Srebrenica, 30 years later: Memory against oblivion
2025 marks 30 years since the Srebrenica genocide, one of the greatest tragedies in Europe since World War II. To mark this commemoration, the United Nations General Assembly in May 2024 adopted a resolution, led by Germany and Rwanda, establishing July 11 as the International Day of Reflection and Remembrance of Srebrenica in 1995. In addition to setting this date, the Assembly also requested the Secretary General to establish an outreach programme on the Srebrenica genocide on its 30th anniversary. It also condemned any kind of denial of the Srebrenica genocide as a historical fact and urged Member States to preserve the documented facts through the development of educational programmes, also for commemoration, to prevent denial and distortion, and the prevention of other genocides.
The genocide took place in the context of the Bosnian War. The war happened while the Communist Party of Yugoslavia was losing support to nationalist and secessionist ideologies at the end of 1988 and early 1989. This was particularly strong in Croatia and Serbia, but less noticeable in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The war in Bosnia was an international conflict that took place between April 1992 and December 1995. After the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the fall of communism, and the independence of Croatia and Slovenia, Bosnian Serb leaders like Radovan Karadžić and Serbs like Slobodan Milošević wanted all Serbs living in different republics to live in one country, leading to a campaign of ethnic cleansing in the territories of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Bosnian War claimed the lives of approximately 100.000 people between 1992 and 1995, of whom 65% were Bosnian Muslims and 25% Serbs. Of the civilian casualties, 83% were Muslim.
In July 1995, the Bosnian Serb army invaded Srebrenica, which had been established as a “safe space” by the United Nations with Resolution 819 of the United Nations Security Council. Despite the presence of UN peacekeeping forces (UNPROFOR), more than 25.000 women, the elderly and children were expelled from the safe zone and at least 8.372 men, including children and elderly among them, ethnic Bosnian Muslims were killed under the command of General Ratko Mladić. The aim was to ethnically cleanse Srebrenica.
After the Dayton Accords, signed in Ohio by Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Yugoslavia, the Bosnian war came to an end, and Srebrenica became part of the Srpska Republic, where 90% of the Serb population is grouped.
In 1993, invoking Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations as a premise, an ad hoc International Criminal Tribunal, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), was established by Resolution 808, in which it…
“Decides that an international tribunal shall be established for the purpose of prosecuting persons responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law committed in the territory of the former Yugoslavia since 1991”.
In the case against the Bosnian Serb General Radislav Krstić, the Chief of Staff and Deputy Commander of the Drina Corps of the Republika Srpska Army (VRS), the Tribunal qualified for the first time the events in Srebrenica as an act of genocide, and the largest mass murder in Europe since World War II. The Presiding Judge, on a visit to the memorial at the Potočari cemetery, stated that:
“By seeking to eliminate a part of the Bosnian Muslims, the Bosnian Serb forces committed genocide. They targeted for extinction the forty thousand Bosnian Muslims living in Srebrenica, a group which was emblematic of the Bosnian Muslims in general. They stripped all the male Muslim prisoners, military and civilian, elderly and young, of their personal belongings and identification, and deliberately and methodically killed them solely on the basis of their identity.”
In 2007, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) confirmed the ICTY’s sentence and described the events in Srebrenica as genocide. The two most responsible for the genocide were arrested by the Serbian government, the successor to the Yugoslav government, following pressure from the international community. These were the President of Republika Srpska, Radovan Karadžić, on 21 July 2008 and the commander-in-chief of the VRS, Ratko Mladić, on 26 May 2011.
In 2000, the Srebrenica-Potočari Memorial Centre for the victims of the 1995 genocide was established. This centre is established to remember the victims and preserve the memory and history, fighting against the hatred that led to this genocide. One of the most important events at this memorial centre is the annual Genocide Victims Remembrance Day, held on 11 July. The centre is open all year round and carries out research, projects, exhibitions and publications to ensure that the victims are not forgotten and to combat genocide-denying discourses that hinder reconciliation and transitional justice processes.
30 years after the genocide, the recognition of the 11th of July as the International Day of Reflection and Remembrance of the 1995 Srebrenica Genocide represents an act of symbolic justice. This commemoration not only honours the memory of the more than 8000 victims of the genocide, but it also upholds the international community’s commitment to truth and justice for the victims, and the need to combat denial, impunity and hate speech. Remembering this genocide is important to prevent crimes of this scale from happening again.
Marina de Leiva Álvarez, FIBGAR collaborator.
