January 27, 2012
All-Party Parliamentary Group for the Prevention of Genocide and Other Crimes Against Humanity
Room 209, Victoria Building, Parliament of Canada Ottawa, Ontario Canada
Tel: 613-996-7040, Fax: 613-944-9157
Hon. Roméo A. Dallaire
Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for the Prevention of Genocide and Other Crimes against Humanity (Canada)
Dear Roméo A. Dallaire,
Today The Congress of North American Bosniaks, Canadian Branch {CNABC} and the Institute for Research of Genocide {IGC} mark the 27th January 1945th, the day of the liberation of Auschwitz, which is celebrated worldwide as International Day of Remembrance of the Holocaust.
I am writing on behalf of victims of genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina who now reside in Canada and in the name of CNABC and IGC to combat Holocaust denial and all forms of racism and intolerance through the fostering of intercultural dialogue in the Canadian Cultural Mosaic.
The twentieth century was marked by a monstrous inhuman desire to exterminate the entire national, ethnical, racial or religious group as such, through the disruption of biological, cultural, social and ecological survival. Since the holocaust humanity still has the ability to draw historical lessons and messages, and ensure a better future. Even though the Bosnian genocide, which was generated by the Serbian and Croatian Nazism and the bones of the killed victims inaugurated genocidal creations, displayed tremendous negative experiences.
The most heinous of all crimes is precisely the denial of crimes against humanity and genocide and the Holocaust.
For those who celebrate evil there should be no tolerance. Serbian war criminals Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, believed that the murder of eight thousand Bosniaks in Srebrenica on the 11 July 1995.was a heroic act that all Serbs should be proud of.
Following the same logic, the current president of the Bosnian entity, Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik denies the genocide in Srebrenica, despite the fact that the Canadian Parliament adopted a resolution on the genocide in Srebrenica, M-416, in October 2010. Unfortunately the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in which the living victims of genocide are submitted to the indescribable pain, have not passed a resolution because of Dodik’s denial of genocide.
It is because of Dodik’s denial of genocide in Srebrenica, I write this letter on behalf of victims of genocide – Canadian Bosniaks, many Canadians who are friends of Bosnia and Herzegovina and friends of justice for the victims of these crimes. I am confident that you will raise your voice against this act and Milorad Dodik.
Together we can stop the crime of denying the Holocaust and genocide, and thus send a clear message to victims that they are not alone in struggling to prove the obvious and undeniable truth about their suffering.
Professor Emir Ramic
Director of the Institute for Research of Genocide, Canada