 The final item of business today is the member's business debate on motion number 13309, in the name of Ruth Davidson, on remembering Shrebenica. This debate will be concluded without any questions being put. I would be grateful to those members who wish to speak in the debate, who could press the request to speak buttons now. I call on Ruth Davidson to open the debate seven minutes please. Thank you Deputy Presiding Officer. I'm thankful to have secured tonight's debate and grateful to those who have supported the motion. With so much going on in Scottish politics, it would be easy to turn our gaze inwards and to never lift our eyes to the horizon. But some things go beyond the immediate, beyond what's in front of us, beyond borders and divisions and elections. We in this place rightly commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day. We remember the millions who died across Europe, we watched films and television documentaries, we read of what happened, we learned the names of Auschwitz and Bergen Belsen, Treblinka and Dachau, we are familiar with the grainy black and white images and we are taught in school. And this is correct. And as the wartime generation passes, we see that genocide as history confined to pathing newsreels, important but removed and we say never again. But the Holocaust was not the last genocide on Europe's shores. It was not the last time that the cover of war has been used to liquidate a people because of their birth. The genocide at Srebrenica didn't happen at a time of grainy black and white newsreels. It happened just a few hundred miles from where we stand at a time when David Beckham and Ryan Giggs were playing football from Manchester United. It happened at the time of shell suits of gameboys and playstations of satellite news. It happened in front of us. But because the Balkans wars were messy and complicated, hard to understand, we chose at times not to concentrate on what was happening to our world neighbours. I think it's important that we do raise awareness of this history and how it is impacted here in Scotland. And at this point, I'd like to declare an interest if I may. I currently sit on the Scottish board of remembering Srebrenica, a charity designed to explain what happened, to take people over to Bosnia to see for themselves, to commemorate back home and to use that knowledge and experience to build bridges between communities here. I'm pleased to welcome fellow board members to the gallery this evening. The genocide in Srebrenica happened 20 years ago at the end of the Bosnian war. The town itself had been declared a safe zone by the UN two years earlier, and peacekeepers were deployed there to protect the enclave. In July 1995, Serbian forces under General Radkom Ladic stormed and captured the town, deporting thousands of the young, the frail and the elderly, carrying out a campaign of mass sexual violence on the women and systematically killing more than 8,000 men and boys. Many marched for days through the woods in order to try and escape and were rounded up. The international court of justice ruled that the killings constituted genocide. Earlier this year, I, along with a former member of this place, Jim Wallace and others from across Scotland, travelled to Srebrenica to talk to the mothers who lost sons, the forensic scientists trying to match bone fragments from mass graves so survivors can bury their relatives, those who went to extraordinary lengths to escape what was happening and can never forget what they witnessed. Scotland has long had links with Bosnia. There are people here who drove aid trucks to bring food to those besieged in Sarajevo. A number of refugees who fled the war there chose to settle here and build a new life for themselves in Glasgow and Edinburgh and further afield. Leading professionals such as Adam Boyds from the international commission on missing persons and the forensic anthropologist Sue Black from the University of Dundee have dedicated themselves to the painstaking work of recovering the remains of those who died and finding their families so that the simple need to know of what happened could be fulfilled. What happened in Srebrenica and Tuzla Sarajevo and the wider Balkans is a story that needs to be told and told again. I am pleased that Scotland is playing its full part in remembering 20 years on what happened there. The moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland who himself visited Srebrenica this year is leading a service in St Giles Cathedral on 10 July, bringing together all faiths and people from all backgrounds. Members in this place will have received an invitation and all would be welcome. I am pleased too that the First Minister has kindly agreed to speak at the service and to host a reception afterwards. It is right that the leader of the Scottish Government shows our country's commitment to remembering what happened. I would urge any member here who would wish in some future time to make the visit and to see for themselves the graves, the cold storage where bones and fragments filed floor to ceiling are still trying to be matched, to meet the mothers, the survivors, the forensic teams. Remembering Srebrenica makes multiple trips each year with groups and you would be most welcome. All that they ask is that on your return you pledge to tell people the story of what happened there. I would ask too that for those who know people here with connections to Bosnia whether a serving service personnel, aid workers or as part of the Bosnian diaspora living in Scotland who might like to be involved in the commemorations to get in contact as we want as many people to be involved as possible. Deputy Presiding Officer, Scotland as a nation has always looked outward. We care what happens to others as well as to ourselves. The events of July 1995 are a stain on our continent and they deserve to be remembered, examined and learned from. I am pleased that work continues in this country to learn the lessons of times past, to use the desperate experience of Srebrenica to bring communities closer together. This time, when we say never again, we will mean it. Thank you very much. Many thanks. We now turn to the open debate, speeches of four minutes or so and I call Roger Campbell to be followed by Hanzala Malik. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I would like to congratulate Ruth Davidson on securing this member's business debate, which will no doubt serve as a poignant reminder of the atrocities of war. It is certainly a stain on the name of many Western democracies, not least that of the Netherlands, whose government must pay the financial compensation to families of the victims that this massacre did not prevent. We all know some of the details of what took place in Srebrenica, but the more information that becomes available, such as that provided by David Hamilton of the Scottish Police Federation, a constituent of mine who I see in the gallery, who was an aid worker during the Bosnian war following his meeting with representatives of the mothers of Srebrenica, the more harrowing those details become. Parents and children separated before execution, firing squads, working in shifts to avoid their guns from overheating, newborn infants being murdered under the boots of soldiers. It should be incomprehensible to think that that took place in the 20th century at all, let alone a mere 20 years ago. In 2009, the European Parliament passed a similar, albeit longer, resolution on this issue and is set to do so again next month. The UK is also currently leading the drafting of a United Nations Security Council resolution on what will most likely be on similar terms. These motions and resolutions are the correct thing to do and are one of the best ways to ensure this tragedy or symbol of the impotence of the international community as the 2009 European Parliament's resolution put it, and never forgotten. It's important not to solely focus on the past over and fresh pressure needs to be exerted on political forces in the Balkans and more widely to ensure progress for countries in that region continues. In an article on the EU Observer website, a Serbian journalist, Dejan Anna Stavich, I hope that's right, wrote that, what Bosnia doesn't need is another set of resolutions, empty promises of a European perspective and haphazard appeals to political scandals to reform themselves. It needs a concentrated and serious international, not just EU plan, coupled with hefty financial investment to pull it out of its misery. These are strong words. In his article, the journalist repeats the word impotence as was used in the 2009 European Parliament resolution. He also refers to the constitutional straight jacket of the Dayton Peace Accord. Most worryingly, he writes of one country in which a resolution commemorating Sebranica did not pass in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Bosnian electrical system is far too complex to explain in the time that I have left, but, of note, the fact that the president of the Republic of Srvitska, Mileroed Doddic, does not believe that the events that took place in Sebranica constituted genocide. Notwithstanding that, however, this year is the first year that the Republic of Srvitska's government will help to finance the commemoration event in Sebranica. We must hope that this can be a catalyst towards creating a positive future for the entire country. Bosnia cannot be left in the past and must be assisted if it is ever to join its neighbours, Croatia and Slovenia, in joining the European Union, for example. This nation is still a long way from reaching that goal, however, with concerns remaining in relation to the viability of the Dayton constitution and stability of the country generally. Presiding Officer, it is right that communities and nations globally commemorate the Sebranica massacre. In Fife, Holocaust Memorial Day in January helped to commemorate all victims of genocide as part of a remembrance day marking two significant anniversaries this year. It's 70 years since the liberation of Auschwitz, as well as 20 years since the Sebranica genocide. Scotland needs to offer the hand of friendship, and I warmly welcome the fact that our First Minister will join a commemoration service next month in Edinburgh to remember the victims of this tragedy, to get together with many members of the victims' families who must live with the horror of what happened that day. We must hope that they find some justice in the process of the ICTY and that some progress can be made in helping Bosnia to move on and become a vibrant, successful country. Thank you very much. I now call Hanzala Malik to be followed by Jamie McGregor. Thank you very much and good afternoon, Presiding Officer. I would like to thank Ruth Davidson for bringing this motion for debate and also for her role on the Scottish Board of Remembring Sebranica. Thank you very much, Ruth. The work of this organisation is very important to remind us that it has been 20 years since these troubled events took place in former Yugoslavia and that society should never forget. The rise of hatred, racism and intolerance should never be allowed. The bitter Balkans war from 1992 to 2001 shattered our illusions that Europe would never again see such bloodshed after the horrors of the Second World War. The weakening of the communism allowed the rise of ethnic nationalism which meant that war was not only a battle between armies, communities that once lived peacefully and married each other than the same people tried to eliminate each other. Senninica represents the largest of the massacres of the unarmed civilians that undertook as part of the ethnic cleansing policy that were pursued in order to create the greater Serbia. But sadly, there was many others which claimed thousands of lives as well. Other parts of the story is that mass expulsion of populations and the unprecedented levels of sexual violence. I saw first hand the impact that the bereaved civil war had. On two occasions I travelled by road from Glasgow to Bosnia. On the first occasion I was accompanied by Scottish relief and delivering an ambulance full of medical supplies donated by the good people of Glasgow. On the second time, it was a goodwill visit, saying prayers at the end of the month of Aramadan for Eid for peace in the area and goodwill. Saying prayers in a mosque in Sariego, the central mosque which was riddled with holes with rocket and bullet holes. I also saw Serbia's central library burn to the ground losing historically valuable books which were irreplaceable. Events like this should never be forgotten in places that they happen and that scars that may never heal fully be healed. But it is important for us all to remember, educate and pledge never ever again in our lifetimes. May I also go on to say that during my visit to Bosnia, one of the marked lessons that I learned was how ruthless and how callous people can be when they would not distinguish between men, women and soldiers, how they could bring themselves to do that. In the heart of Europe shocked me and has always had this fear that while we thought that we were living in a peaceful environment, that something that this could happen, and not only happened but we actually allowed it to happen for a period of time. I do hope and pray that that never happens again. I once want to thank Ruth Davidson for bringing this motion to this parliament today because I agree that it's absolutely essential that we make sure that not only do we remember our past wrongdoings, but we make sure that this doesn't happen again. So once again, Presiding Officer, I thank Ruth for bringing this to the parliament's attention. I hope that the parliament will support the people of Bosnia that are living in Scotland but also people who are living in Europe as well as we are Europeans at heart. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Thank you very much. Our final open debate speaker is Jamie McGregor. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I too congratulate my leader, Ruth Davidson, on bringing such a vitally important matter to this chamber and for her excellent speech. For some years now, I've been acquainted with Samir Mohanovic, a filmmaker and a Bosnian Muslim who has made his home in Edinburgh. Samir came as a political refugee from the war in 1995 from his hometown of Tuzla, near to Srebrenica, which is where most of the refugees from Srebrenica fled. To his great credit, he worked his way through film school, achieving an MA and a BAFTA. I've seen his previous work which confirms both his talents as a filmmaker and his sincerity as a man. Samir has produced a new film called Srebrenica Survivors, which will be broadcast on the 11th July on the BBC World and News Night to mark the 20th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide, the only holocaust in Europe since World War II, which killed 8,372 Bosnian men and boys within a week. The film is the testimony of the survivors who struggled to cope with the ghastly experiences. For example, Mehmed Hodzik, who lost over 67 relatives, was then Ahida, who was only 13 when she lost her five brothers and both parents. Ahmed was 20 when forced to take a five-day march in the column of death with 8,000 men of which only 3,000 survived. Hatithsa and other civilians sought protection in the UN base at Potokari, which was under the UN Dutch battalion who lost control to Serb troops, led by Ratko Mladic, with his scorpions, who then killed and tortured. Hatithsa lost two sons, her husband and over 200 of her extended family. The characters of the film are struggling not only with the loss of family, but literally to subsist in a world where they feel forgotten and where many of the perpetrators not only walk free but hold positions of authority. Samir says, when I started making this film, I felt that I had opened deep wounds hidden somewhere inside me. While I was filming interviews and my characters were telling their stories, tears were rolling down my face. How can a human do this to another human? This is a question that perplexed me even further while editing the interviews and listening to those stories again and again. Each time I felt as if fresh wounds were opening and new emotions were pouring out. Samir goes on. The characters in this film are also having to deal with the impact of social deprivation in the Tuzla suburbs. They struggle to subsist without welfare in a country where unemployment levels are over 60%. Most have no place to return to in Srebrenica. They are striving to build a new life but they are haunted by their past experience and have little hope for the future because of the promises that have been broken by the Bosnian Government and the international community. However, I am grateful to find support in my new country of Scotland in the making of this film. The trailer for Samir's film can be viewed at www.SrebrenicaSurvivorsFilm.com. Fellow members, one reason I entered politics was to promote fairness and humanity. I was born in 1949, only four years after the end of the Second World War. My parents installed in me the absolute horror of the carnage which had killed their own relatives and friends and also inflicted almost unbelievable and inhuman genocide, torture and humiliation on literally millions of fellow Europeans. This was perpetrated by Hitler and other Nazi war criminals. Many of them were bought to justice and Nuremberg and other courts which of course could never mend the results of their awful crimes. But as Samir says, where is justice when many of the perpetrators from Bosnia remain at large? The international community failed to protect civilians during the Bosnian War. The UN voted for Resolution 819 that promised that civilians would be protected and aid would be supplied. Sadly, this promise fell far short of the mark. The tragedy of Srebrenica will haunt the history of the UN forevermore. But if we in this Parliament by highlighting this issue in this member's debate can help even a little in securing justice and helping the victims of Srebrenica, then something of value will have been achieved. Thank you very much. Can I now invite Hamza Yousaf to respond to the debate, Minister? Seven minutes or so, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I congratulate Ruth Davidson for securing this important debate and I echoed the sentiments expressed by her and across the chamber tonight. I thought some very excellent speeches from Rod Campbell and Zala Malik. I thought a very powerful contribution that we just heard from Jamie McGregor to the Srebrenica genocide, and we do not use that term lightly. Genocide is a term that is of much contention in various other matters and contexts across the world. However, there is a genocide and we should use that term and it is important to use that term as Ruth Davidson has done in her motion. That genocide is a dark chapter in our story as a European civilisation. However, I pay tribute to all those who continue to highlight that genocide. The organisation remembering Srebrenica, Ruth Davidson, I know is joined by other parliamentarians across the political chamber and Oangus Robertson MP, also very involved in remembering Srebrenica. Indeed, others from civic society such as Reverend Lorna hood when she was moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, very involved. In fact, she went to visit Bosnia at the time. Waqar Azmi, who is the chairman of remembering Srebrenica UK, who has had the pleasure of meeting as well. I thank them and many, many more who are continuing to highlight this terrible genocide so that we do not forget the lessons. The events of 1995 and thereafter are extremely hard to comprehend. The sheer scale of the atrocity and the deep hatred and intolerance, the brutality some of which Rod Campbell touched upon in his own contribution, can be very hard to grasp for us all. Numbers and statistics almost become meaningless and abstract, yet that is the danger. Just as Ruth Davidson said that if we feel removed, if we feel unconnected, if we feel set apart from an event, then complacency sets in. Our mindset says that it can never happen to us. We could never do that. That is why the commitment of survivors and the talents of those others as Jamie McGregor's friends and meir, perhaps demonstrates, to share their experiences is so invaluable. I would like to pay tribute to those survivors in particular, the families of those who are left bereaved, who live through that horror and through that pain, sometimes, if you are mostly on a daily basis, to share and connect with others so that we do not just view this as a time in our history and our past. I think of the work and I had great pleasure in reading the work of Ada Selvich. First displayed in 2004, Ada's project Cups of Memory pays tribute to the victims of Srebrenica through a very simple Bosnian social ritual gathering for a cup of coffee. Ada laid 1,327 cups gifted by Bosnian families from across the world to represent the number of victims that had been identified and buried that year. Visitors were encouraged to place a cup filled with coffee in remembrance. Some cups were filled with coffee, others with sugar for child victims, even some with roses for a single woman. That re-humanises what has happened by focusing us on individual victims. What is more human than sharing a cup of coffee? The way that Ada described her art really highlights the importance of remembering. She said, It is not my project but our project and our consciousness, so it should be in our consciousness as well. Earlier this year I had the privilege of meeting Hasan Hasanovich. Many other members may have met him when he came to the Scottish Parliament during the Holocaust Memorial Day and the Holocaust Memorial Week. The parliamentary reception that took place here commemorated to the 20th anniversary of Srebrenica and I think it is important to put on note that the Holocaust Memorial Day trusted very good that also outreaching and ensuring that we remember genocides and massacres across the world, not just the Holocaust which is right, we do so, but many other genocides too. Many of you will be familiar with that Hasan's story has a horrific experience of the death march to Tuzla. Hasan's dedication to share the story so that it can inform the future led him to return to Srebrenica in 2009 where he now works as a curator and interpreter for the Srebrenica Potochari Cemetery and Memorial Centre. He shares his story five or six times a day, a painful, constant reminder of the loss of his family so that others may listen and learn and I salute his admiration and bravery in doing so. As other members in the chamber have highlighted tonight, Scotland has a long and proud relationship with Bosnia providing support and assistance to the people, especially those in need during the Balklands conflict. If it was members of this Parliament who were driving ambulances and aid convoys themselves, but many others across Scotland who took part in that relief effort, we've heard about the work of Edinburgh Direct Aid, for example, delivering crucial humanitarian supplies in the height of the conflict and many of you will be aware of the Christine Whitcutth Centre which brings hope to the lives of the children of Sarajevo, mostly needing help and some respite also for their parents. The Christine Whitcutth Fund is an independent body closely linked to Edinburgh Direct Aid. Christine was an Edinburgh Direct Aid volunteer from Wishaw, who was killed by sniper fire in Sarajevo in July 1993. The Christine Whitcutth Fund was set up by EDA with the objective of creating a living memorial to Christine Sarajevo. Her son-in-law, David Hamilton, who I had the pleasure of meeting last year, sits on the board of our remembering Srebenica. We also have the Scottish Refugee Council, who, at the time of the conflict, helped 400 Bosnian refugees to be evacuated here to Scotland to rebuild their lives in Scottish communities. My own memory of that terrible conflict, that terrible massacre, that terrible genocide was at 10-years-old sitting in the mosque during Ramadan, opening the fast with those people I'd never seen before. That looked as though they had witnessed the most terrifying brutality, the Bosnians that had come to share break their fast with us, who were opened by the community with open arms at the time. I also think about the work, as Ruth Davidson mentioned, of Adam Boyce, which has been critical in identifying those who were massacred, identifying them and then giving their family some form of closure. Perhaps not full closure, but some form of closure by using DNA identification technology to reunite the bereaved with the remains of their loved ones. No easy task at all, because we know that there were many masgraves, but masgraves that were moved from site to site to site to site. The Scottish Government supports, of course, the work to tackle religious hatred and intolerance in working with the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust. We support Scotland's national commemoration of Holocaust and subsequent genocide. I'm very pleased that the First Minister will be herself involved in the commemoration of the 20th anniversary on 10 July, as Ruth Davidson's motion and, indeed, her contribution highlighted just in conclusion. I echo what Ruth Davidson and others have said, that the massacre, the genocide of Srebrenica, cannot just be a moment in our history and a moment in our past. It must be that we not just learn the lessons, but we continue to inform future generations, those who have no idea, who had no memory, of course, of 1995, that we ensure that we remind them that these horrors have occurred and possibly we hope that they won't occur again in the future. We will not, as a Government, tolerate any form of religious or racial prejudice for we recognise where it may lead. We will accept no excuses for any hatred or any hate crime, and we continue to work tirelessly to ensure that everybody can feel safe in Scotland's communities. Thank you. Thank you very much. That concludes Ruth Davidson's members' debate on remembering Srebrenica, and I now close this meeting of Parliament.