Simon Wiesenthal and Marek Edelman must serve as models: EU must remain steadfast in calling for extradition of Karadzic and Mladic!

Following the arrest of the probable Serb war criminal, Stojan Zupljanin, the General Secretary of the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV), Tilman Zülch, appeals to the German government and all the other 26 governments of European countries to remain steadfast in calling for the extradition of the two chief Serb war criminals Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic. " Belgrade must no longer be treated with velvet gloves by the EU! Enough concessions have been made to facilitate the approach of Serbia to the EU!" said Zülch. The continuing passive attitude of the Serb government in tracking down Karadzic and Mladic can no longer be tolerated.

"We shall never forget the great Jewish personalities Marek Edelman and Simon Wiesenthal, both friends of the GfbV for many years, who worked so hard for the victims of the genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina", said Zülch. "We strongly feel that the German government and the governments of the EU are committed to the idealism and hard work of these men and must act decisively."

Genocide in Bosnia 1992 -- 1995

Europe remained silent when Yugoslav troops and Serb militia committed the genocide, crimes against humanity and severe violations of humanitarian international law in Bosnia-Herzegovina between 1992 and 1995.

Many more than 100,000 civilians fell victims to the crimes in Bosnia-Herzegovina, among them several thousand in Serb concentration camps. Over 20,000 women were raped, about 2.2 million people were expelled and hundreds of villages destroyed. It was under the command of the Serb leaders, Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic. that the mass murder of at least 8,373 Bosnian boys and men was committed after the fall of Srebrenica on 11th July 1995. Both of these chief war criminals are in hiding to the present day thanks to the support of the Serb authorities and the Serb military.

"It is a disgrace for the work of the International War Crimes Tribunal for former Yugoslavia that two individuals are still in hiding who are accused of genocide and who are responsible for the worst crimes in Europe since the Second World War", said the ICTY chief prosecutor, Carla del Ponte in a statement to the UN Security Council at the end of her period of office in December 2007. In the light of the war crimes in Bosnia Marek Edelman, last surviving commander of the resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto made the following statement: "Europe has learnt nothing from the Holocaust, Bosnia is a posthumous victory for Hitler." Simon Wiesenthal was reminded of "elements of the Holocaust". The victims of the genocide were to over 90% Bosnians (Muslims), but just as much to be remembered are the Bosnian victims of Croat, Serb, Jewish and Roma origin.

*Break-down of the genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina *

1. The murder of between 100,000 and 150,000 civilians. According to different estimates about 30,000 victims were missing at the end of the war.

The bodies of 11,430 of those missing have now been exhumed, but only some of these have been identified.

2. The setting-up of over one hundred concentration and internment camps and the arrest of over 200,000 civilians.

3. The murder of several thousand detainees in camps like Omarska, Manjaca, Keraterm, Trnopolje, Luka Brcko, Susica, Foca etc.

4. The rape of some 20,000 women and the setting-up of rape camps.

5. The systematic arrest and murder of members of the academic and political elites.

6. The flight and expulsion of some 2.2 million Bosnians. Hundreds of thousands have to the present day not been able to return.

7. The encircling, starvation and shelling of 500,000 Bosnians in the so-called UN protected areas for over four years ( Sarajevo , Gorazde, Srebrenica, Zepa and Bihac).

8. The encircling and shelling of the city of Sarajevo . About 11,000 victims, among them being 1,500 children.

9. Massacres and mass shootings in many communities and towns in the north, west and east of Bosnia (Posovina, the Prijedor area and Podrinje).

10. The murder of 8,373 boys and men in Srebrenica.

11. The burial of those murdered in hundreds of mass-graves in all occupied areas without any notice of the identity of the victims.

12. The planned destruction of hundreds of villages and districts of towns.

13. The total destruction of the material Islamic and largely also Catholic cultures in the Serb occupied areas, among them being about 1,300 mosques and about 500 Catholic churches.

Tilman Zülch, publisher of the first publication on the genocide "Völkermord für Grossserbien" (Genocide for Greater Serbia) (Luchterhand 1992), prize-winner of the "Sloboda" (Freedom) of the International Peace Centre of Sarajevo 1995, Silver Order of the Bosnian State Executive Committee (1996), "Award against Genocide" of the four mothers' organisations of Srebrenica (2006).