Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-07-06-Speech-3-278"
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"en.20050706.26.3-278"2
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"Mr President, our primary concern today is, of course, to remember the most horrifying event from recent European history, namely the murder of thousands of men from the Muslim enclave of Srebrenica in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1995. The story of Srebrenica has had an enormous impact in Europe and the rest of the world, but particularly in my country, the Netherlands, for it was Dutch wearers of the UN’s blue helmets who, at that time, appeared incapable of offering citizens, inhabitants and refugees the protection they needed. Ten years on, this debacle is still a subject for debate in the Netherlands. The sense of horror and sympathy for the victims of this mass killing and their surviving relatives is great. Our thoughts are mainly with those who cannot live with the fact that those responsible for this crime, the then Bosnian President Karadžic and General Mladic, are still at large.
Remembering should, though, go beyond sympathy with the victims. We must learn from the lessons and try to move on. First of all, to the countries of the Balkans, whom we must support if they are to be able to come to terms with the experiences of the wars they have lived through, we make our pledge: ‘Never again’. While remembering the past, though, we must above all look to the future. The support given by the EU needs to be within a clear framework, with an important role played by the prospect of integration into the EU, which the Council has held out. Support from the EU will help bring about peaceful, stable and prosperous societies.
Let there be no doubt, though, that the responsibility for the future rests, in the first place, on the countries of the Balkans themselves. There is now, fortunately, peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but they have not fully come to terms with the past, and that is forming an obstacle to the functioning of the state and society, and so important decisions on such matters as the return of refugees and the arrest of those suspected of war crimes are not being taken. I believe that coming to terms with the past is as important as working towards the future.
A second lesson is broader, and that is the lesson that has been hotly debated in the Netherlands. ‘Never again, not in Europe, but, above all, not anywhere else in the world’ means that vigilance is called for to prevent dormant conflicts from escalating into bloody and hopeless situations. We must be more alert and act more rapidly, and where necessary, take a tougher line, when what happened at Srebrenica threatens to repeat itself, in order to prevent European troops from ever finding again themselves in the same situation as Dutchbat ten years ago."@en1
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