[Congressional Bills 114th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. Res. 211 Introduced in Senate (IS)]
114th CONGRESS
1st Session
S. RES. 211
Expressing the sense of the Senate regarding Srebrenica.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
June 24, 2015
Mr. Cardin submitted the following resolution; which was referred to
the Committee on Foreign Relations
_______________________________________________________________________
RESOLUTION
Expressing the sense of the Senate regarding Srebrenica.
Whereas July 2015 will mark 20 years since the genocide at Srebrenica in Bosnia
and Herzegovina;
Whereas, beginning in April 1992, aggression and ethnic cleansing perpetrated by
Bosnian Serb forces resulted in a massive influx of Bosniaks seeking
protection in Srebrenica and its environs, which the United Nations
Security Council designated a ``safe area'' within the Srebrenica
enclave in Resolution 819 on April 16, 1993, under the protection of the
United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR);
Whereas the UNPROFOR presence in Srebrenica consisted of a Dutch peacekeeping
battalion, with representatives of the United Nations High Commissioner
for Refugees, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the
humanitarian medical aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors
Without Borders) helping to provide humanitarian relief to the displaced
population living in conditions of massive overcrowding, destitution,
and disease;
Whereas, early in 1995, an intensified blockade of the enclave by Bosnian Serb
forces deprived the entire population of humanitarian aid and outside
communication and contact, and effectively reduced the ability of the
Dutch peacekeeping battalion to deter aggression or otherwise respond
effectively to a deteriorating situation;
Whereas, beginning on July 6, 1995, Bosnian Serb forces attacked UNPROFOR
outposts, seized control of the isolated enclave, held captured Dutch
soldiers hostage and, after skirmishes with local defenders, took
control of the town of Srebrenica on July 11, 1995;
Whereas an estimated one-third of the population of Srebrenica at the time,
including a relatively small number of soldiers, attempted to pass
through the lines of Bosnian Serb forces to the relative safety of
Bosnian-government controlled territory, but many were killed by patrols
and ambushes;
Whereas the remaining population sought protection with the Dutch peacekeeping
battalion at its headquarters in the village of Potocari north of
Srebrenica, but many of these individuals were with seeming randomness
seized by Bosnian Serb forces to be beaten, raped, or executed;
Whereas Bosnian Serb forces deported women, children, and the elderly in buses,
but held over 8,000 primarily Bosniak men and boys at collection points
and sites in northeastern Bosnia and Herzegovina under their control,
and then summarily executed these captives and buried them in mass
graves;
Whereas Bosnian Serb forces, hoping to conceal evidence of the massacre at
Srebrenica, subsequently moved corpses from initial mass grave sites to
many secondary sites scattered throughout parts of eastern Bosnia and
Herzegovina under their control;
Whereas the International Commission for Missing Persons (ICMP) deserves
recognition for its assistance to the relevant institutions in Bosnia
and Herzegovina in accounting for close to 90 percent of those
individuals reported missing from Srebrenica, despite active attempts to
conceal evidence of the massacre, through the careful excavation of mass
graves sites and subsequent DNA analysis which confirmed the true extent
of the massacre;
Whereas the massacre at Srebrenica was among the worst of many atrocities to
occur in the conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina from April 1992 to
November 1995, during which the policies of aggression and ethnic
cleansing pursued by Bosnian Serb forces with the direct support of the
Serbian regime of Slobodan Milosevic and its followers ultimately led to
the displacement of more than 2,000,000 people, more than 100,000
killed, tens of thousands raped or otherwise tortured and abused,
including at concentration camps in the Prijedor area, with the innocent
civilians of Sarajevo and other urban centers repeatedly subjected to
traumatic shelling and sniper attacks;
Whereas, in addition to being the primary victims at Srebrenica, individuals
with Bosniak heritage comprise the vast majority of the victims during
the conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina as a whole, especially among the
civilian population;
Whereas Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the
Crime of Genocide defines genocide as ``any of the following acts
committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national,
ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) killing members of the
group; (b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the
group; (c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life
calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; and
(e) forcibly transferring children of the group to another group'';
Whereas, on May 25, 1993, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution
827 establishing the International Criminal Tribunal for the former
Yugoslavia (ICTY), based in The Hague, the Netherlands, and charging the
ICTY with responsibility for investigating and prosecuting individuals
suspected of committing war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity
and grave breaches of the 1949 Geneva Conventions on the territory of
the former Yugoslavia since 1991;
Whereas the ICTY, along with courts in Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as in
Serbia, has indicted and in most cases convicted approximately three
dozen individuals at various levels of responsibility for grave breaches
of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, violations of the laws or customs of
war, crimes against humanity, genocide, and complicity in genocide
associated with the massacre at Srebrenica, most notably Radovan
Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, whose trials are ongoing;
Whereas both the ICTY and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) have ruled
that the actions of Bosnian Serb forces in Srebrenica in July 1995
constitute genocide;
Whereas House Resolution 199 (109th Congress), passed on June 27, 2005,
expressed the sense of the House of Representatives that the aggression
and ethnic cleansing committed by Serb forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina
meets the terms defining genocide according to the 1949 Genocide
Convention;
Whereas the United Nations has largely acknowledged its failure to fulfill its
responsibility to take actions and make decisions that could have
deterred the assault on Srebrenica and prevented the subsequent genocide
from occurring;
Whereas some prominent Serbian and Bosnian Serb officials, among others, have
denied or at least refused to acknowledge that the massacre at
Srebrenica constituted a genocide, or have sought otherwise to
trivialize the extent and importance of the massacre; and
Whereas the international community, including the United States, has continued
to provide personnel and resources, including through direct military
intervention, to prevent further aggression and ethnic cleansing, to
negotiate the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and
Herzegovina (initialed in Dayton, Ohio, on November 21, 1995, and signed
in Paris on December 14, 1995), and to help ensure its fullest
implementation, including cooperation with the International Criminal
Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia as well as reconciliation among all
of Bosnia and Herzegovina's citizens: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the Senate--
(1) affirms that the policies of aggression and ethnic
cleansing as implemented by Serb forces in Bosnia and
Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995 meet the terms defining the crime
of genocide in Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention
and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide;
(2) condemns statements that deny or question that the
massacre at Srebrenica constituted a genocide;
(3) urges the Atrocities Prevention Board, a United States
interagency committee established by the President in 2012, to
study the lessons of Srebrenica and issue informed guidance on
how to prevent similar incidents from recurring in the future,
paying particular regard to troubled countries, including
Syria, the Central African Republic and Burundi;
(4) encourages the United States to maintain and reaffirm
its policy of supporting the independence and territorial
integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina, peace and stability in
southeastern Europe as a whole, and the right of all people
living in the region, regardless of national, racial, ethnic or
religious background, to return to their homes and enjoy the
benefits of democratic institutions, the rule of law, and
economic opportunity, as well as to know the fate of missing
relatives and friends;
(5) recognizes the achievement of the International
Commission for Missing Persons (ICMP) in accounting for those
missing in conflicts or natural disasters around the world and
believes that the ICMP deserves justified recognition for its
assistance to Bosnia and Herzegovina and its relevant
institutions in accounting for approximately 90 percent of
those reported missing after the Srebrenica massacre and 70
percent of those reported missing during the whole of the
conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina;
(6) welcomes the arrest and transfer to the International
Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) of all
persons indicted for war crimes, crimes against humanity,
genocide and grave breaches of the 1949 Geneva Conventions,
particularly those of Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, which
has helped strengthen peace and encouraged reconciliation
between the countries of the region and their citizens;
(7) asserts that it is in the national interest of the
United States that those individuals who are responsible for
these crimes and breaches should continue to be held
accountable for their actions, and that the work of the ICTY
therefore warrants continued support until all trials and
appeals have been completed; and
(8) honors the thousands of innocent people killed or
executed at Srebrenica in Bosnia and Herzegovina in July 1995,
along with all individuals who were victimized during the
conflict and genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992 to
1995, as well as foreign nationals, including United States
citizens, and those individuals in Serbia, Bosnia and
Herzegovina, and other countries of the region who risked and
in some cases lost their lives during their brave defense of
human rights and fundamental freedoms, and advocacy of respect
for ethnic identity without discrimination.
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