SARAJEVO (AA) – Kada Hotic, a lucky survivor of the genocide in Srebrenica, Bosnia has revealed her plans to the president of ICTY (International Crimes Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia) to build a ‘pillar of shame and a pillar of honor’ somewhere close to Potocari – a graveyard where many of the victims were buried.
“It is up to you to decide where your name will be placed” Hotic told judge Theodor Meron, challenging the president of the tribunal on the most recent acquittal of a war crimes suspect – general Momcilo Perisic – adding that survivors are not looking for any type of privileges, but justice for all those responsible for genocide.
A group of survivors and family members of victims came together with the ICTY’s top judge to discuss the case of the former Yugoslav general Momcilo Perisic.
“The planes are not birds, and tanks are not toys. All these soldiers were sent by somebody to Bosnia and Herzegovina, somebody gave them guns and ammunition, and they committed crimes. All that could not happen without somebody who issued orders, and without the knowledge of those who had the power to decide,” Hotic said.
Representatives of victims associations invited president Meron and the chief prosecutor of the ICTY Serge Brammertz to visit Tomasica site where one of the biggest mass graves in Bosnia was discovered in September 2013. The remains of some 333 bodies were found in this grave by mid-October, and the searches still go on. It is estimated that about 1,000 body remains could be found.
Since the end of the war, victims from the Prijedor area are demanding from local authorities to build memorial sites for all those who were killed during the war, but efforts have so far failed to create any result.
Former Yugoslav general Perisic was the Chief of the General Staff of the Yugoslav army until 1998.
On February this year, Perisic was acquitted of all charges for the crimes allegedly committed in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1991 to 1995.
Kada Hotic had lost all her family members during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the bloodiest decade in eastern Europe, in 90s.
