[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 1045 Introduced in House (IH)]
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116th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. RES. 1045
Condemning the genocide and other crimes against the Bosniak community
perpetrated by Bosnian Serb forces at Srebrenica in Bosnia and
Herzegovina in July 1995.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
July 13, 2020
Ms. Johnson of Texas (for herself, Mr. Engel, and Mr. McGovern)
submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee
on Armed Services
_______________________________________________________________________
RESOLUTION
Condemning the genocide and other crimes against the Bosniak community
perpetrated by Bosnian Serb forces at Srebrenica in Bosnia and
Herzegovina in July 1995.
Whereas, beginning in April 1992, aggression and ethnic cleansing perpetrated by
Bosnian Serb forces supported by the military and paramilitary forces
from Serbia while taking control in the surrounding territory resulted
in a massive influx of Bosniaks seeking protection in Srebrenica and its
environs, which the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) 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 supported by the military and paramilitary forces from Serbia
deprived the entire population of humanitarian aid and outside
communication and contact, and effectively reduced the ability of the
Dutch peacekeeping battalion to 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
in northeastern Bosnia and Herzegovina under their control, and then
summarily executed the captives and buried them in mass graves;
Whereas Bosnian Serb forces, hoping to conceal evidence of the Srebrenica
massacre, subsequently moved corpses from initial mass grave sites to
many secondary and tertiary sites scattered throughout parts of
northeastern Bosnia and Herzegovina under their control;
Whereas the Srebrenica massacre 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 Slobodan
Milosevic and the Yugoslav Government led to the displacement of more
than 2,000,000 people, more than 100,000 killed, and tens of thousands
raped, 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 in 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 UNSC 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 and in Serbia,
have indicted and convicted more than 1,000 individuals at the highest
and additional 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 Srebrenica massacre;
Whereas the ICTY found Radovan Karadzic guilty of genocide, war crimes, and
crimes against humanity and found Ratko Mladic guilty of war crimes and
crimes against humanity, and ultimately sentenced both to life in
prison;
Whereas both the ICTY and the International Court of Justice have ruled that the
actions of Bosnian Serb forces in Srebrenica in July 1995 constitute
genocide;
Whereas House Resolution 199, passed on June 27, 2005, and House Resolution 310,
passed on July 8, 2015, expressed the sense of the House of
Representatives that the aggression and ethnic cleansing committed by
Bosnian Serb forces supported by military and paramilitary forces from
Serbia in Bosnia and Herzegovina meets the terms defining genocide
according to the 1949 Genocide Convention;
Whereas the United Nations has acknowledged its failure 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, including current
Serb member of Bosnia and Herzegovina's three-member presidency, Milorad
Dodik, who has falsely labelled the Srebrenica genocide a ``fabricated
myth'' and ``the greatest deception of the twentieth century'', have
denied that the massacre at Srebrenica constituted a genocide or have
sought to otherwise trivialize the extent and importance of the
genocide;
Whereas other prominent Serbian and Bosnian Serb officials have denied or
refused to acknowledge that the Srebrenica massacre constituted a
genocide, or have sought to trivialize the extent and importance of the
massacre by disputing the number and identities of Srebrenica's victims,
claiming the existence of an international anti-Serb conspiracy, and
disputing definitions under the UN Genocide Convention;
Whereas many in the Republika Srpska, the Bosnian Serb entity of Bosnia and
Herzegovina, and municipalities, institutions, and other authorities
within it have honored and glorified war criminals in an effort to
rewrite the history of their offenses and instituted school curricula
that teach students false narratives of Srebrenica or omit it;
Whereas some nongovernmental organizations in Serbia dedicated to human rights
and justice have been instrumental in helping to document atrocities
which occurred during the conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as
their perpetrators, and have worked tirelessly to encourage Serbian
officials and the public to acknowledge the crimes committed by Serb
forces during that conflict and to support the pursuit of justice
regarding those crimes;
Whereas the community of nations, including the United States, that intervened
militarily to prevent further aggression and ethnic cleansing as well as
to advance negotiation of 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) has continued to provide
personnel and resources to help ensure fullest implementation of the
agreement, as well as to bring reconciliation among all of Bosnia and
Herzegovina's citizens;
Whereas the Office of the High Representative of Bosnia and Herzegovina
continues to operate through the multination Peace Implementation
Council, but with diminished financial and personnel resources and, in
its twice-yearly reports to the UNSC, repeated abstentions from exercise
of its full executive powers; and
Whereas the United States established the Atrocities Prevention Board, an
interagency committee that studied the lessons of Srebrenica and issued
informed guidance on how to prevent similar incidents from recurring in
the future, and, in the Congress, passed the Elie Wiesel Genocide and
Atrocities Prevention Act, under which the United States Government
reports to Congress its progress in such preventative measures: Now,
therefore, be it
Resolved, That the House of Representatives--
(1) condemns the genocide perpetrated by Serb forces in
Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995;
(2) condemns statements, actions, and policies that deny or
question that the massacre at Srebrenica constituted a genocide
and that dishonor the victims or disrespect their families, and
recognizes that entire ethnic groups or communities are not
responsible for the crimes committed by some members of their
forces;
(3) urges the Peace Implementation Council to restore full
funding to the Office of the High Representative of Bosnia and
Herzegovina, and encourages the High Representative to exercise
his full executive powers to ensure that the General Framework
Agreement for Peace is implemented fully and to call for an end
to historical revisionism, particularly as it relates to the
genocide at Srebrenica;
(4) encourages the United States to maintain and reaffirm
its policy of supporting the sovereignty, legal continuity,
unity, and territorial integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina
within its internationally recognized borders;
(5) reaffirms its strong support for the people of Bosnia
and Herzegovina and their aspirations for greater democracy,
economic prosperity, and success in Euro-Atlantic and European
Integration;
(6) urges the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina, their
elected representatives, and the international community to
place renewed emphasis on respect for human rights and
fundamental freedoms held by the individual, which should not
be compromised by any collective protections and privileges to
a group, ethnically based or otherwise;
(7) encourages the United States to promote 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;
(8) recognizes the assistance of the International
Commission for Missing Persons to Bosnia and Herzegovina and
its relevant institutions in accounting for nearly 90 percent
of those reported missing after the Srebrenica massacre and
approximately 75 percent of those reported missing during the
whole of the conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina;
(9) welcomes the completion of the work of the
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia,
including its convictions and sentencing of Radovan Karadzic,
Ratko Mladic, and 88 other persons convicted of offenses
including war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, grave
breaches of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, and related offenses,
a judicial process that has helped strengthen peace and
encouraged reconciliation between the countries of the region
and their citizens;
(10) remains concerned that ethnic tensions stoked by
political leaders and extreme nationalist sentiment can deter
recovery and reconciliation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and even
encourage new violence with potentially deadly consequences;
(11) urges all political leaders in Bosnia and Herzegovina
to cease using divisive rhetoric to stoke ethnic divisions in
order to achieve shortsighted political gains;
(12) urges all political leaders to demonstrate courage by
championing tolerance, empathy, and mutual respect for the
purpose of fostering lasting reconciliation, peace, and
prosperity for the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina; and
(13) recognizes the 8,372 people killed or executed at
Srebrenica in Bosnia and Herzegovina in July 1995, along with
all individuals who endured pain and suffering or who were
killed in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995, as well as
foreign nationals, including United States citizens, and those
individuals in Serbia, Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and
other countries of the region who risked or lost their lives
because of their defense of human rights, fundamental freedoms,
and ethnic identity without discrimination.
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