The failure of the international community to live up to the norms signed by nearly every nation led to the disaster in Srebrenica, and negligence in holding the perpetrators responsible and to understand the history of violence and discrimination Muslims face “has allowed Islamophobia to spread and grow across the region, throughout Europe, and beyond,” said the president of the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights organisation, Kerry Kennedy, at the launch of the Leadership Initiative for Srebrenica said on Thursday.
The Leadership Initiative for Srebrenica is an informal group of former and current top elected and appointed officials, which is based on an idea by the Srebrenica Memorial Center and the project ‘Truth, Dialogue, Future’, supported by the Government of the United Kingdom.
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Kennedy said that “the Srebrenica massacre was the most horrific slaughter that Europe had seen since World War II.”
“Twenty-six years ago, members of the Bosnian Serb Army rounded up over 8,000 Bosniak-Muslim men and boys in and around the town of Srebrenica. Women and girls were raped, put in trucks and buses at gunpoint, and forcibly removed. Men and boys were shot, their bodies pushed into mass graves with bulldozers. Over 25,000 Bosniak civilians were expelled from their homes,” she said.
“This atrocity happened 50 years after the world said “never again” to the horrors of the Holocaust. And it occurred in a “safe area” which the United Nations had declared a protected zone,” she stressed.
Kennedy noted that “the writing of the impending massacre had been on the wall for years,” adding that Bosnian Serb commander, Ratko Mladic, “openly declared his intention for the entire Bosniak Muslim population to ‘vanish completely’.”
She explained that entire towns were torched and that survivors fled to Srebrenica, “which saw its population more than quadruple by 1993.”
“You are now under the protection of the U.N.,” Kennedy quoted the promise of French General Phillipe Morillon at the time – noting that “he was far from the only one to renege on his promises.”
“This butchery was allowed to proceed under the watch of many who had vowed to protect those in Srebrenica. Among those who share the blame are Western World powers, including the United States, Britain and France, as well as U.N. leaders, whose negotiations led to Srebrenica’s downfall and who, after promising safe harbor, allowed the slaughter,” she stressed.
“In the 26 years since the Srebrenica genocide, the full extent of the horror is still being uncovered. More and more mass graves have been unearthed, and the number of identified victims has continued to increase,” she said.
The human rights activist then quoted former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, who on the fifth anniversary of the fall of eastern Bosnian town declared that “Srebrenica is a tragedy that will haunt the history of the United Nations.”
“Those words have proven to be heartbreakingly accurate. Every major religion sets out three steps for forgiveness. The perpetrator must acknowledge the ghastliness, make reparations, and ask for forgiveness. Though some of this work has been done, no one can honestly say any of these conditions have been sufficiently fulfilled. The international community bears ongoing responsibility for that failure,” she explained, adding that “the implications for this failure have come back to haunt not only Europe, but the rest of the world.”
“Our negligence in holding the perpetrators responsible and to fully understand the history of violence and discrimination facing Muslims across Europe and around the world has allowed Islamophobia to spread and grow across the region, throughout Europe, and beyond,” she said.
Kennedy then listed several examples of the consequences, such as Muslims being attacked with acid in London, the increase of Islamophobic incidents in France, which is home to Western Europe's largest Muslim community, the bombings of Islamic Center in the United States, as well as a recent example in Canada, where “a Muslim family was targeted in a violent hate crime that left four people dead and a 9-year-old girl in critical condition.”
“If the world community had really responded adequately to Srebrenica and its aftermath, we can only wonder if the genocide of Rohingya Muslims would have been averted?,” she said.
Kennedy stressed that “the failure of the international community to live up to the norms signed onto by nearly every nation in the wake of the genocides of the holocaust led to the Srebrenica disaster.”
However, the noted that “because of the strengths of some of those international instruments, Slobodon Milosevic, Ratko Mladic, and others have been brought to justice.”
“This could not have happened without the extraordinary leadership, the moral and political courage of many of the people here today. You put your lives, careers and families on the line in order to protect the basic human rights,” she told participants at the conference.
“The lesson for us all is clear. We need to strengthen international norms. We need to channel and celebrate the courage of Srebrenica’s survivors. We need to support the leaders who organized and are participating today,” she said.
“All of you here today are giving witness, and taking action. In the end, what really creates change is the willingness of people to speak truth to power,” she added.
“It is my great hope that the Srebrenica Leadership Initiative will at long last win the fight against genocide denial, protect the remembrance of genocide victims, and bring an end to the impunity of crimes of genocide and crimes against humanity,” Kennedy concluded.
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