Texas Legislature Commemorates Siege of Sarajevo as a Genocide Against Serbs

[This press release from the Advisory Council for Bosnia and Herzegovina brings attention to a resolution in the Texas Legislature recognizing April as Genocide Awareness and Prevention Month. This otherwise worthy resolution includes the statement that the deaths of 2000 Serbs in Sarajevo was an act of genocide--a statement that ignores the actual genocide against Bosnian Muslims, and which grossly misrepresents the context of the Siege of Sarajevo.]

ACTION ALERT
Call on Texas Legislature to Recognize Bosnian Genocide

March 16, 2012 - Washington, D.C. - The Advisory Council for Bosnia and Herzegovina (ACBH) along with the Congress of North American Bosniaks (CNAB), the Institute for Research of Crimes Against Humanity and International Law, Institute for Research Genocide, Canada, Bosnian American Genocide Institute and Education Center and Bosniak Cultural Association sent a joint letter to Texas Governor, Rick Perry expressing our grave concern regarding the alarming language used in Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 39 which was signed on June 17, 2011.

Lines 19 and 20 of page 1 of the Resolution state that "in April of 1992, the siege of Sarajevo began, leading to the deaths of more than 2,000 Bosnian Serbs." The aforementioned quote is a complete disregard of historical facts and an insult to the victims of genocide committed by Serbian forces in BiH. It is important to note that no one was ever indicted for an alleged genocide of Serbs in Sarajevo and we urge Governor Perry to act swiftly to amend this resolution and disallow a rewrite of history.

While ACBH strongly believes in the importance of declaring the month of April as the Genocide Awareness and Prevention Month in tribute to all those whose lives were touched by genocide, we were alarmed by the utter historical inaccuracy of lines 19 and 20 and the Resolution's failure to mention the Srebrenica genocide or other atrocities that occurred in BiH during the war of aggression.

The aggression and genocide that was waged on BiH lasted from April 6, 1992 until September 14, 1995 and resulted in the deaths of 200,000 people and the displacement of over 2 million. The genocide that occurred in BiH was characterized by the policy of systematic rape of Bosniak women and girls, horrific and prolonged siege and shelling of Bosniak cities, including Sarajevo, and the starvation and terrorization of the Bosniak population in the besieged enclaves. The city of Sarajevo was besieged by the Serb forces of Republika Srpska and the Yugoslav People's Army which was comprised of Serbs. The Siege of Sarajevo lasted from April 5, 1992 until February 29, 1996 and is considered to be the longest siege in modern day history. According to the United Nations Commission of Experts published in 1994, during the siege, Serb forces killed more than 10,000 people, 1,500 of those being innocent children. An additional 56,000 persons were wounded, including nearly 15,000 children.

In recognition of these atrocities, in 2005 the United States Congress unanimously approved the Srebrenica Resolution (S. Res. 134 and H. Res. 199) on genocide, which states 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"

Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ), co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on Bosnia (Bosnian Caucus) and an advocate of human rights introduced the aforementioned H. Res. 199. Together with Bosnian Caucus co-chair Congressman Russ Carnahan (D-MO) and the 27other members of the Bosnian Caucus, Congressman Smith has worked relentlessly on the dissemination of truth about the war in BiH and we ask Governor Perry to do the same.

The language in Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 39 of 2011 is not in line with established historical facts and we owe it to the victims of genocide everywhere, not just in Bosnia, to honor them by remembering what they suffered in a correct and accurate way. After the Holocaust, the civilized world made a promise to never let such atrocities happen again, yet because of unchecked rhetoric and appeasement, the unthinkable happened again in the heart of Europe. It is therefore of utmost importance that we increase the awareness of the dangers of genocide denial in order to prevent a genocide from happening again elsewhere in the world.

We ask all Bosnian Americans and friends of BiH to TAKE ACTION and not allow history to be rewritten.

Please find a sample letter HERE and express your concerns to:

The Honorable Rick Perry
Governor of the State of Texas
P.O. Box 12428
Austin, Texas 78711-2428

The Honorable David Dewhurst
Lieutenant Governor of the State of Texas
Capitol Station
P.O. Box 12068
Austin, Texas 78711

The Honorable Joe Straus
Speaker of the House
Texas House of Representatives
Room CAP 2W.13, Capitol
P.O. Box 2910
Austin, TX 78768

[Below is an open letter from the Congress of North American Bosniaks on the same issue.]

The Honorable Rick Perry
Governor of the State of Texas
P.O. Box 12428
Austin, Texas 78711-2428

The Honorable David Dewhurst
Lieutenant Governor of the State of Texas
Capitol Station
P.O. Box 12068
Austin, Texas 78711

The Honorable Joe Straus
Speaker of the House
Texas House of Representatives
Room CAP 2W.13, Capitol
P.O. Box 2910
Austin, TX 78768



Dear Governor Perry, Lieutenant Governor Dewhurst, and Speaker Straus:
On behalf of the Congress of North American Bosniaks (CNAB) and the Advisory Council for Bosnia and Herzegovina (ACBH) which represent the interests of over 350,000 Bosnian American citizens in the United States as well as the Institute for Research of Crimes Against Humanity and International Law and the Institute for Research Genocide, Canada, we are writing to express grave concern and dismay at language used in the Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 39 of 2011, signed on June 17, 2011. Lines 19 and 20 of page 1 state that “in April of 1992, the siege of Sarajevo began, leading to the deaths of more than 2,000 Bosnian Serbs.” The aforementioned quote is a flagrant disregard for historical facts and an insult to the victims of genocide committed by Serbian forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). We urge you and your appropriate state agencies to act swiftly to amend this resolution and disallow Serbian revisionists to rewrite history in the most brutal and insulting way. While there were Bosnian Serbs who died as a result of the Serbian siege of Sarajevo, they were victims of a larger scale attempt by the Serbian forces to eliminate the majority Bosniak population of BiH.

Genocide in BiH was the brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing in which one million Bosniaks were displaced and half a million were permanently removed from their ancestral land.

Over 100,000 Bosniak civilians were killed during the 1992-95 war of aggression on BiH. The Bosnian Genocide was characterized by a policy of systematic rape of Bosniak women and girls, horrific and prolonged siege and shelling of Bosniak cities, including Sarajevo, and the starvation and terrorizing of the Bosniak population in the besieged enclaves. The brutal siege on the city of Sarajevo resulted in 10,000 killed, 1,500 of those being innocent children, 56,000 wounded civilians and the destruction of Bosniak culture and history.

We are fully in support of the idea and intent of the 82nd State of Texas Senate and House Legislature to declare the month of April as the “Genocide Awareness and Prevention Month” in tribute to all of those whose lives were touched by genocide, and as a reminder of the need for the protection of human rights and for vigilance against the forces of intolerance. However, it is imperative that such intent takes historical facts into consideration.

We respectfully request that you fully acknowledge the historical facts and rescind the SCR 39 of 2011 in the interest of promoting the full truth and correct a grave insult to the victims of genocide in BiH.

It is important to note that during the war of aggression on BiH, not one city was under siege by Bosniak forces; in fact, the majority of Bosnian Serb civilian casualties were killed by the Serbian army commanded by Gen. Ratko Mladic, a convicted war criminal, in the process of sniping and shelling multiethnic Bosnian cities like Sarajevo and Tuzla. The Serb people and the Serb culture were not deliberately targeted for ethnic cleansing, rape, siege, shelling, and destruction in Bosnia. The war of aggression on BiH was the Serb project of a “Greater Serbia”, modeled on a Nazi policy of ethnic purification that inflicted tremendous suffering on the Bosniak people between 1992 and 1995.

The four international judgments acknowledging that genocide indeed did take place in BiH other than in Srebrenica include: Prosecutor v Nikola Jorgic in the Doboj region, Prosecutor v Novislav Djajic [Dzajic] in the Foča region, Prosecutor v Djuradj Kuslic [Kusljic] in the city of Kotor Varos and Prosecutor v Maksim Sokolovic in the city of Kalesija and the Zvornik region. All three cases were tried in Germany at the request of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) to ease caseload of the ongoing trials at The Hague.
We need not remind you of the horrific outcome of Serbian ultra-nationalistic plan to annihilate and ethnically cleanse the Bosniak people in Bosnia and Herzegovina. After the Holocaust, the civilized world made a promise to never let such atrocities happen again, yet because of unchecked rhetoric and appeasement, the unthinkable happened again in the heart of Europe. It is therefore of utmost importance that we increase the awareness of the dangers of genocide denial in order to prevent a genocide from happening again elsewhere in the world.

We owe it to the victims of genocide everywhere, not just in Bosnia, to honor them by remembering them. We stand ready to provide you with adequate language.
Thank you for your attention to this urgent request.

Sincerely,
Haris Alibasic, MPA
President, Congress of North American Bosniaks (CNAB)

Ajla Delkic, M.A.
Executive Director, Advisory Council for Bosnia and Herzegovina (ACBH)
Dr. Smail Cekic
Director, Institute for Research of Crimes Against Humanity and International Law, University of Sarajevo

Dr. Senadin Lavic
President, Bosniak Cultural Association, Sarajevo

Dr. Emir Ramic
Director, Institute for Research Genocide, Canada

Sanja Seferovic-Drnovsek J.D, MEd
Director, Bosnian American Genocide Institute and Education Center

[I urge everybody to contact the signers of this resolution protesting this language.

EDIT: Perhaps a mere coincidence, but both sponsors of this bill--Democratic Representative Scott Hechberg, and Republican Senator Florence Shapiro--have announced that they are retiring after their current terms. Also worth noting--Shapiro has a long and somewhat rocky history with former Pilot Scott O'Grady; he famously was shot down over Bosnia and survived for six days before being rescued. He later considered running for political office in Texas and publicly broke with Shapiro, who had been his political mentor up to that point. He has mulled running to replace her.]