TRAVEL REPORT The Hon. Michael Atkinson MP Attorney-General ...

Wednesday, 11 August, 2004The party drove to Potocari, near Srebrenica, about four-hours by car fromSarajevo . In July, 1995, this was the site of a massacre of more than 7,000Bosniaks from Srebrenica, when the U .N . declared Safe Haven that shelteredthem, fell to the Bosnian Serb forces led by Ratko Mladic . A Memorial andCemetery now occupy the site of the massacre .We were met there by Mr Beriz Belkic (biography follows), Mr MersedSmajlovic, the Director of the Srebrenica - Potocari Memorial and CemeteryFoundation and, Mr Sadik Ahmetovic, who described the events and livingconditions leading up to and including the massacre .We were shown the cemetery, memorial centre and the former battery factoryacross the road that housed the Bosniaks and Dutch U .N . Peacekeepers untilthe surrender.Mr Beriz BelkicBiographyChairman of the Executive Board of the Foundation of Srebrenica - PotocariMemorial and CemeteryBorn 8 September 1946 in Sarajevo . Graduated from the Faculty ofEconomics of the University of Sarajevo .He is married and has a son .Before the war, until 1992, he worked with the state and municipaladministration .During the war he held the position of Defence Secretary of the Municipality ofIlidza and of Vice-President of the Executive Board of the Municipality ofIlidza .From 1996 to 1998 he held the post of the Minister for Labour, Social Policy,Displaced Persons and Refugees in the Government of the Canton ofSarajevo . He was elected as the delegate of the Assembly of the Canton ofSarajevo and the counsellor of the Municipality of Novo Sarajevo .In 2000, at the November election, he was elected member of the House ofRepresentatives of the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina .He has been the member of the Party for Bosnia and Herzegovina since itsestablishment and the president of the Cantonal Council of Sarajevo .His wife, a professor of French, is employed at the Third Gymnasium . His sonis married and has lived in the United States since 1996 .From March, 2001, to October, 2002, he was a member of the Presidency ofBosnia and Herzegovina .Travel Report, Hon . Michael Atkinson, MP . and Ms. Vini Ciccarello MP ., August, 2004 79