July 11: International Day of Reflection and Commemoration of the 1995 Genocide in Srebrenica
On July 11, 1995, the Bosnian Serb Army (Vojska Republike Srpske, VRS) overran the United Nations “safe area” of Srebrenica, where 35,000–40,000 locals and refugees from other parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) had taken shelter in hope of a better protection from the horrors of a three-year war. However, peacekeepers from Dutchbat III, a battalion under dual UN and Dutch command, was unable to safeguard the civilian population from troops commanded by General Ratko Mladić. The same night, a column of 15,000 Bosniak men took the hilly roads toward an area controlled by the Army of BiH. One third of them arrived in freedom after days, often weeks of forced marching, ambushes, and indiscriminate shelling. The rest of them were captured and eventually killed by the BSA.
The remaining over 25,000 grandmothers, mothers, and children, together with the ailing men, were separated and bussed away by the BSA to the same Bosniak-controlled territories. More than 8,000 grandfathers, sons, and grandsons, civilians of three generations between 15 and 65 years of age, were arrested as alleged combatants, taken to collection centers, and systematically executed between July 13 and 21. Their bodies were dumped in primary mass graves. The BSA reopened them two months later to dispose of the human remains in secondary and tertiary mass graves spread across a territory of 70 km long and 40 km wide, five times the size of Budapest. Travelling the area, it is impossible not to drive by a place that had not been a former surface collection or a mass grave site. Today, none of these sites are marked.
In 2001, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) sentenced General Radislav Krstić, the commander of the VRS Drina Corps mostly responsible for the mass killings in and around Srebrenica, for aiding and abetting genocide; although his term was reduced, its justification was upheld on appeal in 2004. In Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia-Montenegro) in 2007, the International Court of Justice ruled that mass killings committed by the BSA in Srebrenica constituted genocide. The verdict did not attribute direct responsibility to Serbia for committing, but reprimanded it for not preventing the genocide, thus violating international law. Former Republika Srpska President Radovan Karadzić and BSA Commander-in-Chief General Ratko Mladić were sentenced to life imprisonment for genocide in 2019 and 2021, respectively. ICTY and its successor, the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT) handed down five life sentences and a total 206 years in prison for 17 accused in relation with the 1995 Srebrenica genocide.
The European Parliament declared July 11 the day of remembrance and mourning of the 1995 Srebrenica Genocide in 2009. The UN Security Council was set to pass a resolution on Srebrenica as genocide in 2015, which was eventually vetoed by Russia. On May 23, 2024, the UN General Assembly (GA) adopted with 84 votes in favor, 19 against, and 68 abstentions a non-binding, symbolic resolution designating July 11 the International Day of Reflection and Commemoration of the 1995 Genocide in Srebrenica.
The only EU-member state which pressed the “No” button was Hungary, aligning itself with Russia, Belarus, North Korea, Serbia, and Syria, among others. Earlier in April, in preparation for the resolution, the delegation of Bosnia and Herzegovina reminded UN GA members about what had happened in Srebrenica in July 1995. Among the speakers was Azir Osmanović, a survivor, who lost multiple family members in the genocide.
In September 2003, US President Bill Clinton opened the Srebrenica-Potocari Memorial and Cemetery for the victims of the genocide and their surviving relatives. Over 6,000 identified victims have been properly reburied there since then. In July 2021, a modern, state-of-the-art archives was opened at the Srebrenica Memorial Center in cooperation with the Blinken OSA Archivum. The archives and its library will serve as a main research center for the study of the genocide. The current manager and head curator of the archives is the historian, author, and Srebrenica genocide survivor Azir Osmanović.
To honor the International Day of Reflection and Commemoration of the 1995 Genocide in Srebrenica, the Blinken OSA Archivum launches the website of the Yugoslavia Archive Project (YAP) on July 11, 2024. The YAP is a curated collection and an archival research lab, which comprises over 35,000 records covering the historical changes in the socio-political, economic, and cultural life in the Yugoslav region from WWII to 2010.
The collection brings together text, still and moving image, and sound records in multiple languages in analog and digital format from across the Archivum’s holdings. The YAP is was completed by an international team of archival professionals and students in information science, international relations, law, nationalism studies, philosophy, and political science, mostly from the former Yugoslavia. Our hope is that the YAP will provide the public with reliable archival sources for studying and understanding diverse events, phenomena, and eras in the recent troubled history of (the former) Yugoslavia, including those leading up to the Srebrenica genocide, the worst mass atrocity in Europe since WWII.
