Attendees included Serbian President Boris Tadic, a significant gesture given Serbia's political and military backing of the Bosnian Serbs during the war, members of Bosnia's three-person presidency -- which governs the country divided by the U.S.-brokered peace agreement into a Bosnian Serb ministate and a Bosnian-Croat Federation -- as well as the Croatian President, Stipe Mesic.

Outside, families of the dead posted a huge banner that read: "Europe's shame -- genocide. 8,106 murdered in Srebrenica."

Some 250,000 people were killed in the 1992-95 war between Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims), Catholic Croats and Orthodox Serbs. About 16,500 bodies have been exhumed from more than 300 mass graves across the country.

The Japan Times Weekly: July 16, 2005
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