Europe's Pinnacle of Embaressment

The European Union (EU) will attend the 10th commemoration ceremony of the Srebrenica masacre in which 8,000 Bosnian Muslims were killed. The EU Commissioner for Enlargement Olli Rehn will represent the Union at the ceremony today. For the first time, an EU commissioner will join the commemoration. Other EU officials participated in other ceremonies in other cities in Bosnia. EU Term President Jack Straw will also be present at the commemoration. European Parliament (EP) Southeastern Europe Delegation head Doris Pack told Zaman that Europe should be feeling shame for the incident took place in Srebrenica 10 years ago. Pack satted, "Europe has three aspects to be embaressed about: First, Europe did not intervene in the massacre. The US ended a massacre in Europe. Responsible parties are still free." According to Pack, some European politicians do not want the executors of the massacre, Mladic and Karadzic to be brought to justice as they are informed that would be arrested and they manage to escape. Replying to the question, "who are these European politicians?" Pack said whoever shook hands with these two were the ones who help them escape, implying that the French and the Dutch allegedly have very relations with Mladic. Former US President Bill Clinton, the architect of the Dayton Agreement which end the Bosnian war, criticizes French former president Franchois Mitterand in his memoir, "My Life" he published last year. According to Clinton, one of the main reasons for the massacre was that some European leaders did not want to see a Muslim country in Balkans. Pack further said, "Both the French and the Dutch were good friends with Mladic. Representatives from these two countries had illegal relations with Mladic. He was loved by both French and Dutch." However, Pack criticized the Bosnia-Herzegovina government sytem that followed the Dayton Agreement observing that the Bosnia-Croatia Federation has 147 ministers. Pack is involved with the region for the last 16 years and she had lead a Southeastern Europe delegation making contacts least once a month, in the region.during the past 11 years, Dutch Jan Marinus Wiersma as the vice president of the Socialists in the European Parliament (EP focused more on the Euro instead of the Bosnian massacre. The Dutch soldiers, in charge of the protection of Srebrenica and who to sent 8,000 Bosnians to their deaths, are of interest to Wiersma. In an interview to Zaman, Wiersma said the Dutch were not in particular required to take all the blame for the incident because the responsiblity rests with the international community who failed to grasp the urgency of the issue. Defending the allegation against the Dutch Commander of Srebrenica Hans Karremans's of relations with Serbian Commander Ratko Mladic, Wierman said, "The charges against Karremans are not justified and that he had extremely limited authority. He would not have left the city had he known that Mladic would kill all the men." Wierman emphsized that the real shame was that Mladic and Karadzic were still absconding. He said the failure to bring them to justice does not heal the wounds of the Bosnians and he believed that both will be captured soon.

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