Mr. Speaker, I am please to join our colleague and Chairman of the Helsinki Commission, Mr. Smith of New Jersey, in co-sponsoring House Resolution 199, regarding the 1995 massacre at Srebrenica in eastern Bosnian-Herzegovina.

            For us, the congressional debates regarding the nature of the Bosnian conflict and what the United States and the rest of the international community should do about it are increasingly part of history.  Now focused on other challenges around the globe, it is easy to forget the prominence of not only Bosnia, but the Balkans as a whole, on our foreign policy agenda. 

            It would be a mistake, however, to ignore the reality of Srebrenica ten years later to those who were there and experienced the horror of having sons, husbands, fathers taken away never to be seen again.  Their loss is made greater by the failure to apprehend and transfer to The Hague for trial people like Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic who were responsible for orchestrating and implementing the policies of ethnic cleansing.

            Following the Srebrenica massacre, the United States ultimately did the right thing by taking the lead in stopping the blood shed and in facilitating the negotiation of the Dayton Agreement, the tenth anniversary of which will likely be commemorated this November.  Thanks in large measure to the persistence of the U.S. Congress and despite the resistance of some authorities particularly in Belgrade and Banja Luka, cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia remains a necessary precondition for improved bilateral ties and integration into NATO and the European Union.  Meanwhile, the United States and many other countries have contributed significant resources, including money and personnel, to the regions post-conflict recovery.

            It is therefore appropriate that we, as the leaders of the Helsinki Commission, introduce and hopefully pass this resolution on Srebrenica ten years later, not only to join with those who continue to mourn and seek closure, but also to understand why we have done what we have done since then, and, more importantly, to learn the lesson of failing to stand up to those in the world who are willing to slaughter thousands of innocent people.  The atrocities committed in and around Srebrenica in July 1995, after all, were allowed to happen in what the United Nations Security Council itself designated as a “safe area.”

            In confirming the indictments of Mladic and Karadzic, a judge from the international tribunal reviewed the evidence submitted by the prosecutor.  His comments were included in the United Nations Secretary General’s own report of the fall of Srebrenica, which described the UN’s own responsibility for that tragedy.  Let me repeat them here:

After Srebrenica fell to besieging Serbian forces in July 1995, a truly terrible massacre of the Muslim population appears to have taken place.  The evidence tendered by the Prosecutor describes scenes of unimaginable savagery: thousands of men executed and buried in mass graves, hundreds of men buried alive, men and women mutilated and slaughtered, children killed before their mothers’ eyes….These are truly scenes from hell, written on the darkest pages of history.

            Regardless of one’s views of the Yugoslav conflicts -- who started the conflicts, why, and what our response should have been – there is no denying that what happened to the people of Srebrenica was a crime for which there are no reasonable explanations, no mitigating circumstances, no question of what happened.  As a result, it is inconceivable to me that anybody can defend Radovan Karadzic or Ratko Mladic, let alone protect them from arrest.   

There should also be no mistake, Mr. Speaker, that Srebrenica was only the worst of many incidents which took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995.  Like the shelling of Sarajevo and the camp prisoners at Omarska, the July 1995 events in Srebrenica were part of a larger campaign to destroy a multi-ethnic Bosnia and Herzegovina, which manifested itself in atrocities in towns and villages across the country.  It does, indeed, meet the definition of genocide.

I hope, Mr. Speaker, that the House will express its views regarding this massacre, which may fade in our memories but is all too recent and real to those who witnessed it and survived.  Joining them in marking this event ten years ago may help them to move forward, just as we want southeastern Europe as a whole to move forward.  I call on my colleagues to support this resolution.