26 Jul 2012

SREBRENICA / BAN

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today (26 July) paid his respects to the victims of Srebrenica and called on the world to learn the lessons from the 1995 massacre and stop the ongoing bloodshed in Syria. UNTV

Posted at: July 26, 2012 6:56 pm

Duration: 01:26

Available in: SD

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Full script

STORY: SREBRENICA / BAN
TRT: 1.26
SOURCE: UNTV
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS

DATELINE: 26 JULY 2012, SREBRENICA, BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA KINGDOM

SHOTLIST:

UNTV – 26 JULY 2012, SREBRENICA, BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

1. SOUNDBITE (English) Ban Ki-moon, United Nations Secretary-General:
"When we learn from the lessons of Srebrenica, we have to do all that we can. The international community must be united not to see any further bloodshed in Syria because I do not want to see any of my successors, after 20 years, visiting Syria, apologizing for what we could have done now to protect the civilians in Syria – which we are not doing now."  
2. Med shot, Ban and his wife Yoo Soon-taek laying flowers

STORYLINE:

"We must learn from the lessons of Srebrenica," Ban said as he visited the memorial site for the 8,000 Muslim men and boys who were killed by Bosnian Serb forces who overran Srebrenica – the largest such massacre on European soil since the founding of the United Nations.

"The international community failed to provide the necessary protection to many people who were killed at the time when they needed our support," he added.

Ban said that world leaders in 2005 finally came up with the principle of the "Responsibility to Protect," which holds States responsible for shielding their own populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and related crimes against humanity and requires the international community to step in if this obligation is not met. 
The international community has been able to apply this principle in some places, such as in Libya and Côte d'Ivoire, he noted.

"But in many other places, we are not still able to fully protect civilians," he stated, drawing attention to the crisis in Syria, where more than 10,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed and tens of thousands displaced since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began some 16 months ago.

"The international community must be united not to see any further bloodshed in Syria because I do not want to see any of my successors, after 20 years, visiting Syria, apologizing for what we could have done now to protect the civilians in Syria – which we are not doing now," said the Secretary-General.

The visit to the Srebrenica site brought to a close a six-day tour to all parts of the former Yugoslavia – Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia, Kosovo, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.