April 16, 2010

Serbian President Boris Tadić said reconciliation of peoples in the region was an absolute imperative for Serbia and that the declaration on the condemnation of the crime in Srebrenica, adopted in the Serbian Parliament, was a product of an absolute dedication of Belgrade to the reestablishment of regional trust and friendship. For Serbia, reconciliation represents a moral imperative aimed at telling the truth – an unembellished one, based on facts – the horrible truth of bloodshed that must not repeat in our regions. We realize the reconciliation as a categorical rejection of individuals, who claimed falsely they were acting on our own behalf and the policy that supported violence and hatred, he wrote in a text for the Wall Street Journal. By assuming leadership in regional reconciliation, Serbia has opened a door for others, in the hope that we can build a joint future as an EU member-state, which is our strategic priority, he emphasized. This is Serbia’s vision and nobody will prevent it from making it come true, he stressed. He assessed Serbia had shown courage because it was the first to apologize for crimes in the civil wars in Yugoslavia, which crimes had been committed by all the sides. Speaking of the crime in Srebrenica, committed in July 1995, he described it as one of the most tragic chapters of the civil wars in Yugoslavia in the 1990s. In order to show that Serbia mourns all the victims, I visited Srebrenica a year after I was elected president, in order to pay homage to the victims on the 10th anniversary of that horrible crime, he said, adding such an act of his lead to an increase of consciousness in the region on the significance of reconciliation, one of the essential European values, which Serbia sincerely embraced after the reestablishment of democracy on October 5, 2000. Reminding that the Serbian Parliament adopted a historic Declaration on Srebrenica, which unambiguously condemns the war crime committed there, he assessed the document as an unprecedented one, the first one of such type in the West Balkans, offering deep condolences and true apology to the victims. It also confirms full support to the Serbian government’s efforts to successfully complete cooperation with the Hague Tribunal, which includes locating, arresting and extraditing the wartime commander of the BIH Serb Army, Ratko Mladic, Tadic said. He added the Declaration also emphasized Serbia’s dedication to the respect of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of BIH, hoping it will enable the three peoples to agree on necessary internal reforms. Silence is no longer acceptable, nor is hiding behind obsolete war rhetorics, for the period of responsibility in the region has begun, Serbian President Boris Tadić concluded.