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

I take this opportunity to speak to the motion moved by the member for Melbourne Ports which relates to the atrocities perpetrated against the Bosnian Muslim community at Srebrenica by Srpska forces on 11 July 1995, when over 7,000 Muslim Bosnians were killed. In fact, the figure might even be higher than that. The signing of the Dayton Agreement in Dayton, Ohio, in December 1995 by the presidents of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia brought a halt to the fighting, establishing the basic structure of the present-day state. A NATO-led peacekeeping force was then dispatched to Bosnia to enforce that deal. The number of identified victims from the conflict is over 97,000 and recent research estimates that the total number could be up to 110,000 killed and 1.8 million displaced. In fact, I have seen figures which suggest it might be much higher than that.

Each year the Bosnian community of Adelaide holds a service in remembrance of the 1995 events. In recent years I have attended those services, as I did on 11 July this year to mark the 16th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre. At each of those services those present heard from people who were in Bosnia at the time of the killings and who were able to provide very personal eyewitness accounts of the atrocities committed. Many of the speakers were children at the time. Often overcome by their emotions and their anguish, they told of the cruelty which members of their families or of their town were subjected to by forces under the control of Ratko Mladic. I saw the tears in their eyes as they spoke of the terrible acts of violence perpetrated against them. It is incomprehensible that the atrocities that were recounted by them could have occurred. Yet they were committed—not just once but many times over—whilst the world looked the other way.

It has only been in recent years, as several of the key figures associated with the Srebrenica massacre have been arrested and brought before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, that much of the truth about what happened at Srebrenica has come to light. For those who survived, being able to get on with their lives has been very difficult, but they have had no choice but to do so. Of those who fled at the time, some found their way to Australia, and a considerable number of them have settled in my own electorate of Makin. They are good people, scarred but strengthened by events in Bosnia, who have settled remarkably well into their new Australian life. In Adelaide they have established their own community centre in the electorate of the member for Port Adelaide. Only last month, I spoke at length with Muharem and Sabin Bejtic about life in Bosnia. A week or so later I spoke with Murat and Ferida Hasich, who were attending the school graduation assembly of their granddaughter, Lesha Hasich, at Golden Grove High School. Their son, Sam Hasich, who is the president of the Bosnia-Herzegovina Muslim Society of South Australia, has been a tireless ambassador and voice for Adelaide's Bosnian community.

The atrocities committed against the Bosnian Muslims were the subject of proceedings before the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. I have read the summary of the judgment handed down by the International Court of Justice on 26 February 2007:

The Court concludes that the acts committed at Srebrenica falling within Article II (a) and (b) of the Convention were committed with the specific intent to destroy in part the group of the Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina as such; and accordingly that these were acts of genocide, committed by members of the VRS in and around Srebrenica from about 13 July 1995.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia will not undo the wrongs that happened at Srebrenica or erase the memories of those who survived but, in knowing that those who were responsible were brought to account and that the rest of the world now knows the truth, it may provide some comfort for those who suffered.

I want to conclude with a quotation from one of those young people who was at one of the services I referred to earlier. This is part of what Miss Mahira Hasanovic had to say:

I was just a kid when the war started. When the world turned its back on Bosnia. Left us to vanish off the map of this world. I thank god that I was so young and that my memories are only pictures of what happened around me. About the awful times in Potocari, Dubrave and in the refugee tents. But, the biggest imprint of the war is left with me, my father is no longer here, nor will he ever be.

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