[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 102 (Wednesday, June 24, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4606-S4607]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         SUBMITTED RESOLUTIONS

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  SENATE RESOLUTION 211--EXPRESSING THE SENSE OF THE SENATE REGARDING 
                               SREBRENICA

  Mr. CARDIN submitted the following resolution; which was referred to 
the Committee on Foreign Relations:

                              S. Res. 211

       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;

[[Page S4607]]

       (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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