We must teach younger generations to appreciate democracy and human rights

We must teach younger generations to appreciate democracy and human rights

The 1948 Geneva Genocide Convention was created in response to the crime of genocide of Holocaust of Jews. At the time of the Holocaust, there existed no international law with respect to that heinous crime.

During all material times of the 1992-1995 aggression against the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and specifically against its Muslim population, there existed the 1948 Geneva Genocide Convention. There also existed two Orders issued by the International Court of Justice, in April of 1993 and in September of 1993 respectively, directing then Yugoslavia - consisting of Serbia and Montenegro - to stop committing the crime of genocide. Those Orders were, ostensibly, also issued to the Security Council of the United Nations, which institution failed to carry out those Orders.

Today we all know the horrors and the horrific number of casualties, especially inflicted upon the biological body of Bosnia’s Muslims.

Today we witness a rather different “International Community” in that it has decided to prevent despots such as Muamer Gadafi from murdering his own people en masse. That kind of an international community did not exist when Muslims of Bosnia were slaughtered in the hundreds of thousands by, primarily, Orthodox Christians.

Given what we all know now about what transpired in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and given the lessons learned from that failure of the international community to act in order to preserve the lives of civilians, it is time that we proclaim that the Dayton Accords are an abrogation of justice and that the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina be restored according to the will of the electoral majority expressed in the referenda in February and March of 1992.

If we really want to prevent future genocides we must do much more than sympathize with the victims. We have to comprehend the psychological depth of the perpetrators of genocide and indifference of genocide observers.  We have to learn what makes some persons, who were once normal, to hate other persons and people to the extent that they want to systematically and methodically eliminate them all! But we also need to learn about those who support genocide against innocent people or observe it from the distance! We need to learn more about them too! We need to learn about genocide not only as of historical facts but also as a means to teach our children about the dangers of human intolerance. We must teach younger generations to appreciate democracy and human rights and encourage them to reject hatred, intolerance and ethnic conflicts so that "never again" is really true, so that neither Auschwitz nor Srebrenica ever happen again!