Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

At the outset I want to commend the honourable member for Melbourne Ports for highlighting before the House the tragedy which occurred on 11 July 1995 at Srebrenica in Bosnia-Herzegovina. We are a civilised country and in this nation we have freedom, stability and a way of life that makes us the envy of people around the world. As was indicated by the honourable member for Moreton, his electorate in particular is multicultural, but Australia is a multicultural nation and we are a country to which people have come from right around the world. They could have selected other places to go to but they selected us, and in Australia we have welded together an Australian nation drawn from peoples from right around the world. I think this is one of the great successes of Australian democracy.

While there have been arguments at times about the proportion and origin of Australia's migrant population, what we have been able to do under successive governments of both political persuasions is to create a modern, vigorous and vibrant multicultural nation where people are accepted from around the world, and of course we expect them to play their part in making this country an even better place. Therefore, as Australians we find it almost unbelievable that the horrible events of 11 July 1995 in Bosnia-Herzegovina could have actually occurred.

Other honourable members have indicated that, on that day, Bosnian-Serb military forces under the command and control of Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic attacked the UN designated safe area of Srebrenica. As a result of these attacks, the Bosnian Muslim inhabitants of that area sought refuge near the UN compound in Potocari or fled in a large column in the direction of Tuzla.

Between 12 and 13 July 1995, many Muslims around the UN compound in Potocari were summarily executed by Bosnian-Serb military personnel, and the remaining refugees, numbering in the thousands, were placed on buses by Bosnian-Serb soldiers and removed from the area. Before they boarded these buses, the Muslim men had been separated from women and children and placed on different buses for removal from the enclave.

The Bosnian Muslims who fled the area in a huge column during the night of 11 July 1995 were attacked by Bosnian-Serb forces and thousands of them surrendered or were captured in the days following their flight. Thousands of them were executed by Bosnian-Serb soldiers at the locations of their capture or surrender and others were transported to other locations.

It is completely unacceptable to us that Bosnians of one ethnic persuasion could possibly act in such a brutal and horrendous manner towards other Bosnians. In fact, I think as Australians we find it doubly difficult to understand how such an event could have occurred. As other honourable members have indicated, this was Europe's worst atrocity since the Second World War. I was pleased that the Serbian parliament passed a landmark resolution apologising for the massacre. The motion, approved by a narrow majority, says that Serbia should have done more to prevent the tragedy. The fact that nearly 8,000 Bosniaks were murdered by Bosnian Serb forces is just completely unacceptable.

Notwithstanding that, it is a positive step that the parliament of Serbia has strongly condemned the crime committed against the Bosnian Muslim population in July 1995. The parliament extended condolences and an apology to the families of the victims because not everything was done to prevent the tragedy.

Let us hope again that we never have a repeat of this appalling atrocity, which makes us all ashamed to be human beings.

See this speech in context