[Congressional Bills 110th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 679 Introduced in House (IH)]
110th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. RES. 679
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives regarding the
continuing effects of the genocide, crimes against humanity, and war
crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
September 25, 2007
Mr. Smith of New Jersey submitted the following resolution; which was
referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs
_______________________________________________________________________
RESOLUTION
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives regarding the
continuing effects of the genocide, crimes against humanity, and war
crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Whereas H. Res. 199 and S. Res. 134 (109th Congress) resolved that from April
1992 to November 1995, Serb forces committed aggression and genocide
against the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and its population, with
the direct support from authorities in Serbia and Montenegro;
Whereas the perpetrators and the supporters of the aggression and genocide,
including the Yugoslav People's Army and its Ministry of Interior, the
Army of Republika Srpska, the Police of Republika Srpska, and other
regular and paramilitary forces under Serb control, intended to destroy,
through slaughter, rape, torture, and expulsion, the unique multiethnic
culture of Bosnia and Herzegovina woven through a thousand years of
tolerance, respect, mutual trust, and dignified coexistence of all of
Bosnia and Herzegovina's ethnically and religiously diverse citizens;
Whereas the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has
found numerous Serb political and military officials guilty of
committing war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of
genocide against the non-Serb population of the Republic of Bosnia and
Herzegovina;
Whereas the International Court of Justice (ICJ), in its judgment of February
26, 2007, ruled that the execution of more than 7,000 civilians in and
around Srebrenica in July 1995 by the institutions of the then self-
styled Republika Srpska entity, and in particular its army and police,
was a crime of genocide, as defined by the Convention on the Prevention
and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide;
Whereas Srebrenica and other areas of eastern Bosnia from which the victims of
genocide hail continues to be under the jurisdiction of the Republika
Srpska entity and its institutions, especially the Police of Republika
Srpska, that committed genocide;
Whereas the ICJ also ruled that Serbia had violated the Convention on the
Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide by failing to prevent
the genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina and punish its perpetrators;
Whereas the ICJ's judgment declares that significant sections of the documents
detailing the proceedings of the Supreme Defense Council of the Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia (later Serbia and Montenegro) were redacted and
therefore not available to the ICJ at the time of that judgment;
Whereas the findings of the RS Srebrenica Commission report unequivocally stated
that Republic of Srpska's Interior Ministry (i.e. the Police of
Republika Srpska) has ``failed to provide specific data on several
hundred individuals deployed in Srebrenica in July 1995 under the direct
or indirect auspices of the RS'';
Whereas the Office of the High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina
concluded that the Srebrenica Commission ``must complete the list of
names, currently standing at 892, of those implicated in the Genocide
who are currently employed in BH or Republic of Srpska institutions, and
forward a completed list to the BH Prosecutor and to the ICTY.'';
Whereas all countries are obliged not to recognize as lawful the situation
created by the crime of aggression and the crime of genocide, as well as
to cooperate in the application of measures designed to eliminate the
consequences of such crimes;
Whereas the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina
(commonly referred to as the ``Dayton Peace Accords''), that was made
possible through the strong leadership of the United States, ended the
aggression, genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity against
the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and its non-Serb population, but
it failed to achieve its intended goal of reversing the effects of those
crimes;
Whereas due to the failure to ensure sustainable return of refugees and
displaced persons to their homes of origins, as guaranteed by Annex VII
of the Dayton Peace Accords, the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina
(Annex IV of the Dayton Peace Accords) has evolved into an ethno-
territorial arrangement that now institutionalizes the results of the
genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes in Bosnia and
Herzegovina;
Whereas one of the most ominous of the ethno-territorial provisions of this
Constitution is an entity voting mechanism, which allows a small number
of Serb deputies from Republika Srpska in the Parliament of Bosnia and
Herzegovina, constituting less than one-quarter of the Parliament, to
block any proposed legislation or decision;
Whereas the entity voting mechanism has been used to block various crucial
State-level legislation, including the proposed changes to the
Citizenship Law of Bosnia and Herzegovina which in its current form
threatens to permanently deny over 500,000 Bosnians their Bosnian
citizenship, effectively continuing the project of genocide and ethnic
cleansing;
Whereas 300,000 Bosnian-Americans live in the United States as fully engaged
citizens with a significant potential to further strengthen the ties
between the United States and Bosnia and Herzegovina;
Whereas the political leadership of the Republika Srpska entity has continuously
blocked all attempts to move beyond the ethno-territorial basis of the
Dayton Constitution and create a fully democratic and functioning system
of government, as has been demonstrated by, among other things, the
Republika Srpska entity's unwillingness to agree to the reform of the
police force structures within Bosnia and Herzegovina in line with the
standards demanded by the European Union;
Whereas Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said that the people of Bosnia
and Herzegovina need ``a stronger energetic state capable of advancing
the public good'' and pledged that the United States will remain a
dedicated partner to Bosnia and Herzegovina as it moves toward further
Euro-Atlantic integration;
Whereas Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns has
unequivocally stated that the Dayton Peace Accords ``cannot be the way
that the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina organize themselves for the
next ten years'' and that ``it is time for [the people of] Bosnia and
Herzegovina ... to go beyond the Dayton Accords and to build a modern
constitutional state'';
Whereas the European Parliament and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of
Europe have recently adopted Resolutions calling for an in-depth reform
of the Dayton constitutional arrangements, and particularly for the
reduction and elimination of the entity voting mechanism;
Whereas there continues to be, within Republika Srpska ethnic exclusivity, which
has effectively discouraged and prevented the return of the ethnically-
cleansed non-Serb population to this region of Bosnia and Herzegovina;
and
Whereas the constitutional arrangements of Bosnia and Herzegovina must satisfy
the interests of all of its people by guaranteeing full civil, cultural,
individual, and religious rights to all citizens of Bosnia and
Herzegovina, and promoting the integration of the entire region of
Southeast Europe into the Euro-Atlantic political and security
structures: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That--
(1) it is the sense of the House of Representatives that--
(A) Bosnia and Herzegovina should begin the process
of adopting a new constitution that is based on civic
representation and that fully eliminates the ethno-
territorial arrangements which reflect and
institutionalize the effects of the genocide, war
crimes, and crimes against humanity committed in Bosnia
and Herzegovina;
(B) the new constitution should advance the
principles of civic democracy, full equality of
citizens, tolerance and protection of all ethnic
groups, and should reflect the highest standards of
individual human rights and liberties;
(C) the new constitution should eliminate the
ethnic power-sharing principles that reflect the ethnic
divisions imposed by the perpetrators of the genocide,
crimes against humanity, and war crimes;
(D) the new constitution must restructure the
ethno-territorial organization of Bosnia and
Herzegovina and eliminate its division into entities,
cantons, and municipalities with a view to creating a
single, unified economic space and increasing
efficiency and sustainability of the country and its
governing apparatus;
(E) the entity voting mechanism, which has proved
to be a serious obstacle to the functioning of Bosnia
and Herzegovina's Parliament, must be eliminated;
(F) Srebrenica and other areas of eastern Bosnia
should be placed under the exclusive jurisdiction of
the institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina in order to
ensure that the situation created by genocide is not
recognized as lawful;
(G) the police reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina
must create a single police structure, replacing entity
police forces with a single police at the state level,
and in particular eliminating the Police of the
Republika Srpska entity, which was identified in the
ICJ judgment as one of the institutions of Republika
Srpska that participated in the commission of the crime
of genocide;
(H) the Republika Srpska entity cannot persist
under its current name which represents the ethnically-
exclusive political philosophy of its founders and
which perpetuates the effects of the genocide and
ethnic cleansing;
(I) Serbia must immediately honor its international
legal obligations towards Bosnia and Herzegovina,
stemming from the Convention on the Prevention and the
Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and the ICJ
judgment, by immediately apprehending and transferring
to the ICTY all individuals indicted for participating
in the commission of the crime of genocide,
particularly Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic; and
(J) it is in the national interest of the United
States that all individuals who are responsible for war
crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity in Bosnia
and Herzegovina should be held accountable for their
actions, and the Republika Srpska entity, Serbia, and
Montenegro must therefore fully cooperate with the
ICTY;
(2) the United States reaffirms its strongest support for
the independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of
Bosnia and Herzegovina, and supports the transformation of
Bosnia and Herzegovina into a state with governmental
institutions commensurate with EU and NATO membership, as this
will ensure a lasting peace and greater prosperity for all of
the people and states of the entire region; and
(3) the House of Representatives calls for an immediate,
refocused, and concentrated diplomatic effort by the United
States to achieve the objectives stated in this Resolution in
order to achieve definitive success in reversing the effects of
genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina and building a modern,
functional, self-sustainable, and a fully democratic state.
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