The world watched in horror but did not act until the Srebrenica genocide was done, former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide on Saturday.

“Though many of today's generation may not have heard of Srebrenica, the designated UN safe-haven, but Bosnia and Herzegovina witnessed a bloody ugly slaughter. Systematic extermination saw some 8,000 Bosnian Muslims who had sought refuge in the town of Srebrenica became victims of over 5 days of the total massacre by the Serbs. Men and boys were forced to dig their own graves before being shot or bludgeoned to death and then thrown into the very same grave they had dug.

The Serbs of Yugoslavia who started the genocide did not try to hide their intention to kill the Muslims, openly declaring their acts as ethnic cleansing. For more than 3 years before, Europe and the world sat and watched the Bosnian war unravel as the murderous Serbs were allowed to commit horrible atrocities against the Bosnian Muslims.

Under the noses of the United Nations forces, the elimination of the Muslims in the genocidal war wished by the Serbs was allowed to go on almost freely. The UN forces stood and watched the Serbs’ murderous rampage. Instead, the Dutch troops, tasked with protecting the Bosnians simply moved away and allowed the slaughter of the Bosnian Muslims to go on.

The world watched in horror but did not act until the deed was done. But the ensuing broken peace split Bosnia and Herzegovina into two, and the perpetrators, the Serbs, were rewarded with their own territory – the Republika Srpska, which rightly is a part of Bosnia, such was the travesty of justice.

The rotating presidential system imposed on the rest of Bosnia and Herzegovina makes it impossible for Bosnia to be governed effectively, let alone to progress and develop. Today, 25 years on, neither the surviving relatives of the victims of Srebrenica nor the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a whole can rejoice in the thought that justice had finally been done. Justice, in fact, has not been done.

Today, not much has been learned from the tragic events of Srebrenica. Ethnic cleansing is still happening in other parts of the world, and again the world sits back and watches,” Mahathir Mohamad said in his video address.