By Rebecca Marcussen
Saliha Osmanovič is not the only one to have seen her husband and child be shot execution style by Serb forces on YouTube. In fact, this was quite common. Between the 11th and 22nd of July 1995, countless videos of the Srebrenica Genocide were taken, while the international community failed to do anything productive to stop it.
Context
The creation of Yugoslavia in 1918, marked a new beginning for the Balkans. Despite a long history of tension, the ethnic nationalities of the region were now unified. Under Josef Broz Tito, the president of Yugoslavia between 1953 and 1980, ethnic tensions had been suppressed with minimal violence. After his death, however, ethnic nationalism rose and Slovenia and Croatia declared independence in 1991. At the time, Bosnia was composed of mostly three ethnic groups: Bosnian muslims (44%), Serbs (31%) and Croats (17%). Eventually, Bosnia decided to hold its own referendum to vote on whether to declare independence in 1992. It was decided that each ethnic population would need to be a majority vote in favour to leave Yugoslavia. Even though the Serbs voted against, Bosnian leaders, under pressure from the European Community (now known as the European Union), declared independence anyway. For many Serbs, this confirmed the idea that under an independent Bosnia, they would be treated like second class citizens. Due to growing insecurity within the Serbian population, many militias were established. From their perspective, ethnic violence was the only way to safeguard Serbs and their rights within Bosnia. The goal of the militias was to gain enough territory to live independently in Bosnia. Growing violence and conflict marked the start of the Bosnian War on the 5th of April 1995.
What led to the Srebrenica Genocide?
Since 1992, Srebrenica had been oversaturated with refugees and wounded and had continuously been shelled by Serb forces. Coverage of the war sparked outrage amongst the public and the United Nations was criticised for a lack of action. Due to rapidly deteriorating living conditions within Srebrenica and many towns like it, the UN Security Council declared ‘safe areas’ throughout Bosnia. The UN’s Protection Forces (UNPROFOR) were deployed to Srebrenica for humanitarian relief. However, on the 11th of July 1995, Srebrenica fell and was taken over by Serb forces. By the 12th of July, Serb forces had separated the Bosnian Muslim men and boys from the rest of the population. The following day, those men and boys were falsely offered safe transportation to a different town by Ratko Mladič, Commander of the Main Staff of the Army of Republika Srpska. 30 buses transported the men and boys to a nearby town called Kladanj. On arrival, some managed to escape into the woods, while the others were detained in a building called the White House. Personal belongings were confiscated and burned by Serb forces. The world continued to watch as between the 11th and 22nd of July, a series of mass killings occurred. In the end around 8,000 boys and men were killed and placed into mass graves. Even after having been found guilt of genocide, amongst other crimes, Mladič continues to refuse to disclose the location of many of these mass graves.
If the UN was involved, how could this have happened?
The expectation would be that post Word War 2, there would be mechanisms and procedures set in place to prevent genocide and crimes against humanity. However, the Srebrenica Genocide serves as a reminder that the international community, is ill-equipped to handle these kinds of situations. Since 1995, there have been countless actions, or lack thereof, that have been identified and are widely considered to have been a failure at preventing, and in some cases, having helped Serb forces act out their plans of ethnic cleansing. Here only the main three will be discussed.
The UNs role in setting the conditions for genocide
In hindsight, there were many early warnings that the UN ignored. Despite knowing about the long history of ethnic violence and hatred in the region, barely enough was done in the early stages of the Bosnian War to prevent such a, now seemingly, inevitable event. The inaction of the UNSC and other international actors allowed it to set up the scene for July 1995. The UN, preoccupied with the Gulf War, thought its help was not needed and that the European Community would do a better job at handling the situation. That was not the case. Western European states were too focused on the cost of intervention and did not want to get involved. Britain, under Margaret Thatcher, opposed many ideas of military action as it would put their own troops in danger. Additionally, the international community was well aware of growing tensions and many reports came out showing ethnic violence in the region. Yet nothing was done. Tadeusz Mazowiecki, the first democratically elected prime minister of Poland, in 1993 said “any time there was a likelihood of effective action, a particular Western statesmen intervened to prevent it”.
When the UN did get involved, it ended up creating more problems. In September 1991, an arms embargo was placed on Yugoslavia in an effort to mitigate the violence. However, the UN carried out this decision with a lack of understanding of the region. The serb forces, unlike the Croats and Bosniak muslims, had gotten most of their weapons from the former Yugoslavia’s military and were therefore unaffected by this embargo. While the other ethnicities had no more weapons to defend themselves. This advantage encouraged the Serbs to become more violent. Along with the unwillingness from the international community to intervene militarily, the serbs escalated the violence knowing there would be no repercussions.
Lastly, the ‘safe zones’ like Srebrenica, made Bosnia muslims more vulnerable. Every safe zone welcomed a large number of muslim refugees. Unfortunately, this made them easy targets for serb forces. All safe zones experience heavy bombings and horrible humanitarian crises. As Anne Mulder has explained “all this was controlled by the Bosnian Serbs”. All supplies like food, fuel and medicine going to safe zones were intercepted by serb forces and withheld, creating horrendous living standards for those seeking refuge there.
Failure of the UNPROFOR
The peacekeeping forces the UN had sent, were unprepared, ill equipped and their mandate did not allow them to prevent violence. The UNPROFOR was established by the UNSC in 1992. Its mandate was to demilitarise protected areas, protect civilians and ensure the withdrawal of forces. The UNPROFOR was all in all unsuccessful and could not do much to stop serb forces. They did not have enough weapons and were not allowed to use force. This meant that they could not protect themselves or civilians when the serbs stormed Srebrenica. Some UN troops were taken hostage, others were forced to hand over refugees. Their mandate, like for peacekeepers, only allowed for the use of force for self-defence, not intervention. This left Srebrenica badly safeguarded and allowed the serb forces to carry out their plans for genocide in July. Henk van der Berg recalls the feeling of hopelessness he and many other UNPROFOR troops felt: “[the] Serbs were still in the forest hunting for refugees. But at that time we all felt numb to the situation”. For many, all they could do, or were allowed to do, was sit and watch the massacre unfold.
NATO’s inaction and uncooperative attitude
NATO only got involved in the conflict after it received pressure from the UN and the public. From 1992 onwards, NATO worked closely with the UN. Originally, they only helped with the peace operations and safeguarding of UN troops. However, there quickly emerged friction between the two organisations. Willy Claes, NATO’s secretary general at the time commented on the UN in Bosnia by saying: “If we cannot set the rules for our military operation, they will have to find other idiots to support peacekeeping.” The conflict between the two came mostly from the use of air power. The UN wanted to close air to protect UN forces, while NATO wanted to use airstrikes against Bosnian Serbs’ positions and bases. NATO’s involvement did not help prevent the genocide nor stop the violence. Only after July, with 8,000 Bosniaks killed and 30,000 displaced, did NATO use military action. NATO’s involvement was ultimately unproductive and unhelpful to actually prevent the Srebrenica Genocide and protect the Bosnian muslims.
Time to reflect and act
The Srebrenica genocide is one of Europe’s worst atrocities post World War 2 and could have been prevented entirely. Despite the presence of international organisations and peacekeepers, early warnings were ignored and inadequate action was taken. The international community watched and failed to intervene in time, resulting in the death and displacement of thousands of innocent Bosniaks. The Srebrenica Genocide remains a stain on the international community and the European continent, to remind us what happens when we aren’t vigilant. It has questioned the role and ability of international organisations in preventing genocide and ethnic violence.
After Srebrenica, the international community has been forced to face its own mistakes and take action to achieve justice. The ‘Responsibility to Protect’ doctrine of 2005 came about, in part, due to the genocide. R2P reminds us of our responsibility and the need to intervene when faced with these issues. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, has up until recently, convicted numerous serb forces personnel for their involvement in and planning of genocide. Even after its dissolvement in 2017, the ICTY, now International Residual Mechanisms for Criminal Tribunals, has convicted Ratko Mladič in 2020. However, one question remains: “What value does justice have 25 years later, if the injustice could have easily been prevented earlier on?” For many, the creation of the ICTY and the development of R2P, came too late.
The international community, whether that be organisations, states or the public, has to learn from its mistakes. The responsibility to intervene should not be left to the UN alone, but on all of us. We need to stay informed and act when these acts of brutality occur. We need to stay committed to learning from our mistakes and remember to leave no one behind. ‘Never again’.
Photo: Magdalena Otterstedt by via unsplash
