SREBRENICA 1995-2005 : A WARNING TO EUROPE

For more than 10 years, the horrific pictures of the massacre of Srebrenica and the war in Ex-Yugoslavia have raged merciless in front of our eyes: more than 200,000 victims, 2,000,000 deportees or exiles, towns and villages gone to ruin, buildings and bridges damaged, hospitals and schools destroyed by gun shots, monuments of culture and faith profaned, all kinds of violence and tortures, mass rapes and humiliation, concentration camps and ethnic cleaning, the cruel murder of cities and memories, innumerable lives of common people crippled and torn forever.

Human suffering cannot be summed up. Could things get any further or worse? Such a question ought to be asked both to the aggressors and those "Gentlemen" who did almost nothing to stop this war raging in the heart of Bosnia and Croatia, on the border of the Mediterranean Sea, in the very heart of Europe itself.

Already ten years ago, we stressed the inadequacy of the UN to world changes, a NATO still captive of the Cold War scenario, the European Union that is unable to get enough state power to guide Europe, a tormented Russia that tried in vain to undertake the role once belonging to the Soviet Union, languishing on the contrary in a huge political and cultural crisis, a UMPROFOR entrusted with the paradoxical and absurd role of "peace keeping" where there's no war. What about all these slightly concealed games, the Great Powers and their interests, the broken "ceasefires", the constantly infringed agreements, derided pacts and ridiculed negotiators, overridden and derided international resolutions, humanitarian convoys which also became  object of murderous anger?

This ordeal swept through Vukovar, Srebrenica, Gorazde, Mostar, Bihac and actually started and ended in Sarajevo; more than 1,000 days clenched in a fratricidal war that even beat  the sad record of the siege of Leningrad.

The multicultural and multinational reality of Bosnia-Herzegovina was mortally hurt at the time, along with our faith in a world where cultural and national pluralism ought to be possible and granted. Brutality and barbarism were fed by indifference and idleness.

Europe has washed its hands off Bosnia's fate and its governments denied their responsibilities and go on blaming each other. Maastricht has morally capitulated in front of Srebrenica and Sarajevo.

Our values and principles have been mocked and our dignity has never been as low as it is now.

Inspired by an ideal of peace and respect of human rights, but on the other hand having followed the overpowering economic prospective of Maastricht, the progressive unification of Europe has morally collapsed.

Europe, whose own existence is based upon its capacity to assure peace without war and occupation, has failed this objective in Bosnia and the rest of Ex-Yugoslavia. This shows that there is still a long and hurdled path to go.

Confronted with such a humiliation, we, Mediterranean intellectuals, can only cry out our wrath -even though lost in a desert as it often happened in the past- and commit ourselves to the creation of a United States of Europe, in order to ensure peace, social equality and democracy.

The victory of the No to the ratification of the European Constitution in France and the Netherlands intended to freeze the EU in its current hybrid structures, where the decisional power lies in the hands of non elected bodies. The reaction to an unleashed neo-liberalism, also criticised by American conservatives, has shown that the conscience of European people has understood the when the funeral tolls were resounding then and are heard again today, after the discovery of another mass grave. Horrific acts that did not stir the conscience of those who are entrusted to decide on our behalf or in our name.

Today, after ten years of massacres in Srebrenica, we address these  words to the politicians and the remains of human conscience: let’s work together to build our united Europe, against the hurdles of bureaucracy; to reinforce dialogue with the Mediterranean States and complete the European Union and the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership including the Balkans, which are essential to a lasting peace and development.

We call upon our friends in the Mediterranean area, Europe and the whole World to join and support us order that the thousands of victims in Srebrenica and elsewhere, will not have been sacrificed in vane.

Naples, 6th June 2005

Appeal written by Predrag Matvejevic’ and  Michele Capasso

First signatories:

Caterina Arcidiacono, Walter Schwimmer, Claudio Azzolini, Nullo Minissi.

To adhere, please send an e-mail to info@medlab.org
or a fax to +39 081 420 32 73