Raisu-l-Ulama commenting on the today's decision of the ICTY: We must learn from the past and look to the future

Sarajevo, 29th November 2017 (MINA) - Commenting on the today's decision of the ICTY Appeals Chamber regarding the officials of the so-called Herceg Bosna, Raisu-l-Ulama (Grand Mufti) of the Islamic Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina Husein-effendi Kavazović told MINA (Muslim Information and News Agency):

„The verdicts of the ICTY present a unique and historical opportunity which we must not miss, an opportunity to renounce the policies that have caused so much evil and suffering for all the peoples in this region. We must not miss this opportunity. We must do that for the sake of the victims and for the sake of our children's future.

It is clear that the political elites cannot reach agreement over what happened in the nineties. They have not been willing to take political or moral responsibility for what had happened and they have not helped build trust. This is why we need foreign arbiters, and we can see that we have no one but the ICTY to help us reach a common truth, the truth without which there can be no reconciliation.

We cannot learn from our mistakes if we claim we have committed none. This is why I once again call upon everyone not to ascribe to entire nations the deeds of individual war criminals and policies which divided us and aimed to create ethnically „cleansed“ areas. It is these policies that are standing trial today, not the nations. But those nations, and their leaders, must uncompromisingly renounce them.

We must use this historical opportunity to learn from the past and look to the future, always focusing on the victims, not their murderers. “