Am Freitag, dem 03. Juli 2026, fand in den Räumlichkeiten der Vereinten Nationen in Wien (Vienna International Centre) eine internationale Konferenz mit dem Titel „Gedenken, Reflexion, Versöhnung: Im Geiste der UN-Resolution zu Srebrenica“ statt.
Die Konferenz wurde von der Gesellschaft Bosnischer Akademiker in Österreich in organisiert, mit Unterstützung der Mission von Bosnien und Herzegowina in Wien
Die Veranstaltung wurde neben den in Österreich lebenden Bosniern auch von Botschaftern und Delegationen aus mehreren Ländern besucht, was diesem Ereignis eine starke internationale Bedeutung verleiht und die Wichtigkeit globaler Solidarität im Kampf gegen die Leugnung und das Vergessen des Völkermords sowie die Notwendigkeit unterstreicht, Wege der Versöhnung zu suchen.
Teilnehmer der Konferenz waren:
• Siradj Duhan, Präsident der Gesellschaft Bosnischer Akademiker in Österreich
„A Call to Reconciliation and Renewal“
• Geoffrey Nice, ehemaliger Ankläger beim Internationalen Strafgerichtshof für das ehemalige Jugoslawien
„Has the international community drawn any lessons from Srebrenica?“
• Hariz Halilovich, aus Srebrenica stammend, Professor für Anthropologie an der RMIT University in Melbourne
„Srebrenica, 30 Years On: Remembrance, Trauma, and the Diaspora“
• Wolfgang Petritsch, ehemaliger Hoher Repräsentant für Bosnien und Herzegowina
„Srebrenica and Europe“
• Asim Dorović, Ministerrat und Berater der Mission von Bosnien und Herzegowina bei der OSZE und den Vereinten Nationen in Wien
„Reflections on 30 Years Since Srebrenica“
Im Rahmen des Programms wurde auch ein Kurzvideo mit dem Titel „Srebrenica: 30 godina poslije“ gezeigt, das mit eindrucksvollen Bildern an das Ausmaß der Tragödie und die Bedeutung des kollektiven Erinnerns erinnerte.
Die Veranstaltung wurde von Iris Begić, moderiert.
Auszug aus der Rede von Hariz Halilovich:
For me, speaking about Srebrenica is never simply an academic exercise. I was born there, and like thousands of others from my hometown, my life has been permanently shaped by what happened in July 1995. While I survived because I was outside the enclave when the genocide occurred, members of my extended family, neighbours and childhood friends did not. My birthplace became a place of death—a landscape of mass graves, absence and unfinished mourning.
That experience has also shaped my work as a scholar. Over the past two-and-a-half decades I have tried to understand not only what genocide destroys, but also what comes afterwards: how people rebuild lives after mass violence; how memory becomes woven into everyday life; and how survivors continue living when the past remains politically contested. Anthropology, my own discipline, is particularly well placed to ask these questions because it is concerned not only with moments of extraordinary violence, but also with the ordinary lives that follow.
Thirty-one years after the genocide, Srebrenica occupies a deeply paradoxical place. It has become one of the world’s most recognised symbols of genocide since the Holocaust. The crimes have been established through extensive scholarship, forensic investigation and international court judgments. Yet at the same time they continue to be denied, relativised and politically manipulated. For many survivors, then, genocide has never become simply history. It remains an ongoing social reality.
This is why I suggest we think of genocide not only as an event, but as a social process whose consequences continue to unfold long after the killing stops.
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Auszug aus der Rede von Siradj Duhan:
History teaches us that reconciliation is possible. Yet, thirty-one years after the genocide in Srebrenica—a crime unequivocally established by the International Court of Justice and the ICTY—we must ask: why do the Western Balkans continue to struggle to transform a painful past into a shared future?
Consider the rivers that run through our region. The Drina, the Sava, the Danube—they do not recognize borders, nor do they ask for passports. They flow through Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, and Croatia, indifferent to our human divisions. Their value depends entirely on whether communities on both banks choose to protect them together.
I submit that reconciliation is this river. It does not erase the tragedy upstream, but it offers a current toward a common delta.
Let us be clear: historical truth, as established by international courts, cannot be subject to political reinterpretation. Accountability must remain individual, never collective. A child born today in Belgrade bears no guilt for the crimes of the past. But that child does have the right to grow up in a society that honors truth over myth.
Srebrenica must remain a place of remembrance and sorrow. But let it also become a crossing point—not a dead end. Let it be the place where we prove that the river of history, however turbulent its course, can still flow toward a shared sea of civic dignity and lasting peace.
The question, distinguished guests, is whether leaders in Belgrade, Zagreb, Sarajevo, and beyond have the courage to step into that river together. We need a Willy Brandt from Belgrade.
Impressionen von der Konferenz:
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