The first presentation by an ICTY Outreach representative in high schools in Bosnia and Herzegovina during 2015/2016 school year was organised today for a group of students of Lukavac Gymnasium (Gimnazija).
Twenty five students in their third year attended a two-hour interactive presentation during which they were thoroughly informed about the work of the Tribunal and war crimes trials, which are an important prerequisite for the post-conflict recovery of communities in the former Yugoslavia. High school students from Lukavac were particularly interested in judgments related to the crimes in Srebrenica, which were covered by several cases heard by the Tribunal over the past 20 years of its work.
Almir Alić, ICTY Registry Liaison Officer in BiH, explained the students the importance of establishing individual criminal responsibility, which prevents condemnation of entire ethnic groups and creates conditions for normalisation of relations in the entire region. This was best illustrated by a comment made by a 17-year old student who - expressing his wish for war never to happen again - added that “it is not entire nations, but individuals that are responsible for the crimes committed”.