Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It has been 30 years since the 11 July 1995 Srebrenica massacre, when 8,372 men, women and children were mercilessly killed by Bosnian Serb forces under the leadership of Radovan Karadzic, the then president of the self-declared autonomous Bosnian Serb republic. It was the worst massacre of civilians since World War II, yet outside of the communities affected there is very little awareness of what is a very dark chapter in recent history.

For the people of Srebrenica who fled and survived the massacre, and for the Bosniaks more broadly, Srebrenica is a memory that will never fade and a grief that torments them daily. Each year on 11 July I attend the annual Srebrenica commemoration service at the Bosnian and Herzegovina Muslim Society of South Australia community centre at Royal Park. I hear the heart-wrenching stories from survivors, I see the tears in the eyes as they tell their stories, I see the grief in their faces for the family members and friends they have lost, and I feel the anger that such murderous brutality took place whilst the world looked away.

According to a UNHCR research paper, between 1992 and 1995 around 100,000 people were killed in what is referred to as the Bosnian War. Of those killed, around 80,000 were Bosnian Muslims, more widely referred to as Bosniaks. By 1995, when the fighting ended, of a Bosnian population of around four million, 1.3 million had been internally displaced and 900,000 had become refugees. Subsequent war trials and investigations by the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia have concluded that the killings, the destruction of Bosnian culturally significant buildings and the expulsion of some 20,000 Bosniak civilians from the area amount to genocide. It was very much an attempt to drive Bosnian Muslims out of Bosnia. Catholic Croatians were also driven out.

The International Court of Justice, in its judgement of 26 February 2007, states:

The Court concludes that the acts committed at Srebrenica falling within Article II (a) and (b) of the Convention were committed with the specific intent to destroy in part the group of the Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina as such; and accordingly that these were acts of genocide, committed by members of the VRS in and around Srebrenica from about 13 July 1995.

The judgement goes on:

… the Court considers that it has been established by fully conclusive evidence that members of the protected group were systematically victims of massive mistreatment, beatings, rape and torture causing serious bodily and mental harm, during the conflict and, in particular, in the detention camps.

The United Nations has since designated 11 July as the International Day of Reflection and Commemoration of the 1995 Genocide in Srebrenica. To date, some 30 people have been indicted for participating in or complicity in genocide. There are still hundreds if not thousands of bodies that have not been recovered and that possibly lie in mass graves. The search for them continues. Each year, more bodies are recovered and identified and their names added to the list of those killed.

With the passing of time and the benefit of hindsight, there is no doubt that the Srebrenica genocide was a dark chapter in recent history. The world failed the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina when it could and should have intervened. The killings, the brutality, the rapes and the humanitarian disaster could have been prevented. The lives lost for ever, for those who survived but who live with the horrific memories of the atrocities or the daily absence of the loved ones that they lost, gave rise to a hope that Srebrenica would never happen again—to no-one and nowhere. Yet credible claims of killings, oppression, persecution and brutal violence continue each and every day—in Gaza; in Syria, where the Druze community in Suwayda is under attack; in Sri Lanka; in Iran; in Afghanistan; in Ukraine; in Myanmar; and in so many parts of Africa. Indeed, only earlier today we heard from the member for McMahon, the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, about the horrific situation in Sudan.

It seems to me that humanity never learns. Human behaviour never changes. But what happened on 11 July 1995 at Srebrenica will not be erased from history and will continue to serve as a reminder to us all of the global failures at the time and that we all have a responsibility to do what we can. As a global community, we must do better.

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