Dudley Council breaks tradition to remember genocide victims at meeting
Dudley Council broke with tradition at a full meeting of the authority to remember the victims of a genocide.
Before an extraordinary meeting of the council on June 19 to rubber stamp appointments of new senior officers the usual reading of the Lord’s Prayer was swapped for a prayer from Srebrenica.
The prayer, from the town in Bosnia and Herzegovina, was spoken by mayor Cllr Pete Lee to commemorate 30 years since the massacre of men and boys during a brutal civil war.
Ahead of the meeting Cllr Andrew Tromans, who worked for the charity Remembering Srebrenica, presented the mayor with a flower pin badge to mark the commemoration.
Cllr Tromans told the council: “Thirty years ago more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys were systematically murdered because of who they were.
“Twenty thousand women and children were forcibly expelled from their homes with many subjected to unimaginable sexual violence.
“This is the first time the Srebrenica genocide has been commemorated so we are making history tonight.
“We live in a troubled world, we see the consequences of what happens when we cease to see people who are different from ourselves as human beings.”
After reading the prayer the mayor said it was an honour to pay tribute to the victims of the massacre before inviting Dudley Performing Arts student Ocean Hemming to sing Britain’s national anthem.
The mayor told councillors he believed that was another landmark by being the first time the anthem had been sung in the chamber.
Following the ceremonials councillors got down to business and confirmed the appointment of Aftab Razzaq as director for legal, compliance and assurance, John Macilwraith as director for children and young people, Kathryn Jones as group director for housing and assets and Nick McGurk as group director for communities and growth.
Dudley’s Labour group leader, Cllr Adam Aston welcomed the appointments but added: “The council issued a press release where these officers were named, it did seem just a little bit premature as that was done before the ratification of the recommendations of the appointments committee.”
Council leader, Cllr Patrick Harley, said he took the point but added the press release did say ‘pending the outcome of tonight’s meeting’.
