Laurie Ferguson (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

One of the more moving events I had was with a group of approximately 20 Bosnian women, who were participating in a Granville TAFE course, who came into this parliament. During their tour I addressed them about parliament and parliamentary procedures, et cetera, and saw that those women, most of whom had lost their husbands during Srebrenica and other conflicts in Bosnia, had a deep commitment to democracy in this country and to learning about civics. Their wish to be involved politically was truly inspiring.

I want to say at the outset that I have had a very strong connection with the Bosnian community. Yesterday I was at an event at one of their clubs in Bringelly in my electorate. However, when I come to this debate, I come with no enmity towards the Serbian people.

Only in the last week has the President of Serbia, Mr Boris Tadic, visited Bosnia. He made an important commitment that Serbia will, 'never cross the red line of interference in Bosnia's affairs.' He also went on to stress the geographical, cultural, economic and infrastructure ties between the two countries. This, of course, does follow some recognition by Serbia's parliament of the truly horrific massacre in Srebrenica in July of 1995. In 2010 Boris Tadic made the comment that the resolution by the Serbian parliament represented the highest expression of patriotism. Truly, that is worthwhile noting. Whilst they might not have come to a formal use of the word 'genocide', they made an apology for the Serbian people not doing enough to overcome this massacre, and truly there is reconciliation by Serbia.

This was, of course, a very horrific event. We have heard tales of nine-year-old boys being murdered because they would not rape their sisters and of children being bayoneted out of their mother's wombs. We heard from the member for Melbourne Ports earlier in this debate of the very moving last words between a husband and wife. Of course, there was the guilt of Messrs Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic, and it is very valuable that they are being brought to justice.

The wording of this motion does not come from thin air, as people have noted. It comes from the European Parliament and is based on the decision of the International Court of Justice. It is, indeed, quite proper that we in Australia join the international community in recognising this for what it was. It was genocide, it was the attempt to eliminate people, it was the murder of a lot of people of non-military ages and it was the destruction of families. Whilst the Serbian parliament has come to a very noteworthy and very valued decision, there are those who still wish to deny. In March 2005, during another debate on this matter, Milos Milovanovic, a former commander of the Serbian paramilitary unit the Serbian Guard, representing the Serbian Democratic Party in the Srebrenica Municipal Assembly, made the outrageous remarks that the massacre is a lie, that it is propaganda to paint a bad picture of the Serbian people, that the Muslims are lying and that they are manipulating the numbers and exaggerating what happened. Unfortunately for him, he is up against a variety of very credible international court systems. He is up against the United Nations, he is up against the European Parliament and he is up against the reality of the graves that started to be discovered after 2006 and which, as we know, are still being uncovered today.

I had the opportunity during the Sydney Film Festival this year to see the film Circus Columbia, a very eerie reminder of those days—a Bosnian film which is placed in a small village on the eve of the conflict with a local Croatian militia starting to plan attacks on the local Yugoslav army forces. That was the beginning of this process. I want to identify myself very strongly with this motion. The massacre has been described in the criminal tribunal as a crime of genocide, which was deliberately and methodically undertaken to eliminate large numbers of Bosnian males, some of them in their late 60s and some of them under age. It is commendable that this parliament has joined across the political divide to make sure that we do recognise this massacre and that it is not forgotten.

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