[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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