In remembering Srebrenica, we must go beyond commemoration and words and actively learn the lessons, says OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Edi Rama

TIRANA/VIENNA, 11 July 2020 – Paying his respects to the Bosnian victims of the Srebrenica genocide in 1995, OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama said today that in remembering this atrocious crime, we must go beyond commemoration and words, and actively learn the lessons.

“The scale and depravity of this genocide is a tragedy that burdens our souls today, twenty-five years later,” he said. “I pay respect to the victims who were mercilessly killed and offer my deepest condolences to the families of those who perished.”

The Prime Minister said he was appalled and concerned by a growing trend to rewrite the history of the crimes that unfolded in Srebrenica and the surrounding areas in the summer of 1995.

“The malicious revisionism of history can lead to the same mistakes and crimes being committed again. Local and international judiciaries have documented what happened in Srebrenica and its vicinity in 1995. This underscores the necessity of justice being served. Impunity is not an option,” he said.

“We always say that Srebrenica must never be repeated but just a few years later there was a devastating conflict in Kosovo.”

He concluded: “Responsibility for the crimes rests with the perpetrators. But societies are also culpable if they do not remember and learn from the lessons of what happened in Srebrenica.”