Posted on 06/28/2005 9:49:07 AM PDT by mark502inf
WASHINGTON -- Tuesday – The US Congress House of Representatives has adopted a resolution demanding that those responsible for the Srebrenica massacre be brought to justice.
The resolution, adopted on the eve of the tenth anniversary of the massacre says that the political aggression and ethnic cleansing conducted by Serb forces in Bosnia with the support of the Yugoslav authorities should be defined as genocide, as defined by Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide.
H. Res. 199
In the House of Representatives, U.S.,
June 27, 2005. Whereas in July 1995 thousands of men and boys who had sought safety in the United Nations-designated `safe area' of Srebrenica in Bosnia and Herzegovina under the protection of the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) were massacred by Serb forces operating in that country;
Whereas beginning in April 1992, aggression and ethnic cleansing perpetrated by Bosnian Serb forces, while taking control of the surrounding territory, resulted in a massive influx of Bosniaks seeking protection in Srebrenica and its environs, which the United Nations Security Council designated a `safe area' in Resolution 819 on April 16, 1993;
Whereas the UNPROFOR presence in Srebrenica consisted of a Dutch peacekeeping battalion, with representatives of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the humanitarian medical aid agency Medecins Sans Frontie.AE2res (Doctors Without Borders) helping to provide humanitarian relief to the displaced population living in conditions of massive overcrowding, destitution, and disease;
Whereas Bosnian Serb forces blockaded the enclave early in 1995, depriving the entire population of humanitarian aid and outside communication and contact, and effectively reducing the ability of the Dutch peacekeeping battalion to deter aggression or otherwise respond effectively to a deteriorating situation;
Whereas beginning on July 6, 1995, Bosnian Serb forces attacked UNPROFOR outposts, seized control of the isolated enclave, held captured Dutch soldiers hostage and, after skirmishes with local defenders, ultimately took control of the town of Srebrenica on July 11, 1995;
Whereas an estimated one-third of the population of Srebrenica, including a relatively small number of soldiers, made a desperate attempt to pass through the lines of Bosnian Serb forces to the relative safety of Bosnian-held territory, but many were killed by patrols and ambushes;
Whereas the remaining population sought protection with the Dutch peacekeeping battalion at its headquarters in the village of Potocari north of Srebrenica but many of these individuals were randomly seized by Bosnian Serb forces to be beaten, raped, or executed;
Whereas Bosnian Serb forces deported women, children, and the elderly in buses, held Bosniak males over 16 years of age at collection points and sites in northeastern Bosnia and Herzegovina under their control, and then summarily executed and buried the captives in mass graves;
Whereas approximately 20 percent of Srebrenica's total population at the time--at least 7,000 and perhaps thousands more--was either executed or killed;
Whereas the United Nations and its member states have largely acknowledged their failure to take actions and decisions that could have deterred the assault on Srebrenica and prevented the subsequent massacre;
Whereas Bosnian Serb forces, hoping to conceal evidence of the massacre at Srebrenica, subsequently moved corpses from initial mass grave sites to many secondary sites scattered throughout parts of northeastern Bosnia and Herzegovina under their control;
Whereas the massacre at Srebrenica was among the worst of many horrible atrocities to occur in the conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina from April 1992 to November 1995, during which the policies of aggression and ethnic cleansing pursued by Bosnian Serb forces with the direct support of the Serbian regime of Slobodan Milosevic and its followers ultimately led to the displacement of more than 2,000,000 people, an estimated 200,000 killed, tens of thousands raped or otherwise tortured and abused, and the innocent civilians of Sarajevo and other urban centers repeatedly subjected to shelling and sniper attacks;
Whereas Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (done at Paris on December 9, 1948, and entered into force with respect to the United States on February 23, 1989) defines genocide as `any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) killing members of the group; (b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; and (e) forcibly transferring children of the group to another group';
Whereas on May 25, 1993, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 827 establishing the world's first international war crimes tribunal, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), based in The Hague, the Netherlands, and charging the ICTY with responsibility for investigating and prosecuting individuals suspected of committing war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity and grave breaches of the 1949 Geneva Conventions on the territory of the former Yugoslavia since 1991;
Whereas nineteen individuals at various levels of responsibility have been indicted, and in some cases convicted, for grave breaches of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, violations of the laws or customs of war, crimes against humanity, genocide, and complicity in genocide associated with the massacre at Srebrenica, three of whom, most notably Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, remain at large; and
Whereas the international community, including the United States, has continued to provide personnel and resources, including through direct military intervention, to prevent further aggression and ethnic cleansing, to negotiate the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina (initialed in Dayton, Ohio, on November 21, 1995, and signed in Paris on December 14, 1995), and to help ensure its fullest implementation, including cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that--
(1) the thousands of innocent people executed at Srebrenica in Bosnia and Herzegovina in July 1995, along with all individuals who were victimized during the conflict and genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995, should be solemnly remembered and honored;
(2) 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 in Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide;
(3) foreign nationals, including United States citizens, who have risked and in some cases lost their lives in Bosnia and Herzegovina while working toward peace should be solemnly remembered and honored;
(4) the United Nations and its member states should accept their share of responsibility for allowing the Srebrenica massacre and genocide to occur in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995 by failing to take sufficient, decisive, and timely action, and the United Nations and its member states should constantly seek to ensure that this failure is not repeated in future crises and conflicts;
(5) it is in the national interest of the United States that those individuals who are responsible for war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity, and grave breaches of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina, should be held accountable for their actions;
(6) all persons indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) should be apprehended and transferred to The Hague without further delay, and all countries should meet their obligations to cooperate fully with the ICTY at all times; and
(7) the United States should continue to support the independence and territorial integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina, peace and stability in southeastern Europe as a whole, and the right of all people living in the region, regardless of national, racial, ethnic or religious background, to return to their homes and enjoy the benefits of democratic institutions, the rule of law, and economic opportunity, as well as to know the fate of missing relatives and friends.
War is not the answer...what was the question again?
So how long will it take before we have posters saying the Srebrenica massacre didn't really happen, you can't prove the Serbs did it, and besides, the Bosnians deserved it anyway.
D'oh!
dj, good connection between 9-11 and Srebrenica; the same kind of thinking went into both. The difference is that the Serbs killed twice as many innocent people than Al Qaeda did.
...and how many innocent Americans did the Serbs kill compare to Al Qaeda...???
Americans were fortunate to be an ocean removed from Seselj's & Milosevic's campaign for a Greater Serbia Co-Prosperity Sphere. The Slovenes, Croats, Bosniaks, Kosovars, Macedonians, and Montenegrins were not so fortunate and have all paid the price to lesser or greater degrees. And they all also figured out that Belgrade's vision was fixed much more on the "Greater Serbia" part than on "Co-prosperity" and jumped ship from Captain Slobo's loveboat just as fast as they could; although the Montenegrins are still hung up trying to get over the gunwales and the Kosovars are still chopping away on the tow-hawser.
dj, have you ever asked yourself why all the Serb's former Yugoslavia neighbors--Slav & Albanian; Catholic, Muslim, & Orthodox alike--want to get away from Serbia? HINT: Read the Congressional resolution at the top of this thread.
HAHAHAHA.....now that was a good one...LMAO...!!!! So you think, it was a matter of time, when the Serbs would start to conquer the USA....???
The Slovenes, Croats, Bosniaks, Kosovars, Macedonians, and Montenegrins were not so fortunate and have all paid the price to lesser or greater degrees. And they all also figured out that Belgrade's vision was fixed much more on the "Greater Serbia" part than on "Co-prosperity" and jumped ship from Captain Slobo's loveboat just as fast as they could; although the Montenegrins are still hung up trying to get over the gunwales and the Kosovars are still chopping away on the tow-hawser.
Well, I guess killing Serbs in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo/Metohija is in your world justified by your propoganda-BS of some "Greater Serbia", even the Serbs lived there for centuries and remembered what happened to them during WWII, when the same things happened...
BTW....there are more Montenegrins livin' in Serbia then in Montenegro itself...What shall we do with them...???
dj, have you ever asked yourself why all the Serb's former Yugoslavia neighbors--Slav & Albanian; Catholic, Muslim, & Orthodox alike--want to get away from Serbia? HINT: Read the Congressional resolution at the top of this thread.
So...you want me to ask myself why Albanians, Muslims and Catholic started to kill Serbs (again)...???....Hmmmmm...Maybe you'll find the answers in Tudjman's "Wastelands" , Izebegovic's "Islamic declaration", Albanians documents of the "2nd League of Prizren" and Adolf Hitlers "Mein Kampf"...
Dead Serbs are in Mark's world only propaganda and justified by the fact that they all wanted a "Greater Serbia"...
He reminds me on the postcards from WWI, where Germans and Austro-Hungarians where chanting: "Serbien muss sterbien" (Serbia must die)....
...and then came the "Battle of Cer"...!!!!
"The Slovenes, Croats, Bosniaks, Kosovars, Macedonians, and Montenegrins were not so fortunate"
Please stop mixing the Macedonians into your argument mark, we both know very well that the Macedonians had no problems with the Serbs when it came to Yugoslavia's split. Macedonia's only quarral/problem/war (or whatever you want to call it) was with the Albanians wanting a Greater Albania!
That is only because the Serbs were too busy elsewhere to focus on what they call "South Serbia".
You would spend time more wisely complementing how and why centuries of Vatican “Drag nach Osten“ towards East come to nothing.
You hate Serbs so much that you sold Europe and Christianity to jihad and you got your some of your payment. Your Muslim friends cleansed Croats from most of the Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Croat complicity in jihad should not put you down! Other had made “honest mistakes” too!
SAUDI AL-QAEDA LEADER ISSUED BOSNIAN PASSPORT
Deutsche Presse-Agentur - June 29, 2005
http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org
Wow, that congress of ours sure does act in a timely manner? Ten years to decide? What a bunch of clowns........
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