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Srebrenica Memorial Quilt Doubles in Size, Inspires International Arrest Campaign, February 19, 2008

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AdvocacyNet
News Bulletin 130, February 19, 2008
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View AP's film about the Srebrenica Weavers for Hope!
 
Boston, MA: A hand-woven memorial quilt that commemorates the Srebrenica massacre is gathering support from the Bosnian community in America and contributing to the international campaign to arrest General Ratko Mladić, the Bosnian Serb general who personally oversaw the 1995 massacre.
 
The quilt comprises hand-woven panels, each of which is dedicated to a massacre victim and made by a weaver who lost a relative at Srebrenica. The weavers work in Tuzla at the women's group BOSFAM, a partner of The Advocacy Project (AP).
 
The first 20 panels of the quilt were launched on July 11, 2007, the 12th anniversary of the massacre, in a mosque in St Louis, where there is a large population of former Bosnian refugees. Since then, Bosnian and other sponsors have donated $2,835, enough to cover the cost of making 70 panels.
 
As well as keeping the memory of Srebrenica alive among the Bosnian diaspora, the quilt is intended to inspire efforts to arrest General Ratko Mladić and Radovan Karadžić, the civilian head of the Bosnian Serbs during the war.
 
Last week, 20 new quilt panels, commemorating murdered teachers, were unveiled at a debate on justice at Boston College. Anton Nikiforov, a former official at the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague, told the meeting that there will be no let-up in international efforts to arrest General Mladić.
 
The BOSFAM weavers are currently working on a third set of panels, to be exhibited at a weaving convention in Chicago in April. Once the quilt reaches 80 panels it will be displayed at a lobbying event in Washington that will demand the arrest of General Mladić and Radovan Karadžić. The quilt will then move on in response to a request from another Bosnian diaspora community, possibly in Australia.
 
Several sponsors have been surprised by the enthusiasm of the Bosnian diaspora for the quilt project. "Much better than we expected," said Tarik Bilalbegovic, from the Bosniak-American Advisory Council for Bosnia and Herzegovina in Washington. "The quilt will be hard to ignore."
 
The Boston event was organized by the Center for Balkan Development, an AP partner, with help from Alison Morse, a graduate student at Tufts University who volunteered with BOSFAM as a Peace Fellow last summer.
 
Meanwhile, the first 20 panels of the Srebrenica quilt are currently on display at Michigan State University, alongside 33 other quilts that carry a strong human rights message. These include well-known quilts from New Zealand, Japan and South Africa, as well as quilts that commemorate victims of lynching in the United States.

• Read information about the Srebrenica Memorial Quilt in Bosnian and English.
• See a map of the first 20 panels and a profile of the weavers.
• Visit the Center For Balkan Development.
• Sponsor a quilt panel ($40).
• Sign the arrest petition.