SREBRENICA: Angelina Jolie Campaigns to End Rape as a Weapon of War

Angelina Jolie was crying during her visit to the Srebrenica Genocide Memorial in Potocari, Bosnia-Herzegovina (March 28, 2014).

Srebrenica (Bosnia-Herzegovina) – Hollywood star Angelina Jolie on Friday paid respect to victims of the 1995 Srebrenica genocide after urging the international community to stop the use of sexual violence as a war weapon. Many women and girls suffered rape and sexual abuse and other forms of torture during the brutal military persecution of Bosniak civilians in eastern Bosnia in 1992 and during the fall of Srebrenica in July 1995.

Jolie was accompanied to the ill-fated town by British Foreign Minister William Hague, while on a trip to Bosnia. Hague and Jolie arrived from Sarajevo, where they attended a conference on the prevention of sexual violence in armed conflicts.

At the Srebrenica memorial centre museum, Jolie and Hague met women who were raped during Bosnia’s 1992-1995 war, as well as women whose beloved ones were killed in the massacre.

[ GRAPHIC CONTENT: photos of victims of mass rape perpetrated by Serbian soldiers between 1992 and 1995:  testimonies of rape in Srebrenica / mother with children / other rape victims testimonies ]

Dressed in black, with a black headscarf to respect customs of Muslim women when they go at a cemetery, Jolie laid a wreath in front of a stone monument for the victims.

She then marched alongside a wall on which the names of some 8,000 people killed in Europe’s worst atrocity since World War II were written.

Noticeably emotional and barely able to contain tears, the actress and campaigner did not talk to journalists.

“Our tradition is not to talk about the rape,” said Munira Subasic, the head of the association of Srebrenica mothers.

“Many women have been through it but don’t talk about it. That is why this visit is important, to show them they don’t have to cope with it alone,” Subasic said.

Afer capturing Srebrenica on July 11, 1995, Serb forces executed 8,000 Bosniak men and boys. More than 6,000 massacre victims, whose remains were found in mass graves, were laid to rest at a memorial cemetery in the town.

“Angelina Jolie listened to our stories, watched every mother. She was tense and couldn’t utter a word because she was in tears. She approached every mother and hugged her, showing her solidarity with us,” Subasic said.

Subasic  said they spoke of their problems to Hague too, the most difficult being the fact that war criminals were still free and that those convicted were freed because of procedural errors.

Subasic said the women of Srebrenica were outraged by the Bosnian justice system because the punishment of those who committed war crimes was intolerably slow. According to her, Hague said Great Britain remained interested in the situation in Bosnia and that he knew about all of the country’s problems.

“We said the common people wanted things to change but that the obstacle were not just our politicians, who can’t agree, but also what the international community created, namely that there are three presidents in BiH who will never and can’t agree,” Subasic said, adding that the residents of Srebrenica believed it was time for another Dayton [peace] agreement, because Bosnia could not go on like this.

Earlier on Friday, Jolie and Hague took part at a conference in the Bosnian capital on sexual violence in war, organised by the Balkan country’s defence ministry.

Jolie, whose 2011 directorial debut “In the Land of Blood and Honey” dealt with violence against women during Bosnia’s war, urged peace missions around the world to make combatting sex crimes a priority.

“The use of rape as a weapon of war is one of the most harrowing and savage of these crimes against civilians,” Jolie told the conference.

“This is rape so brutal, with such extreme violence, that it is even hard to talk about it,” said the 38-year-old actress, who is a goodwill ambassador for the UN’s refugee agency.

Jolie and Hague are due to co-host a high-profile summit on the same topic in London in June, which is expected to be the largest ever gathering of its kind, according to the British foreign minister.

Hague said that today “sexual violence is used deliberately as a weapon of war” in the conflicts in Syria, Central African Republic and South Sudan.

“I hope we can all work together to prevent the horrors seen in this region from being repeated in future conflicts anywhere in the world,” he said.

Bosnia’s decision to include preventing sexual violence in military training is “groundbreaking” and should become the standard for U.N. peacekeeping missions, British Foreign Secretary William Hague and Angelina Jolie said Friday.

“Warzone rape has been a taboo subject in all countries. You are helping to break down those taboos and redefining soldiering in the 21st century,” Jolie said as the two addressed a conference on sexual violence in war organized in Sarajevo by Bosnia’s Defence Ministry.

Jolie said the training was especially important for peacekeepers as their patrols “can mean that women no longer have to face a choice between going out for firewood and water and being raped or seeing their children go hungry.”

Hague promised Britain will support a planned training centre in Sarajevo for future military and police peacekeepers from the region.

Jolie and Hague launched a global campaign two years ago to fight sexual violence in armed conflicts, end impunity for the perpetrators and provide support for victims. So far, 141 countries have supported the initiative.

Up to 50,000 women were raped during the 1992-95 Bosnian war. The victims later sued at the UN war crimes tribunal, which resulted in wartime rapists being put behind bars for the first time in history. So far only 33 people have been convicted for the crimes by local courts and 30 by a UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague.

Bosnia’s war between its Croats, Bosniaks and Serbs claimed some 100,000 lives.

Sources – AFP, Reuters, HINA.

Angelina Jolie and William Hague visit the Srebrenica Genocide Memorial in Potocari, Bosnia-Herzegovina (March 28, 2014).

Angelina Jolie and William Hague paid their respect to 8,000 Srebrenica Genocide victims in Potocari memorial. (March 28, 2014).