Commemorations and the Round Table Working Group on Commemorations and Remembrance days

The Round Table organised an event to commemorate the 20th Anniversary of  the NATO’s war against Yugoslavia. The event was held on the 10th June 2019, to mark the last day of the war and began with a memorial service at the St Sava Church in London. The commemoration opened with a short film provided by the Serbian Embassy, on the bombing campaign, its victims and the heroes of the Serbian armed forces who defended the nation from the world’s most powerful war machines. This was followed by presentations by a panel of experts chaired by Aleks Simić. The panel included: 

Phil Hammond, Professor of Media and Communications
Misha Gavrilovic, Co-Chairman of the British-Serbian Alliance for Peace
Jonathan Rooper, former BBC producer and film director
Marko Gasic, International Affairs Analyst

Contributions and questions were opened up to the audience of over 160 people who packed the hall followed by Zorka Maksimovic giving an impassioned recital of the Song of Defiance, a poem by Dobrica Eric. Maya Atkinson of the Round Table closed proceedings.

Among the audience of Serbs from London and further afield were VIPs including HRH Princess Katarina, Her Excellency the Ambassador Aleksandra Joksimović and husband, Counsellor Marijana Ognjanović, Colonel Danko Štrbac – Assistant Defence Attaché, Mr. Veljko Jelenković – Third Secretary at the Embassy and his wife plus John Livingston QC.

Given the success of the event, at its meeting on 13 July 2019, the Round Table agreed to convene a Working Group to develop a strategy for holding commemorative events to ensure that they have as much impact as possible.