2005 is the tenth anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre. The mass-murder of close to ten thousand men and boys in a “UN Protection Zone” and before the eyes of the world public was a shame to Europe and to the United Nations.

The events of July 1995 jolted international politics and called into question the routine practices of the political world order, of the United Nations and of international law in its hitherto-existing form. These questions have lost none of their topicality; rather they have become all the more urgent through the occurrences in Kosovo, in Rwanda or in the Sudan. The Heinrich Böll Foundation has therefore resolved to put together an international project for the remembrance of these events in the coming year. On the occasion of the tenth anniversary we will present the photo-exhibit by renowned photographers from Bosnia-Herzegovina and abroad “Srebrenica - Remembrance for the Future” in various cities, together with discussion-forums and a publication.

The photos artistically document the fate of the survivors, the search for and identification of victims, as well as the post-war fate of the location of the crime. This exhibit is to prevent these events from fading into oblivion, is the very first to be devoted exclusively to the subject of Srebrenica. The Heinrich Böll Foundation plans to mount this exhibit in, among other places, Washington, Brussels, Strasbourg, Geneva and Berlin as well as in Sarajevo and in the Serbian capital Belgrade.

The book:

Concomitant with the exhibit and the discussion-forums, the Heinrich Böll Foundation will produce a publication in four languages - English, French, German and Bosnian/Serbian/Croatian. In addition to a selection of photos from the exhibit, it will include 18 contributions from well-known political and intellectual figures* that were involved in one way or another with the events in Srebrenica. They will be asked to reflect, with ten years' distance and from the viewpoint of their role at the time, on how they evaluate the events in and around Srebrenica and their meaning for world politics.

*Vaclav Havel, Carla Del Ponte, Christian Schwarz-Schilling, Freimut Duve, Chris Kuelemans, Bogdan Bogdanovic, Marieluise Beck, Natasa Kandic, Emir Suljagic, Gojko Beric, Sonja Biserko, Slavenka Drakulic, Madeleine Albright, Konstanty Gebert, Swanee Hunt, Selim Beslagic, Nebojsa Popov, Susan Sontag.

The photo exhibition:

The exhibit encompasses 33 by 5 bosnian and 5 international Photographers* divided into the following thematic blocks: The History of the Crime; Srebrenica; Life in a Refugee Camp; Identification; Portraits. The photos will be supplemented by an introduction to the events in the form of a chronicle.

*Gilles Peress, Roger Hutchingson, Paul Lowe, Simon Norfolk, Darko Bandic, Acif Hodovic, Zijah Gafic, Danilo Krstanovic, Muhamed Mujkic und Almin Zrno.

Srebrenica represents a turning-point in international and especially in European politics after 1989. The events of July 1995 shook the European public and the international political system to their very foundations. The hitherto generally-recognized principle of “non-interference in internal state affairs” as a product of state sovereignty and the “neutrality” of the UN with regard to armed conflicts proved to be in need of revision. Srebrenica led to the legitimization of interventions on humanitarian grounds as a new instrument of international policy that was subsequently applied in the Kosovo conflict. The experiences of the last decade have shown, however, that this consequence remains contentious and subject to political opportunity.

Over and above that, Srebrenica made clear the fatal effects of a lack of uniformity in European states' foreign policy actions and gave a push to the development of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP/ESDP). How should up-to-date results of this process be assessed today? Ultimately, the question presents itself of what lessons the UN has drawn from the events with regard to Srebrenica: How does the interaction between democratic and non-democratic states impact the decision-making capability of the Security Council from today's viewpoint? Does the United Nations cope better with its duty - the protection of human rights - today than ten years ago? What instruments does it need to master this duty in the future?

The accompanying events in Berlin, Brussels and Washington should examine the developments in Srebrenica primarily from the perspective of international politics, while the events in Sarajevo and Belgrade should give priority treatment to the occurrences in Srebrenica itself, to the issue of societal responsibility and to the consequence of facing the recent past - war and genocide - for democratic and constitutional transformation in the post-war societies in Southeastern Europe.