who signed
the Agreement and others didn't really mean it when they signed it, of
course. There are elements, there are political parties in this
country, which still seek to separate the country into two, even
though that issue was resolved after a bloody war by the Dayton
Agreement.
Now let me state directly to the Bosnian Serbs, last night in Skopje,
we met with President Kostunica. He made absolutely clear that he
supports fully the Dayton Peace Agreement. He specifically made clear
that he supported the right of all refugees to return to their homes
regardless of the ethnic majority in the area. Those people who relied
on the sanctuary of Serbia and the hidden but unmistakable support of
Slobodan Milosevic should know that that era has come to an end and
now there will not be a great neighbor ready to give the forces of
separatism sanctuary.
Well, the people of Bosnia-Herzegovina are going to make an important,
perhaps a historic, choice in the election on November 11. This will
be the fourth election since Dayton but the first election in the
absence of the evil leadership in Belgrade. There are parties and
individuals in Bosnia who still stand for extreme nationalism,
extremism and ethnic hatred. But since the last elections in Bosnia
the leadership has changed not only in Belgrade but in Zagreb and not
only in Zagreb but even in Sarajevo. The new generation of leaders is
coming to the fore in this country and of course they are looking to
the future.
The Bosnian people must decide whether they wish to move forward along
with the rest of Europe. There are more elements in Bosnia today
opposing progress than in any other part of Europe now that Serbia has
liberated itself from the backward-looking dictatorship. But I am sure
they're a minority. The people - all three ethnic groups - in Bosnia
want peace, prosperity and honest leadership and an end to ethnic
hatred, and this election on November 11 is a chance for them to so
demonstrate by rejecting the extremists, the separatists and the
criminals.
Again, I extend my sympathies to the survivors and the widows of
Srebrenica of July 11, 1995 of the tragedy that took place on this
very spot. And I hope that we will be able to show that what happened
in Srebrenica will not happen again in this part of the world. I am
confident it won't, but it will take action and leadership not only by
the international community which is here and which is committed by
local leaders.
(ANY QUESTIONS?)
QUESTION: (Inaudible) Are there any signs that the Dayton Peace
Accords will be implemented on that way or will it be changed?
AMBASSADOR HOLBROOKE: I talked about this with President Kostunica
yesterday. He expressed the same view to me that you mentioned but
that he considers the Dayton Peace Accords a strong international
treaty commitment and binding. I consider that very important and very
positive. I pointed out to him, however, that constitutions and
treaties can have additions, not amendments or changes, but additions
and augmentations. The New York Declaration of November 15 of last
year was one such improvement and he agreed. And he said that was fine
and he approved of it and I hope there will be others.
I want to be clear that President Kostunica and I did not agree on
everything we discussed in two and a half hours. Nor would one expect
that, but he - it is hard to express in words - how important the
success of his efforts have been in removing the old regime in
Belgrade and replacing it with a popularly based democracy. Our
admiration for that achievement is hard to express in words. And we
respect him for it and we look forward to his early entry into the
United Nations. We look forward to his leading his country and
contributing to stability in the region.
QUESTION: (Inaudible)
AMBASSADOR HOLBROOKE: The Deputy who resigned resigned because he
objected to the cemetery. The man who resigned is the kind of
backward-looking person who is trying to undo Dayton. He was a
separatist, he was an extremist, and I am not going mourn his
departure.
QUESTION: Since Ambassador Holbrooke is one of the architects of the
Dayton Peace Accords, do you believe that the Dayton Peace Accords
should be revised?
AMBASSADOR HOLBROOKE: As I said in answer to the question over here, I
agree with President Kostunica that the Dayton Peace Accord should be
respected and fully implemented. They do not need to be revised, but
from time to time, with the consent of the parties that are concerned,
they can be augmented. Such an occasion took place November in New
York in the New York Declaration.
Now, it's very important to note that the New York Declaration was
only the Bosnian leadership. Nobody from Zagreb or Belgrade
participated in that. It was an agreement within the framework of
Dayton between the three presidents. I discussed this with President
Kostunica last night. He agreed it was entirely appropriate. It
resulted in a common passport which Wolfgang Petritsch unveiled two
days ago. It resulted in an agreement on state security at the borders
and a larger staff for the central presidency which is still to be
fully implemented and various other things. That is the kind of thing
that I hope to see continually. Constitutions and treaties should not
be changed, but they are living instruments which can be improved.
QUESTION: Many people hope on that because (inaudible) here five years
ago (inaudible) Originally it's up to local authorities to deliver
them to (inaudible) What is your message to the local authorities
which should actually (inaudible)
AMBASSADOR HOLBROOKE: I agree with what is called for in Dayton and
elsewhere. That people should cooperate in the apprehension of war
criminals including, of course, Mr. Karadzic who is a very negative
force in this country and who has done great damage. And I might say
about Mr. Karadzic that the people he's damaged most are the Bosnian
Serbs. In the name of nationalism, he and his colleagues, including
Mr. Krajisnik, have robbed and stolen from their own people. It's a
corrupt regime, the Bosnian Serb regime, and, or it was anyway, under
the S.D.S. it was corrupt, and the people - the Bosnian Serbs --
should recognize that they have been badly misled by their leaders.
But, it's, they're running out of time. There were, of course,
frictions between Karadzic and Milosevic, everyone knows this, but in
the end they were on the same side, which was destabilizing the
Balkans. And the big gun is gone. The chief arsonist of the Balkans is
gone, and the others will have to understand that that means that the
detective atmosphere in which they could operate is eroding. It's
evaporating. The time is running out for the extremists and the
separatists. We ended the war five years ago at Dayton. Almost every
person in Bosnia-Herzegovina is better off today because that war is
over except for a few criminals. Now the people of Bosnia-Herzegovina
have a chance to vote to move that process forward. Of course, an
outsider will not, should not tell people how to vote. But I hope that
everyone will consider that the vote is basically between the choice
for moving forward and joining the larger community of European
nations, having the benefits of membership in the European
organizations, or moving backwards by supporting people who are
separatists and criminals.
QUESTION: In your opinion, are there extreme elements among Bosniak
political parties and do the demands or requests for a
Bosnia-Herzegovina without entities, does that represent a violation
of the Dayton Peace Accords?
AMBASSADOR HOLBROOKE: The answer to your first question is already in
my previous answer. I said extremists in all ethnic communities. But
let's be clear, among the three entities, ethnic groups, by far the
worst is represented by one of the three groups. But all three groups
had their extremists and their separatists. Separatism however is not
a possible option to Bosnia because of the way the population is
distributed. Thank you very much.
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