Bosnia is still finding bodies from a genocide some leaders claim never happened - The Washington Post washingtonpost.com/world/2022/02/…
“SREBRENICA, Bosnia — The gravestones stretch for nearly a quarter mile — 7,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys, slaughtered in a matter of days — but the region’s top politician says the coffins are empty.”
“The local mayor has said some of the purported victims are still alive. The commander who led the massacre is portrayed as a hero on posters that periodically appear near the cemetery.”
The denialism is a crime upon a terrible war crime exacerbated by the Bosnian Serb leader Millard Dodik, who has called the massacre a “myth” and a “deception” leading the UN to intervene.

Division and corruption is rife. Unemployment high.
Despite the denials Srebrenica is one of the most thoroughly documented genocides in the world, a crime scene stretching for some 40 miles across Bosnia with its epicentre in Srebrenica. A gathering point for 40k Bosnian Muslim refugees supposedly protected by UN peacekeepers
That did not stop the massacre by the Bosnian Serb army commanded by Ratko Mladic, who separated the women from the men and boys who were massacred and buried in mass graves, but, when it became clear the war might end exhumed and scattered, dumped in remote sites
7k people buried were identified but the remains of 1k people have yet to be tied to identities.

Some of the remains are stored in 2 prefabricated labs north of the site labs where bags of bones and belongings are stacked floor to ceiling

Unbearably sad.
The denialism seems obscene and in July the UN intervened using powers granted to it at the end of the war.
“In an interview, Valentin Inzko, the U.N. envoy who drafted the genocide law, said he acted after seeing an “explosion of denialism” that the country’s leaders had seemed incapable of stopping.”
“Inzko said he knew there’d be political blowback and described how he’d felt the need to test his convictions before coming to a final decision. So one day before signing the law, he left Sarajevo before sunrise and drove into the countryside.”
Two hours later, he was alone amid the gravestones of Srebrenica.

“You could feel the presence of those men and boys, my God,” Inzko said.

The law was made
Most assumed the situation would be better by now. There was a period when the atrocities were acknowledged by leaders of Republicans Srpska, releasing a landmark report.
But 3 years ago the Republicans annulled the report, replacing it with one that played down the atrocities. Posters of Maldivian appeared. All provocations driven by a local, Russian funded Bosnian Serb nationalist group.
Nevertheless are signs that the law is working with a reduction in genocide denial from Bosnian Serb accounts in recent months

But misinformation is still appearing in Serbian accounts and Dodik, at a recent nationalist celebration, stood next to a recently released war criminal
Russia has called for the envoy position to be scrapped.

Worth remembering, today, as Russia invades parts of the Ukraine, that it has designs elsewhere too,
Despite all this there has been signs of goodness & reconciliation alongside the bitter denialism

Bosnians helping the renovation of Croat Catholic Churches. People who once shot at one another now friends

But Dodik is a malign force these days, altho’ not always so regarded
Meanwhile the painstaking search for the identity of those massacred continues through the work of forensic anthropologist Dragana Vucetic, the latest victim, a 34 yr old whose skull and torso were found in different mass graves, being identified through DNA.
In another bag we’re Khaki trousers caked in mud, a thick, tattered shirt, a left shoe.

The family will be invited to identify it and then another burial and gravestone will join the others in Srebrenica.
It seems important that we should make these deliberate acts of respectful remembrance to acknowledge the horror of the massacre and genocide to counteract the denialism and commit, again, to a determination “Never again”.
Especially today when a new wave of war is building on the Russia/ Ukrainian borders.

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Feb 22
U.K. Sanctions five Russian banks :- Rossiya, IS Bank, General Bank, Promsvyazbank & the Black Sea Bank AND sanctions would be applied to billionaire oligarchs Gennady Timchenko, Boris Rotenberg & Igor Rotenberg as three "very high net worth individuals".
news.sky.com/story/ukraine-…
“Any assets they hold in the UK will be frozen, the individuals concerned will be banned from travelling here, and we will prohibit all UK individuals and entities from having any dealings with them," Mr Johnson said.”

Aligning with previous US sanctions.
“Mr Timchenko is a major shareholder in Rossiya, while the Rotenbergs are described by the Foreign Office as having close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Boris Rotenberg is a major shareholder of SMP Bank, while Igor Rotenberg is invested in Russia's transport sector”
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ft.com/content/e2e174…
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Expelling Russia from Swift would not isolate Russia financially, as proponents imply. Nor would it be as futile as opponents imagine.”
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Feb 22
When reading this thread remember that “Euromaidan” is a reference to a wave of demonstrations and protest starting Nov 2013 that took place in the Ukraine when the then Russian-leaning President, Yanukovych suspended the signing of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement
The reference to Putin regretting Lenin’s ceding of independence to various Russian States in 2017 (inc Finland) was interesting given the toppling of the Lenin Statue in Kyiv formed part of that protest.

There was a 2014 agreement on Settlement of Political Crisis in Ukraine Image
This occurred under the mediation of both the EU and the Russian Federation. Whilst Yanukovych and members of the then opposition signed it and it was witnessed by German, Polish and French Officials for the EU, Vladimir Lukin, representing Russia, refused to sign it.
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Russia has already breached agreements for non aggression by its incursions into Georgia and the Ukraine. Hardly surprising that other bordering countries, eg Finland and Sweden are reconsidering earlier decisions not to try and join NATO.
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Perhaps he would explain how 10k people died of Covid between 17-12-21 - 4-2-22 (Death Cert data) despite SOME measures still in place to reduce infection?

Then there’s the long term consequences
Bear in mind @mrjamesob that Omicron is several times more contagious than flu - especially when the brakes are removed.

You have to look at the IFR in the context of R0.

Catching Flu risk? C once every 7 years.

Covid risk no mitigations twice a year (from Iran data)
Perhaps @chrischirp @SGriffin_Lab @ArisKatzourakis might like to chip in here given I am sure @mrjamesob would like more highly qualified people than me setting him straight here.
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The success rate of the @GoodLawProject is quite exceptional.

The number of regular donors and voluntary payments to it (see their published annual accounts) sends a message about the level of support it has from the public.

If you can afford even a small monthly donation 🙏
Here is a link to the donations page.

goodlawproject.fundraise.tech/?code=TwitterO…
Their annual accounts published to offer transparency are also published.

As you know the Government seems to be deliberately running up extraordinarily large costs using OUR money trying to defend the indefensible.

goodlawproject.org/wp-content/upl…
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