Zagreb - A commemoration was held in the Croatian Parliament on Wednesday on the occasion of 11 July, Srebrenica Genocide Remembrance Day, and the 27th anniversary of the atrocity, with the unanimous message that it must never happen again to anyone.
Speaker Gordan Jandroković said the genocide of over 8,000 members of another people and faith was committed in Srebrenica in which man became a beast and evil to another human being.
It is a civilisational achievement to remember every victim, he said, adding that the Srebrenica genocide was a criminal enterprise as part of an attempt to create Greater Serbia. In this context, he mentioned the crimes committed in Vukovar and Škabrnja, Croatia.
The message that it must not happen again is not enough, because evil still happens and will happen, Jandroković said, recalling the events in Ukraine and their uncertain outcome.
He called on the constituent peoples in Bosnia and Herzegovina to come to an agreement, saying that Croatia supports BiH's stability and its EU journey.
Presidential envoy Melita Mulić said the Srebrenica crime happened because the world and Europe had not learned their lesson and stopped the aggression.
The victims of the Greater Serbia idea and policy were killed there and in Croatia, and we remember yesterday so that we can live better today, and let's hope for a better tomorrow, she added.
The premier's envoy, Defence Minister Mario Banožić, said those crimes and the evil that had guided them were difficult to conceive and that the need to exterminate others and those who were different was incomprehensible.
After Vukovar, there was Srebrenica, and we have no right to keep silent on those crimes, which have a first and last name, he added.
We are again witnessing suffering and crimes in Ukraine, and the messages must be such that new generations learn from the past so that it does not recur, Banožić said.
The head of the Islamic Community in Croatia, Aziz Hasanović, said Srebrenica was a civilisational disgrace of the 20th century and that today some disputed that. Our job is to stop inter-ethnic hatred and that will last until evil is called by its name so that it does not happen again, he added.
The past and the facts should be protected from distortion and historians should be allowed to present the truth about that event, he said.
MP Ermina Lekaj Prljaskaj, who represents ethnic minorities, said the Srebrenica crime was one of the gravest since WWII in which unprecedented atrocities were committed and which the international community failed to prevent.
The president of the association of Bosniak Homeland War veterans, Kadro Kulašin, said 8,372 persons were brutally killed in Srebrenica in a spiral of evil created by the attempt to realise the idea of Greater Serbia. It is necessary to say who was responsible for the sake of the future, he added.