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Clinton Joins Srebrenica Massacre Victims

Posted on: Saturday, 20 September 2003, 06:00 CDT

Former President Bill Clinton joined thousands of survivors of Europe's worst massacre since World War II in a ceremony Saturday to open a memorial center dedicated to thousands of Muslims killed here.

The slaughter in Srebrenica, where as many as 8,000 Muslims may have been killed, has become a symbol for the brutality of Bosnia's 1992-1995 war, which pitted the country's Muslims, Serbs and Croats against each other. The war killed 260,000 and left 1.8 million people displaced.

Srebrenica, 50 miles northeast of Sarajevo, had been declared a "safe zone" by the United Nations when it was overrun by Bosnian Serb soldiers in July 1995. The soldiers then began executing Muslims, most of them men and boys. Women were sent away in buses before the killings began.

Survivors invited Clinton to preside over the official opening of a memorial center honoring the Srebrenica victims because of his crucial role in ending the war. Clinton's administration led NATO to bomb Bosnian Serb artillery positions and later brought together the leaders of the warring parties in Dayton, Ohio, to negotiate the peace deal that ended the bloodshed.

"Among all the world leaders, Clinton has the biggest moral right to open this memorial center," said Amor Masovic, the head of the Muslim Commission for Missing Persons.

Local police, NATO-led peacekeepers, European Union Police Mission officers and 300 civilians were providing security for the memorial. Four U.S. Apache helicopters cruised over the skies over Potocari, a village near Srebrenica where the memorial center is located.

Other officials attending included British diplomat Paddy Ashdown, who administers Bosnia; U.S. Ambassador to Bosnia Clifford Bond; Bosnian Presidency member Sulejman Tihic; and Bosnian Serb prime minister Dragan Mikerevic.

The ceremony opened with the Bosnian anthem and the raising of the Bosnian flag followed by a choir singing a specially written song that envisions the victims talking to the survivors.

"Mother, I am looking for you. Sister, I love you. I can't find you, where are you," the choir sang. Women in the crowd wept as they heard the sorrowful song.

Srebrenica survivor Advija Ibrahimovic, 22, told the audience about her feelings in July 1995.

"I was scared to death. Numerous frightened children, sad women and broken old men stood next to me, and all of us watched the hatred killing human beings. I still remember the moment when they took my father away, and his last glance cast at my interrupted childhood," she said.

After the opening speeches, 107 victims are to be buried in the Potocari cemetery that surrounds the memorial center. Of them, four were under 18. The oldest victim was 75. Their bodies have exhumed from mass graves where the Serb soldiers dumped the victims.

Earlier this year, 882 victims were buried in two separate ceremonies.

So far, 5,000 bodies have been exhumed from mass graves near Srebrenica. Of those, 1,083 have been identified so far, using DNA technology.

The $5.8 million memorial-cemetery complex has been constructed in phases, financed by private and government donations, including the U.S. government, which last year donated $1million for the center.

The complex consists of burial fields plotted out in petal-like array around a central area that features an open-air prayer room, a crypt with a garden and a memorial room.

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