Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On Thursday, 11 July, I attended, as I do each year, the memorial service organised by the Bosnian Herzegovina Muslim Society of South Australia, commemorating the Srebrenica genocide of 11 July 1995, where 8,372 people, including elderly people, women and children, were brutally and mercilessly massacred. A $5.8 million memorial centre and cemetery for those who died was established in Potocari, a village near to Srebrenica, and opened in 2003 by former US President Bill Clinton. I will quote part of Bill Clinton's speech at the opening of the memorial centre:

Bad people who lusted for power killed these good people simply because of who they were.

…   …   …

We remember this terrible crime because we dare not forget because we must pay tribute to the innocent lives, many of them children, who were snuffed out in what must be called genocidal madness.

…   …   …

I hope the very mention of the name "Srebrenica" will remind every child in the world that pride in our own religious and ethnic heritage does not require or permit us to dehumanize or kill those who are different. I hope and pray that Srebrenica will be for all the world a sober reminder of our common humanity.

This year in Bosnia and Herzegovina, from 8 to 11 July, thousands of people participated in a three-day, 100-kilometre peace march from Nezuk to Potocari in memory of those massacred. The remains of a further 33 people were also identified and buried in the memorial centre cemetery.

After 24 years, members of Adelaide's Bosnia and Herzegovina community, most of whom migrated to Australia in the aftermath of the conflict in their home country, still understandably grieve family members and friends who were killed or who perished. For them, the haunting memories and anguish will never subside. Yet they look to the future with hope, as expressed in these words written on a banner prominently on display at the Adelaide service:

We pray to Almighty God, may grief become hope, may revenge become justice, may mothers' tears become prayers that Srebrenica never happens again, to no-one and nowhere.

I joined with the Bosnian people in remembering the victims of the Srebrenica massacre and in the hope that the families of those lost will find some comfort in the support of those of us who stand with them in their sorrows, and that those who were responsible for the atrocities will one day all be held to account.