Renowned journalist Ed Vulliamy delivered a speech last night to open the WARM Festival in Sarajevo. Speaking to N1, Vulliamy stated that this festival provides "one of the rare spaces, if not the only one, where we can truly understand what is happening and where we can state the obvious and the truth without playing ideological games." For him, this means consistent condemnation of crimes, regardless of who committed them.

In his conversation with Ika Ferrer Gotic, Vulliamy discussed the current state of the world.

“If it has ever been worse, I don't remember when that was. Maybe the parallel of BiH and Rwanda happening in the same year was similar to this. But currently, it seems completely out of control,” he said.

Reflecting on his speech, Vulliamy explained that his aim was not to analyze all crimes and genocidal violence but to highlight “the different reactions to it in the world and among so-called politicians, decision-makers, intellectuals, academics, whatever people want to call themselves, whatever labels they want to flaunt.”

“There we have grotesque selectivity: ‘I will accept this, but not that. Yes, this is a war crime, but this is an action against terrorism. This is a crime against humanity, but this is imperialism or something.’ And you realize we live in a world of genocide, genocidal violence, mass murders, but people choose their mass graves according to their ideology, ego, shortsightedness, fitting into where they belong or some plan of theirs,” he pointed out.

Vulliamy sharply criticized this approach, stating that there should be a “straight line” unaffected by “ideology, shortsightedness, position, preconceived notions, career, salary, money, or whether the organization one works for requires a certain stance.”

This, he says, is the value of the WARM festival.

“I'm sorry, but two plus two equals four! It doesn't equal five or seven! A mass grave is a mass grave!” he emphasized.

He cited two examples.

“Yesterday, two children's hospitals were targeted, one by Russia and the other by Israel. And you have many people in Ukraine who will say this is a war crime, (Vladimir) Putin is killing our children. Yes, it is certainly a war crime in a genocidal campaign against Ukraine. And then they will say, ‘but what Israel is doing is self-defense, what Israel is doing is fighting terrorism.’ No, I'm sorry, bombing a children's hospital is bombing a children's hospital! It doesn't matter if you are Russian, Israeli, or Martian,” Vulliamy stressed.

“And what we insist on is that we are on the side of the children, against those who bomb, whoever it is. Now, that should be clear and simple. Unfortunately, it is not,” he added.

When asked if he had ever experienced “closure,” Vulliamy said that such a thing is not possible.

“Such closure is a fantasy. Everyone in BiH knows that it is a fantasy,” he emphasized.

He mentioned that he spent 20 years writing a book about the survivors of Omarska and their lives.

“Does any of them use the word closure? Do they know what it means? Did the ICTY bring closure to my friends who were abused in camps every night, all night long? Let's say Esma, for whom that isn't even the greatest pain. For her, it is that her son disappeared and hasn't appeared after 32 years. Not even in Tomasica and other graves, even his bones are missing. Is there closure this week in Srebrenica for the people burying a chest found here, a fragment of a skull there, and a fibula from there, putting it in a box and calling it Emir or Samir? Is that closure? No, there is no closure,” Vulliamy stated.