There could not be a greater honour for me than to be an Honorary Citizen of Sarajevo, former Venezuelan Ambassador to the UN Diego Arria told N1 Thursday, after the Council of the Congress of Bosniak Intellectuals (VKBI) nominated him for this honour because of his warnings against the “slow-motion genocide” taking place in the east-Bosnian town of Srebrenica, during the 1992-1995 war in BiH.
“To be an Honorary Citizen of Sarajevo thanks to the victims of such a tragedy could not be a greater honour. My first visit to Sarajevo was on April 26, 1993. I entered the city in a United Nations armoured car on our way to meet with President Alija Izetbegovic. Never before have I entered a city in such an unconventional way. I headed the first UN Security Council mission to Bosnia..mainly Sarajevo and Srebrenica and Ahmici. I never forgot the empty streets and the silence only broken by the Serbs surrounding Sarajevo. After visiting Srebrenica I knew that I could never unlink myself from the Bosnian cause… and since then I became a strong defender of its people,” Arria told N1.
“If approved it I would be extremely grateful…it would be a significant part of my own personal and public legacy,” he concluded.
During the UN Security Council visit to Srebrenica in 1993, Arria said that a “slow-motion genocide” was taking place in Bosnia, which was the first time the word genocide was mentioned in connection with Bosnia. In the months after the visit, Arria created a new formula in the work of the UN Security Council which allowed for the easier work of the Council through informal consultations. The last UN Security Council session dedicated to BiH was held according to the “Arria formula.”
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