by
Maryam Sakeenah – Hiba magazine team writer
On 11th July 2024, the UN commemorated the Srebrenica Genocide of 1995 with statements and speeches by dignitaries, memorial services, moments of silence and a remembrance day for what has been called the greatest atrocity in modern Europe.
What is ironic, however, is that the world comes together to remember Srebrenica in the midst of another harrowing genocide- one that is globally live-streamed every waking moment. Ten months into the bloodbath in Gaza that has cost over 40,000 lives, world leaders are half-hearted towards the urgent need to enforce a cease-fire to end a war where most victims are children.
Alija Izetbegovich, the iconic Bosnian Muslim leader had once said, ‘Do not forget this genocide. If you forget it, another will happen…’ The words echo the age-old cliche that those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it.
Here we stand, thirty years on, remembering a genocide while having unleashed another that shows no signs of abating- as if the Palestinians were flies that wanton boys kill for sport.
What instigated the Bosnian genocide?
After secession from Communist Yugoslavia, the newly independent Muslim majority republic of Bosnia was formed as a result of a popular referendum in 1992. Bosnia’s Orthodox Christian Serb minority, however, refused to accept this and rebelled. Since well-armed Serbia was as an ally of powerful Communist Russia, what started as ethno-religious strife quickly flared up into a war where Bosnia was nearly defenseless.
What was the root of this nationalistic Islamophobia?
Appeals for help by Alija Izetbegovic resulted in no more than humanitarian assistance from the Arab-Muslim world. Izetbegovic feared a genocide by Republika Sprska (the self-declared Serb autonomous zone inside Bosnia) forces under the command of Ratko Mladic, now known as the ‘Butcher of Bosnia’. Mladic had earlier threatened: ‘You Muslims cannot defend yourselves if a civil war breaks out.’
Ultimately UN peacekeeping forces arrived. Not surprisingly, they proved utterly ineffectual as the Serb army carried on its atrocities with over 100,000 killed. It all climaxed in the 1995 massacre of 8,372 Muslim men and boys by Serb forces over just three days- better known in the annals of history as the Srebrenica Genocide.
Serb violence against the Bosniaks was neither isolated from context nor sudden. When Mladic began the genocidal operation in Srebrenica, he addressed his troops on camera, ‘This is the time to take revenge on the Turkish rabble and return Srebrenica to the Serbs…’
The reference to Bosniaks as ‘Turks’ reeks of ethnocentric hate deeply embedded in a prejudicial understanding of history. Serbia had been under Ottoman rule for three centuries, and the reference to ethnic Bosniak Muslims as ‘Turks’ aimed to build on the Islamophobic nationalist narrative of victimhood by Turkish-Muslim rulers centuries ago.
Why was the UN ineffectual?
As the Bosnian war raged on from 1992 to 1995, including the blockade of Sarajevo which prevented fuel, food and water to the area, rapes and mass murders, UN peacekeepers were unable to halt the violence. They were outgunned and outnumbered, and could neither expect the scale of the violence nor were they equipped or even really willing to take decisive action against it. As late as 2022, twenty seven years after the Srebrenica genocide, the Dutch government acknowledged partial complicity and offered ‘apology’ for not taking effective action to stop the Srebrenica genocide- too little, too late.
Srebrenica in Eastern Bosnia had been designated as a ‘safe zone’ where hundreds of thousands were sheltering. However, when the international community warned of action against Republika Srpska and Serbia, driven by a misfired vengeance, the Serb leadership decided to violate the safe zone and besieged Srebrenica. As the Dutch peacekeepers looked on, Bosniak men and women were segregated, and all men including minor boys, were herded together and shot fatally, their bodies huddled together and thrown into mass graves.
Why are Bosnians still seeking closure?
Some months later, as the world came to know of the horrors that had been unleashed, there was an attempt by the Serb leadership to cover up the evidence. The mass graves were bulldozed and whatever remained of the bodies was scattered in unmarked areas all over the region. To this day, search for human remains continues. Some 1,200 of those who went missing in July 1995 have still not been identified or given the dignity of a proper funeral and burial.
Did the Serbs admit their cruelty?
While the Dayton Accords of 1996 finally enforced a ceasefire, peace in the region is still tenuous. Tensions are rife as the Serb Autonomous Zone inside Bosnia continues with its ultraconservative nationalism and ethnic prejudice, refusing to acknowledge what was done to the Bosniaks as a genocide.
How does the Bosnia Genocide parallel the Gaza Genocide?
There are some clear parallels between the Bosnian genocide three decades ago and the ongoing Israeli military onslaught on Gaza in 2023-24. Like the Serbs, Israelis justify their actions through the narrative of historical victimhood. They present their victim as the perpetrator, stereotyping through Islamophobic propaganda that makes you believe Muslim Palestinian children are fair targets as potential ‘Islamist terrorists’ and ‘Jihadists’ in the making.
Similarly, the world is not moved to decisive action to end the bloodbath until too late, perhaps because the victims in both cases happen to be Muslims.
While Serbia had been armed to the teeth by its mentor Soviet Russia, Israel has been heavily armed by the US, Germany, UK and other Western allies that continue to send military supplies to the Zionist state. In both cases, the population against whom these lethal weapons are unleashed is extremely vulnerable and unarmed.
Likewise, the UN has proven a complete failure. But most poignantly, in both cases, the Muslim world failed to stand up and act together, other than sending some humanitarian supplies for the victims.
Is the plight of the Palestinians worse?
There are aspects in which the Gaza genocide emerges as unique and unprecedented. Gaza’s suffering has been long and historic, since the Nakba of 1948- and the world continues to ignore their plight. Gaza has for years been under severe blockade, with many observers describing it as an ‘open air prison.’
Israel, on the other hand, is seen as the Middle East’s only beacon of democracy with Western liberal values and culture and the West’s only reliable ally in the volatile region. It enjoys tremendous influence and solid support from its Western benefactors, even after having committed gross violations of human rights and international law. The ongoing siege and death toll in Gaza is more protracted, and the scale of devastation far greater- surpassing anything we may have witnessed in modern history.
Bosnia found some solace with the trial of Serb war criminals at The Hague, as a result of which 21 perpetrators of the genocide were pronounced guilty- including Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic, Republika Sprska leader Radovan Karadzic and Serb army commander Ratko Mladic.
The case for Palestine, on the other hand, given the global power and influence of the Zionist lobby, has found no echo in the corridors of power, and any wholesale transparent accountability for the far right Israeli regime seems to be a remote possibility.
The Gaza bloodbath is precisely why the global commemoration of the Bosnian genocide seems meaningless. Remembering and honouring Srebrenica means learning its lessons and ensuring ‘Never Again’.
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