July 2020 marks the 25th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre, when more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed by the Bosnian Serb Army, despite being designated to a UN “safe area”. 30,000 Bosnian women and children were deported within two days, and thousands of women and girls were victims of rape and sexual violence. These events occurred during the Bosnian war, which ran from 1992 to 1995, and during which Bosnian Serb forces systematically committed acts of ethnic cleansing in order to create a Serb ethno-state.
The anniversary was marked with a reburial of nine newly-identified victims, a reminder to the international community that over 1,000 victims still remain missing or are awaiting recovery and identification. Over the last two decades, bodies and body parts continue to be unearthed from the mass graves that victims were thrown into after being executed by the Serb army.
FAILURES OF THE UN
Since the massacre, the United Nations (UN) has been criticised for its failures in upholding the safety of Bosnian-Muslims in what were supposed to be designated safe areas. Although Srebrenica had been officially declared as a “UN safe area,” the mass killings occurred “after U.N. peacekeepers stripped the surrounded town’s Bosnian Muslim defenders of their heavy weapons and promised to protect its roughly 40,000 inhabitants”. The lack of protective resources made available to Bosnian Muslims, as well as the slowly dwindling number of UN peace-keepers present, created a considerable dent in the security measures needed for the wide-scale protection of unarmed civilians. This, in combination with consistent miscommunications amongst UN officials and the failure to recognise warning signs in the lead up to the massacre, ultimately played a large role in the eventual mass execution of Bosnian Muslim civilians.
Despite the rampant human rights abuses and acts of mass genocide perpetrated against the Bosnian Muslim Community, it was not until 2004, with the formation of the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTFY), that the massacre was officially deemed genocide under international law. In 2017 the ICTFY found Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladic and former political chief Radovan Karadzic guilty on accounts of genocide and crimes against humanity. However, there still remains a huge backlog of cases pending for trial.
THE CONTINUED FIGHT FOR GLOBAL AND DOMESTIC RECOGNITION AND THE ONGOING TRAUMA
In the wake of the 25th anniversary, survivors continue to highlight the climate of genocide denial that exists within Serb society and amongst Serb politicians. Despite an official ruling of genocide, a 2018 poll discovered that 66% of Serbs in Republika Srpska deny the massacre as an act of genocide. Among them is Srebrenica’s own mayor, Mladen Grujičić, who claims that there was “no deliberate attempt” to commit wide-spread systematic genocide against the Bosnian Muslim population and instead insists that “there were victims on all sides”.
This widespread denial sets a dangerous precedent. As Serge Brammertz, former chief prosecutor at the ICTFY warns, the consequence will be the creation of “a new historical reality”. As perpetrators of the massacre, such as Ratco Mladic, are instead hailed as national heroes and Serb politicians continue to deny any form of wrongdoing, these acts of historical revisionism prevent any form of accountability to be taken on a national level. Thus, 25 years later, the victims and survivors of Srebrenica still struggle to gain not only justice, reparations, and reconciliation, but also the recognition of the truths regarding their suffering.
Amnesty International’s Balkan’s Researcher Jelena Sesar states that “genocide does not happen overnight. Years of hateful populism exploiting divisions in society, supported by campaigns of misinformation and propaganda, usually precede violence.” The disregard of the historic and violent mistreatment of Bosnian Muslims thus plays into the very same divisive and dehumanising rhetoric that first allowed these heinous acts of genocide to be perpetrated in the first place. Genocide denial acts as not only a continued form of systemic oppression against the Bosnian Muslim community, but also continues to act as a major obstacle in acquiring justice on behalf of both victims and survivors.
Fahmida is a recent graduate who has just completed an MA in English: Postcolonial and Global Literatures. She is passionate about human-rights and the role that empathetic and well-informed research and journalism can play in creating wide-spread systemic change.