The Government of Canada will support Srebrenica resolution

According to the letter sent by Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada Mr. Lawrence Cannon to Grand Mufti of Bosnia-Herzegovina Mustafa Ceri,c the Government of Canada will support parliamentary resolution about Srebrenica genocide:

- The Government of Canada would support a parliamentary resolution acknowledging the massacre and establishing a Srebrenica Remembrance Day in Canada. Unfortunately, for procedural reasons, Motion M-416 and Bill C-553, which would have established a Srebrenica Remembrance Day, could not be presented in Parliament before the summer recess.

Canada condemns the atrocities committed in Srebrenica in July 1995, as well as all other forms of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, and is a vigorous defender of freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law. Canada fully supports the work of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the judicial bodies in this region in prosecuting all those who committed such crimes. Canada continues to work in cooperation with other states and international institutions to ensure that perpetrators are held accountable for their crimes. We hope to see such offenders brought to justice, and in particular fugitive Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb leader who oversaw the Srebrenica massacre.

As this year marks the fifteenth anniversary of the genocide committed in Srebrenica, I issued a press release to commemorate the anniversary on behalf of the Government of Canada. The statement acknowledges the massacre in Srebrenica as a genocide - minister Cannon stated in his letter to Grand Mufti.