REMEMBERING A GENOCIDE IN THE MIDST OF ANOTHER
Maryam Sakeenah
This month on 11th July 2024, the UN commemorated the
Srebrenica Genocide of 1995 with official statements and speeches by
dignitaries, memorial services, moments of silence and designating a day for
remembering what has been called the greatest atrocity in modern Europe.
What is ironic, however, is the fact that the world comes
together to remember Srebrenica in the midst of another harrowing genocide- one
that is live-streamed straight into every waking moment, all over the world.
Ten months into the nightmarish bloodbath in Gaza that has cost nearly 40,000
lives, world leaders are still haranguing over the events of October 7, still
unsure and half-hearted towards the urgent and pressing need to enforce a
cease-fire to end an unimaginably horrific war, most victims of which have been
children.
Alija Izetbegovich, the iconic Muslim leader of Bosnia
during the Bosnian war and Srebrenica massacre had once said, ‘Do not forget
this genocide. If you forget it, another will happen…’ The words bear
premonition as they echo the age-old cliche that those who do not learn from
history are condemned to repeat it.
Here we stand, remembering a genocide while having unleashed
another one thirty years on, with the bloody tide showing no signs of abating-
as if human lives were like the flies that the wanton boys kill for sport.
To learn the right lessons from Srebrenica, one must revisit
in 1992, the Muslim majority republic of Bosnia immediately after it seceded
from Communist Yugoslavia as a result of a popular referendum. Bosnia’s Orthodox
Christian Serb minority, however, refused to accept this and began a rebellion.
Given how well-armed Serbia was as an ally of powerful erstwhile Communist
Russia, what started as ethno-religious strife quickly flared up into a war
against which Bosnia was nearly defenceless. Several appeals for help by Alija
Izetbegovic resulted in no more than humanitarian assistance from the
Arab-Muslim world. Izetbegovic feared a genocide, given the violence displayed
by the Serb forces under Ratko Mladic, known as the ‘Butcher of Bosnia’.
Mladic, as the commander of the army of Republika Sprska (the self declared
Serb autonomous zone inside Bosnia), had earlier threatened: ‘You Muslims
cannot defend yourselves if a civil war breaks out.’
Bosnia’s countless
appeals ultimately led to the arrival of UN peacekeeping forces in the area.
Not surprisingly, the UN forces proved utterly ineffectual as the Serb army
carried on its atrocities with over 100,000 Muslim Bosniaks killed.
Serb violence against the Bosniaks was neither isolated from
context nor sudden. It climaxed after centuries of endemic structural violence
built on nationalist Islamophobic narratives rife in the region. When Mladic began the genocidal operation in
Srebrenica, he said on camera while addressing his troops, ‘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’ aims to build on the Islamophobic nationalist narrative of
victimhood by Turkish-Muslim rulers centuries ago.
As the Bosnian war raged on from 1992 to 1995 with terrible
atrocities including the blockade of Sarajevo which prevented fuel, food and
water to the area, rapes and mass murders, UN peacekeepers from Netherlands 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 in 2022, twenty seven
years after the Srebrenica genocide, the Dutch government acknowledged partial
complicity of its peacekeepers in Bosnia and offered ‘apology’ for not taking
effective action to stop the Srebrenica genocide- too little, too late.
During the war, 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 misdirected 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.
The horrific reality of the war crimes later surfaced, and
it was established after investigations that in July 1995, a massacre of 8,372
Muslim men and boys by Serb forces over just three days had been systematically
committed- known now in the annals of history as the Srebrenica Genocide.
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 of 8,372 Muslims 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 in Srebrenica. 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.
While the Dayton Accords of 1996 enforced a ceasefire after
what the Bosniaks had endured, 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 from 1992-1995 as a genocide. The current UN Peace Representative for
Bosnia- Hans Christian Schmidt- has warned earlier this year that ethnic
tensions between Bosnia and the autonomous Serb community remain dangerously
high still, and the possibility of internecine violence once again cannot be
ruled out.
There are some clear parallels between the Bosnian genocide
three decades ago and the Israeli military onslaught on Gaza in 2023-24. Like
the Serbs, Israelis justify their actions on 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.
Like in the case of Bosnia, the world was never moved to decisive action to end
the bloodbath until too late. Not surprisingly, 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, unarmed and defenceless. In both Bosnia and now in
Palestine, the UN proved a complete failure. And perhaps most poignantly, in
both cases the Muslim world failed to stand up and act together, other than
sending some humanitarian supplies for the victims.
Yet there are aspects in which the Gaza genocide emerges as
a unique and unprecedented case in point. Gaza’s suffering has been long and
historic, since the Nakba of 1948- and the world has continued to ignore its
plight. Gaza has for years been under severe blockade, with many observers
describing it as an ‘open air prison.’ Israel on the other hand, seen as the
Middle East’s only beacon of democracy with
Western liberal values and culture is considered as the West’s only
reliable ally in the volatile region- the ‘blue-eyed boy’ of the Western world.
It enjoys tremendous influence and solid support from its Western benefactors,
even after having committed gross defiant 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 genocidal far right Israeli regime seems to
be a remote possibility.
This is precisely why the global commemoration of the
Bosnian genocide seems meaningless when the UN and the international community
have proven so utterly spineless in the case of Gaza. Remembering and honouring
Srebrenica means learning its lessons and promising ‘Never Again’. With
humanity abysmally failing to show any resolve to end Israel’s relentless and
brutal assault on Palestine, carefully crafted words for Srebrenica from high
podiums ring hollow indeed.