Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House notes that:

(1) on 11 July 1995, the Bosnian town of Srebrenica which was at that time proclaimed a Protected Zone by a United Nations Security Council Resolution of 16 April 1993, fell into the hands of the Army of Republika Srpska, led by General Ratko Mladic and under the direction of the then President of the Republika Srpska, Radovan Karadzic;

(2) from 12 July 1995, the Army and the Police of Republika Srpska separated men aged 16 to approximately 60 or 70 from their families;

(3) Bosnian Serb forces killed over 7,000 Bosnian Muslim men following the takeover of Srebrenica in July 1995;

(4) all the executions systematically targeted Bosnian Muslim men of military age, regardless of whether they were civilians or soldiers;

(5) the acts committed at Srebrenica were committed with the specific intent to destroy in part, the group of Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina;

(6) these were acts of genocide, committed by members of the Army of Republika Srpska in and around Srebrenica from about 13 July 1995;

(7) these findings have been confirmed by the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia through final and binding judgments; and

(8) the House should recognise 11 July as Srebrenica Remembrance Day in memorial of the genocide at Srebrenica in July 1995.

John Murphy (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party, Deputy Chairman , Coalition Policy Development Committee) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion.

Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On 16 April 1993 the United Nations Security Council passed resolution 819, which stated that 'all parties and others concerned treat Srebrenica and its surroundings as a safe area which should be free from any armed attack or any hostile act'. The first group of United Nations Protection Force, UNPROFOR, arrived in Srebrenica on the 18 April 1993. Two years later, on 11 July 1995, Srebrenica fell to the hands of the army of Republika Srpska, led by General Ratko Mladic and under the direction of the then President of the Republika Srpska, Radovan Karadzic. What followed was an attempt at the elimination of generations of Bosnian men and boys. A genocide was perpetrated. The Geneva Conventions were broken. Families were destroyed and generations were lost.

Between 12 July and 16 July, the army and police separated men aged between 16 to approximately 60 or 70 from their families. The Mladic forces executed 8,000 men and boys and forcefully deported 25,000 women, children and elderly. These men, women, children and elderly had sought refuge and safety under the protection of the United Nations. The events of that day should never be forgotten. The Srebrenica massacre was the worst war crime to take place in Europe since the end of the Second World War. I want to read an eyewitness account of the events that day by a woman named Zumra Shekhomerovic. Zumra lived in Srebrenica and helped shelter refugees before the town was taken over. She bore witness to Dutch troops being captured, Serb troops posing in UN uniforms, and General Ratko Mladic promising no harm would come to the inhabitants of Srebrenica. This is her testimony:

They were separating boys from 12 years of age and old men to 77 years of age. When our turn came, two of our neighbors were separated in front of us.

They separated many from my family, and [people] from my area, I know many of those by name and surname, those that were separated. And now it was our turn.

We came, as we were approaching, there was a checkpoint, and at the checkpoint stood armed Chetniks [Serbs]. And [one] said to my husband, as we were coming from above, 'You come this way' and to me, 'You go on!'

…   …   …

His hand was on my shoulder, trembling. … Somewhere deep inside me it still trembles. … It seems to me that every moment I feel it here on my left shoulder and that hot whisper of his that was reaching my ear as he told me not to worry, that everything will be all right. [He said] to tell, when I come to Tuzla [Bosnia], to tell my son that he sends his warmest regards and to tell him to listen to me. And when I talk to my daughter, who is in Slovenia, by phone to tell her that her daddy has been missing her very much and that he cannot wait until the moment he will see her. … But he never lived to see that moment. These were his last words. They separated him and I stayed mute, I could not talk. …

How I walked to the trucks, believe me, I don’t know. I don’t know how I climbed the truck or came by [the] truck. I don’t know what I stood on to climb up [onto the truck]. I passed, and he stayed with his black jacket which he held in his hand. I could see him for another 10 yards while the truck went around the transporter, and afterwards another truck parked in the way. I never saw him again and don’t know what happened to him. I regret so much that I did not say, 'Don’t take him,' that I didn’t scream or shout for help. Maybe it would be easier to live now.

I just left silently, and could not speak, while my tears were flowing like a river …

Srebrenica was the worst atrocity committed in the conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina between April 1992 and November 1995, during which the army of Republika Srpska policies of ethnic cleansing, with the support of Slobodan Milosevic, led to the displacement of two million people and the massacre of 200,000, not to mention the tens of thousands that were torture and abused.

The failure of the international community—especially the UN—to protect those in Srebrenica is a stain on the international community's record. Kofi Annan, the former Secretary-General of the United Nations, said on the fifth anniversary of the atrocities at Srebrenica, 'The tragedy of Srebrenica will forever haunt the history of the United Nations.'

Nothing can fill the holes in the lives of families who lost loved ones on the 11 July. But it is their memories that must sustain us and instil in us the determination to educate future generations to remember; to pass on our ideals of freedom from fear and freedom from want; of peace and justice; of freedom of religion; and of human rights, as the President of the United States of America spoke about here so eloquently the other day. We must remember that all men and women are created equal and that the doctrine of 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you' should be our ethos.

As President Obama said last week when he addressed this parliament, 'The future belongs to those who stand firm for these ideals.' At the other extreme of history, that paragon of evil, Adolf Hitler, said on 22 August 1939, on the eve of perpetrating another genocide, 'Who remembers the Armenians?', referring to the failure of anyone to react to Turkey's genocide of 2 million Armenians. It is because he was able to say that in Europe in the 1930s that further tragedies engulfed Europe. If we learn anything from the tragedy of Srebrenica, it is that, if good men and women stand by and do nothing or say nothing, evil will be perpetrated. We must remember.

When I speak to people in my own electorate about these issues, I tell them we must remember all of the horrors and genocides that have been perpetrated since the great Shoah, the great holocaust, of the Second World War, and not just the Second World War but after then: the events that have happened in Rwanda, Srebrenica and in Sudan, in Dafur. I particularly feel the weight of history very strongly on my shoulders to speak out from this parliament on behalf of events that happened in places like that. Never again should an Adolf Hitler be able to say to people in Srebrenica, in Dafur, in Rwanda, in Armenia: 'Who remembers the Armenians? Who remembers the Rwandans? Who remembers the Bosnians?'

This resolution is what the Russians would call an act of pamyat—memory. It is very important to never forget the legacy of these horrors; not from the point of view of torturing ourselves but to educate future generations that, if people are able to act out of racial prejudice and kill masses of others, this will happen again and again. It is our sacred duty to speak out when we see these kinds of events. We must remember the dead and remember the families they left behind.

Those who perished at Srebrenica must be remembered, and 11 July each year should be recognised as Srebrenica Remembrance Day in memory of those who were lost. I am very pleased that the modern Republic of Serbia is being reintegrated into Europe. We welcome the Serb people with open arms to the international community. We, at the same time, remember the Bosnian people of Srebrenica who were massacred. I am very pleased that this House very bravely, very seriously, joins the congress of the United States and parliaments in Europe in remembering these dreadful and important events.

John Murphy (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the member's motion seconded?

Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party, Deputy Chairman , Coalition Policy Development Committee) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion. I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this motion moved by the member for Melbourne Ports to commemorate the terrible massacre of Srebrenica. The 18th century Anglo-Irish conservative philosopher Edmund Burke famously wrote: 'The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.' And evil was indeed ascendant on those sunny July days 16 years ago when 7,000 unarmed prisoners were slaughtered at Srebrenica during the Bosnian War of the 1990s.

The direct perpetrators of this war crime were military units of the Republika Srpska, the breakaway Bosnian Serb state within the former nation of Yugoslavia. In fact, the commander of those units, General Ratko Mladik, and the former president of the Republika Srpska, Radovan Karadzic, are currently on trial in the Hague for this and other abominations.

But, beyond the writing of yet another chapter in the long bloody saga of man's inhumanity to man, the Srebrenica massacre demonstrates two great verities: one ageless and the other current to our present age. The eternal truth arises from the fact that, in international affairs, as in physics, a power vacuum will always be filled. The only question is by whom: the benign or the malign? It is an ugly world—a world where wickedness regards weakness with contempt; a world where foulness will exploit feebleness to do a devil's dance on the graves of the innocent.

If the crime of Srebrenica teaches us anything it is that, if the benign lack the will to exert power that is constructive, the malign will surely step into the breach to deploy power that is destructive. We learn that, without strength, the forces of decency will be swamped by indecency. And it was indecency incarnate that broke with all its fury over the 7,000 innocent men and boys who were shot down without mercy.

The atrocity that took place at Srebrenica in July 1995 was horrible enough in its own right, but the horror was made more acute and more profound by the fact that those killings took place almost literally under the noses of an international force posted to keep the peace where there was no peace to be found. A battalion of Dutch peacekeepers, understrength and underarmed, was unable to halt the mass murderers as they went about their grisly business.

There is little question as to how these war criminals committed this horrendous massacre. The record in that regard has been copiously documented, including by the member for Melbourne Ports. Witnesses have been deposed and forensic evidence has been gathered. Nor is there really any doubt about the why of the Srebrenica slaughter: it was just another dark page in the same bloody saga of bigotry induced bloodbath that has marred the annals of human history.

The real question isn't why the Serbians murdered unarmed Muslim prisoners; it is why the army of an advanced Western nation was unable to stop it. To understand that we must transport ourselves back a decade and a half in time. This was the era of Francis Fukuyama's so-called 'end of history'. The Berlin Wall had fallen six years previously. The Cold War was won and the triumph of the West was supposedly assured. It was a time for optimism. It is true that the social democracies of continental Europe felt there was no longer anything to fear and thus no need to keep up military spending, and the Netherlands were no exception to this trend. The so-called peace dividend was used in the early 1990s to reduce the budget of the Dutch armed forces. In the euphoria of Cold War victory, the Netherlands and other European nations allowed themselves to forget a cardinal Latin adage that has rung true since the legions of Julius Caesar marched into Gaul: 'If you desire peace, prepare for war.' As we enter a new period of global instability and international power rivalry, this eternal lesson, retaught so cruelly by the slaughter at Srebrenica, is one we in this place should well and truly heed.

Complementing these ageless truths is another verity that is a product of our current age. It demonstrates, as we have heard, how the United Nations was unable to act decisively in the face of genocide. You see, the Dutch troops whom I previously mentioned were wearing blue helmets during their posting to Srebrenica. They were in the Balkans as part of a UN peacekeeping operation and, as such, they answered to a chain of command that extended all the way to the UN secretariat in New York. So, when out-gunned and out-numbered, the Dutch seeing the killings unfolding before them, tried to call for close air support. These Netherlands troops begged and pleaded for air strikes to target the Serb positions and bring the slaughter to a halt. But air strikes were postponed for hours as the Serbian mass murder operation progressed. When the aircraft finally arrived, it was too little too late. A grand total of two bombs were dropped with a zero deterrent effect. The Dutch battalion were then withdrawn, leaving the local Bosnian Muslim population to the none-too-tender mercies of the advancing Serb forces.

Even more outrageous was the fact that the Srebrenica massacre took place just a year after one of the worst acts of genocide to occur since the Holocaust—and the member for Melbourne Ports referred to this. Between April and July 1994, roughly 800,000 people in Rwanda were hacked, burned and stabbed to death, while another UN force was left hapless and hopeless. And as in Srebrenica, the UN commander in Rwanda, Canadian General Romeo Dallaire, begged for reinforcements and support from UN headquarters in faraway Manhattan. And, as in Srebrenica, he received nothing of the kind. You would think the bloody lessons of Rwanda might have been absorbed by the high mandarins at UN secretariat. But, tragically, the past of Rwanda turned out to be the prologue for Srebrenica.

The United Nations bureaucracy, unfortunately, was channelling spirit of Tallyrand's famous quip about the post-Waterloo Bourbon monarchy: 'They forgot nothing and they learned nothing.' From early 1992 to mid-1995 the UN tried and failed to bring an end to the Balkans war, a war which killed hundreds of thousands of people in a conflict that knew no rules, a conflict where the laws of war were honoured more in the breech than the observance.

The failure of the UN in Rwanda and the Srebrenica is not contested. As the member for Melbourne Ports outlined, in fact, it is accepted by the United Nations itself. Indeed, on the 10th anniversary—the member for Melbourne Ports mentioned the fifth—of the Srebrenica massacre, then Secretary General Kofi Anan issued a statement, where he said:

... we made serious errors of judgement, rooted in a philosophy of impartiality and non-violence which, however admirable, was unsuited to the conflict in Bosnia. That is why ... the tragedy of Srebrenica will haunt our history forever.

But such mea culpas do not account for much if they are unaccompanied by real reform.

An end to the Balkan slaughter of the 1990s was not brought about by international diplomacy or UN facilitation. The war was finally ended by brute military force. Brute military force brought to bear by a US-led campaign of air attacks under the auspices not of the UN but of NATO. Starting in late August 1995, US and NATO aircraft flew over 3,500 combat sorties against over 330 Serbian targets. The Serbs were bombed into submission, pure and simple. If the UN did not learn from the Rwandan genocide, US President Clinton certainly did. In a speech on the Balkans crisis delivered in November 1995, Clinton said:

We cannot stop all war for all time but we can stop some wars. We cannot save all women and all children but we can save many of them. We can't do everything but we must do what we can.

America's 42nd President learned that, at times, the only way to stop the triumph of evil is for good men to vanquish it through the moral and focused application of armed force. That is the real lesson of Edmund Burke applied to Srebrenica—a lesson we should all seriously ponder.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the motion put forward by the member for Melbourne Ports which utilises the words of the decision of the International Court of Justice. The Moreton electorate is home to many Bosnians who survived the horrors of the war in former Yugoslavia. As former refugees they have resettled to make a new life for their families in Brisbane's southern suburbs, a long way from the violence that shattered their lives in the early 1990s.

Up to 8,000 Bosnian Muslims, mostly men and boys, were slaughtered in the Srebrenica massacre over five days of horror in July 1995. Thousands of women and girls were removed from their homes, raped and assaulted by Serbian soldiers, with lingering life-shattering consequences. Sixteen years after the war the victims are still slowly and methodically being identified through painstaking DNA analysis.

The genocide was carried out by Serbian forces under the command of General Ratko Mladic. The International Court of Justice—and I commend the fine efforts of the judges from that court, especially Air Commodore Retired Kevin Parker QC, whom I recently heard talk in Melbourne about his service—found Serbia to be in breach of the genocide convention. Although not held directly responsible, they were found to have failed to help bring the accused to justice. General Ratko Mladic was eventually arrested in May this year and extradited to the Hague. It is disgusting that, after the horrors witnessed during World War II, genocide can still be the vile and evil product of modern warfare. What the world agreed should never happen again has happened too many times over, as we have heard tonight. The Srebrenica massacre and widespread genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina share their place in history among the criminal acts of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, of Saddam Hussein in Kurdistan and of the Hutu extremists in Rwanda.

In Bosnia-Herzegovina more than 200,000 Bosnian Muslims were systematically murdered. The then US Assistant Secretary of State, Richard Holbrooke, called these acts 'the greatest failure of the West since the 1930s'. In response, NATO forces began bombing Bosnia-Herzegovina on 30 August 1995—and that is not that long ago. This campaign led to the Dayton peace agreement, but for the victims of the genocide it was all too late.

Between 1992 and 1995 Australia welcomed more than 23,000 refugees from the former Yugoslavia. As I have said, many of them settled on Brisbane's south side, especially in my home suburb of Moorooka. They care for my children and are good citizens; they are my taxi drivers; they are my people. Last month I hosted a barbecue with some of the Bosnians in my electorate. More than 200 people turned out to meet me, their local MP, and the Ambassador of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Dr Damir Arnaut, and to talk about the future and local issues concerning them. I think it says something about the spirit of the Bosnian people that they have been able to leave the atrocities of war behind them and start a new life in Australia, but they are adamant that Srebrenica should not be forgotten. Despite all our best intentions of obtaining a better world, humanity does have a horrible history. We must ensure that the mistakes of the past are never repeated in our future.

In 2009 the European Parliament acknowledged the Srebrenica genocide and also declared 11 July as a commemoration day. As I said earlier, most of the words in the motion put before us today by the member for Melbourne Ports are those of the International Court of Justice about that genocide, the biggest war crime in Europe since World War II. So it is appropriate that this House, a house of democracy, should also recognise 11 July as Srebrenica Remembrance Day, using the very words of the International Court of Justice. They are not words plucked out of the air but words put forward by judges doing a difficult job under difficult circumstances.

It has been 16 years since the atrocities but, even though it might involve digging up the bodies that have been moved two times and bones that have been jumbled up, people are going back and extracting the DNA evidence and, slowly but methodically, tracking down the people who perpetrated these crimes. That is what humanity must do.

I thank the member for Melbourne Ports for bringing this matter to the attention of the parliament and I thank all the speakers who have made contributions. I commend the motion to the House.

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

At the outset I want to commend the honourable member for Melbourne Ports for highlighting before the House the tragedy which occurred on 11 July 1995 at Srebrenica in Bosnia-Herzegovina. We are a civilised country and in this nation we have freedom, stability and a way of life that makes us the envy of people around the world. As was indicated by the honourable member for Moreton, his electorate in particular is multicultural, but Australia is a multicultural nation and we are a country to which people have come from right around the world. They could have selected other places to go to but they selected us, and in Australia we have welded together an Australian nation drawn from peoples from right around the world. I think this is one of the great successes of Australian democracy.

While there have been arguments at times about the proportion and origin of Australia's migrant population, what we have been able to do under successive governments of both political persuasions is to create a modern, vigorous and vibrant multicultural nation where people are accepted from around the world, and of course we expect them to play their part in making this country an even better place. Therefore, as Australians we find it almost unbelievable that the horrible events of 11 July 1995 in Bosnia-Herzegovina could have actually occurred.

Other honourable members have indicated that, on that day, Bosnian-Serb military forces under the command and control of Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic attacked the UN designated safe area of Srebrenica. As a result of these attacks, the Bosnian Muslim inhabitants of that area sought refuge near the UN compound in Potocari or fled in a large column in the direction of Tuzla.

Between 12 and 13 July 1995, many Muslims around the UN compound in Potocari were summarily executed by Bosnian-Serb military personnel, and the remaining refugees, numbering in the thousands, were placed on buses by Bosnian-Serb soldiers and removed from the area. Before they boarded these buses, the Muslim men had been separated from women and children and placed on different buses for removal from the enclave.

The Bosnian Muslims who fled the area in a huge column during the night of 11 July 1995 were attacked by Bosnian-Serb forces and thousands of them surrendered or were captured in the days following their flight. Thousands of them were executed by Bosnian-Serb soldiers at the locations of their capture or surrender and others were transported to other locations.

It is completely unacceptable to us that Bosnians of one ethnic persuasion could possibly act in such a brutal and horrendous manner towards other Bosnians. In fact, I think as Australians we find it doubly difficult to understand how such an event could have occurred. As other honourable members have indicated, this was Europe's worst atrocity since the Second World War. I was pleased that the Serbian parliament passed a landmark resolution apologising for the massacre. The motion, approved by a narrow majority, says that Serbia should have done more to prevent the tragedy. The fact that nearly 8,000 Bosniaks were murdered by Bosnian Serb forces is just completely unacceptable.

Notwithstanding that, it is a positive step that the parliament of Serbia has strongly condemned the crime committed against the Bosnian Muslim population in July 1995. The parliament extended condolences and an apology to the families of the victims because not everything was done to prevent the tragedy.

Let us hope again that we never have a repeat of this appalling atrocity, which makes us all ashamed to be human beings.

Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to commend the member for Fisher for those words. Much is made of the level of debate and dispute in this place. However, despite this many of us would not hesitate to agree vigorously that we would prefer vigorous debate with words and ideas. We welcome the fact that the sharpest thing to inject itself into our deliberations might be a smart reference to the standing orders as opposed to the wrong end of a gun barrel.

In recognising this exercise in democratic freedom—the freedom to express ourselves and to exist free from violence—an important choice sits in the background: do we savour this without commenting on matters beyond our borders, believing we should stay silent on issues that do not directly affect us? Or do we recognise that, to benefit from living in this society in the way that we do, from time to time we must also put a spotlight on the suffering and terrible experiences of others?

In my short time in this place I have sought actively to represent Chifley constituents on matters that affect us locally or nationally. Simultaneously, I have recognised the solemn duty that this parliament has to give voice to concerns about the inability of others to live their lives free from mistreatment, persecution and violence. It is why I wished so strongly to speak on the treatment of civilians affected through the terrible civil war in Sri Lanka. It is why I expressed my deep concerns about the persecution of Egypt's Coptic community, speaking up in here and in rallies to show my support to that community. It is why I did not hesitate to condemn the violence visited 10 years ago upon the citizens of the United States on that most awful event, September 11. And it is why I cannot, in all conscience, remain silent on the travesty that occurred over five days back in July 1995 in the town of Srebrenica.

The rounding up and massacre over those five days of between 7,000 and 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys stands as Europe's worst atrocity since World War II. It occurred within a broader conflict that took place in the Balkans in the early nineties, and it exacted a horrendous toll. Estimates on the impact of this conflict vary. It is believed that from April 1992 to December 1995 the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina saw between 100,000 and 200,000 people lose their lives, and resulted in the displacement of between 1.3 and 2 million people. With many in Europe praying that the close of World War II would see the end to such terrible ethnic conflict on that continent, the war in the Balkans came as a bloody shock.

It came as a shock no more so than to the people of the former Yugoslavia itself, which had prided itself on being a multi-ethnic country, made up harmoniously of different religions and cultural traditions. As I said some time ago in this place, friends cared little if you called yourself Croat, Serb or Bosnian—it just mattered that you were friends. As people painfully know war always scars, and the events that occurred in Srebrenica cut deeply.

But what occurred there galvanized the international community to act. One measure the international community took was to indict those considered responsible for this brutality. In 1995, the Army of Republika Srpksa's General Ratko Mladic was indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. As the most senior military representative with command responsibility, he was accused of being ultimately responsible for the Srebrenica massacre.

The ICTY indictment against General Mladic accused him of genocide in nine other municipalities in addition to Srebrenica. Additionally, in February 2007 the International Court of Justice ruled on a case concerning the application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Direct references to the judgment form the backbone of the resolution brought to the chamber by the member for Melbourne Ports, who I thank for doing this. The references can be traced to paragraphs 288, 290, 292 and 297 of the judgment.

This has not been the first time since the events of 1995 that parliaments have sought to remember what took place in Srebrenica. In 2005, the US House of Representatives carried House Resolution 199 that resolved, among other things, that the thousands of people executed in Srebrenica 'should be solemnly remembered and honoured'. I understand that resolution was passed by a margin of 434 votes in favour, with one vote in opposition. Nearly four years later the European Parliament passed a lengthy resolution that called for 11 July to be recognised as a day of commemoration of the Srebrenica genocide, stating that it :

… is an important step towards peace and stability in the region.

(Time expired)

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the summer of 1995, two years after being designated a United Nations safe haven, the Bosnian town of Srebrenica became the scene of one of the worst massacres of the Bosnian war. This was a war that came about as the direct result of the breakup of the former Republic of Yugoslavia. It was a war that was the most devastating conflict in Europe since the end of the Second World War.

This was a war that we saw on our TV screens. Forces under the command of Ratko Mladic attacked UN peacekeepers and took UN troops as hostages. Those who perpetrated this massacre deserve to be condemned and prosecuted.

However, in speaking to this motion moved by the member for Melbourne Ports, we must be careful not to demonise the Serbian nation and the Serbian community. We should also acknowledge that atrocities were committed by all sides in this war and against all sectors of the population of Bosnia-Herzegovina. We should also acknowledge that thousands of Serbs were massacred, expelled from their homes, tortured and raped during these wars within the former Yugoslavia.

We should also realise that to demonise one side of this many-sided civil war will only encourage more hatred and violence throughout the former Yugoslavia and will not provide the needed road to reconciliation. We should also congratulate the modern Serbian nation for coming to terms with these past wrongs and for actively pursuing those guilty of war crimes. As their president, Boris Tadic, said when the last of the major war criminal suspects was only recently arrested:

We have closed a burdensome and gloomy page of our history. We did this for the people of Serbia, for other nations, for the victims and for reconciliation.

The United Nations must also shoulder a large share of responsibility for allowing this massacre to take place, because it occurred under the noses of their troops. In November 1999 the UN released a highly critical report on its performance, stating:

Through error, misjudgment and the inability to recognise the scope of evil confronting us we failed to do our part to save the people of Srebrenica—

although, to be fair to the UN, it was the NATO air strikes against the Serbs that finally brought this conflict to an end.

Although it is important that we never forget the events and the history of Srebrenica, we should equally not forget the events of the entire Bosnian War following the break-up of Yugoslavia, for this raises important lessons that must be learned for any future UN intervention where a major state disintegrates. The events were a genocide, the perpetrators have been brought to justice, and these events should never be forgotten—for the peace of the families of the victims and for our society as a whole. Now should also be the time to encourage and celebrate the newfound friendships between all Bosnian ethnic communities—the Muslims, the Serbs and the Croats—to ensure that the horrors of the Bosnian War are never repeated.

Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I take this opportunity to speak to the motion moved by the member for Melbourne Ports which relates to the atrocities perpetrated against the Bosnian Muslim community at Srebrenica by Srpska forces on 11 July 1995, when over 7,000 Muslim Bosnians were killed. In fact, the figure might even be higher than that. The signing of the Dayton Agreement in Dayton, Ohio, in December 1995 by the presidents of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia brought a halt to the fighting, establishing the basic structure of the present-day state. A NATO-led peacekeeping force was then dispatched to Bosnia to enforce that deal. The number of identified victims from the conflict is over 97,000 and recent research estimates that the total number could be up to 110,000 killed and 1.8 million displaced. In fact, I have seen figures which suggest it might be much higher than that.

Each year the Bosnian community of Adelaide holds a service in remembrance of the 1995 events. In recent years I have attended those services, as I did on 11 July this year to mark the 16th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre. At each of those services those present heard from people who were in Bosnia at the time of the killings and who were able to provide very personal eyewitness accounts of the atrocities committed. Many of the speakers were children at the time. Often overcome by their emotions and their anguish, they told of the cruelty which members of their families or of their town were subjected to by forces under the control of Ratko Mladic. I saw the tears in their eyes as they spoke of the terrible acts of violence perpetrated against them. It is incomprehensible that the atrocities that were recounted by them could have occurred. Yet they were committed—not just once but many times over—whilst the world looked the other way.

It has only been in recent years, as several of the key figures associated with the Srebrenica massacre have been arrested and brought before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, that much of the truth about what happened at Srebrenica has come to light. For those who survived, being able to get on with their lives has been very difficult, but they have had no choice but to do so. Of those who fled at the time, some found their way to Australia, and a considerable number of them have settled in my own electorate of Makin. They are good people, scarred but strengthened by events in Bosnia, who have settled remarkably well into their new Australian life. In Adelaide they have established their own community centre in the electorate of the member for Port Adelaide. Only last month, I spoke at length with Muharem and Sabin Bejtic about life in Bosnia. A week or so later I spoke with Murat and Ferida Hasich, who were attending the school graduation assembly of their granddaughter, Lesha Hasich, at Golden Grove High School. Their son, Sam Hasich, who is the president of the Bosnia-Herzegovina Muslim Society of South Australia, has been a tireless ambassador and voice for Adelaide's Bosnian community.

The atrocities committed against the Bosnian Muslims were the subject of proceedings before the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. I have read the summary of the judgment handed down by the International Court of Justice on 26 February 2007:

The Court concludes that the acts committed at Srebrenica falling within Article II (a) and (b) of the Convention were committed with the specific intent to destroy in part the group of the Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina as such; and accordingly that these were acts of genocide, committed by members of the VRS in and around Srebrenica from about 13 July 1995.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia will not undo the wrongs that happened at Srebrenica or erase the memories of those who survived but, in knowing that those who were responsible were brought to account and that the rest of the world now knows the truth, it may provide some comfort for those who suffered.

I want to conclude with a quotation from one of those young people who was at one of the services I referred to earlier. This is part of what Miss Mahira Hasanovic had to say:

I was just a kid when the war started. When the world turned its back on Bosnia. Left us to vanish off the map of this world. I thank god that I was so young and that my memories are only pictures of what happened around me. About the awful times in Potocari, Dubrave and in the refugee tents. But, the biggest imprint of the war is left with me, my father is no longer here, nor will he ever be.

Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Srebrenica, Bosnia was the world's first United Nations safe area and was also the site of the worst case of genocide in Europe since World War II. While a Dutch peacekeeping battalion of United Nations forces helplessly looked on, the Bosnian Serb army's brutal takeover in 1995 saw Muslim families separated and over 7,000 Srebrenican citizens were systematically murdered. These killings were not committed in battle. They were committed against people who were unarmed and helpless and who had been repeatedly assured that they would not be harmed if they surrendered. The evidence is overwhelming that the executions were committed with the specific intention of destroying the Bosnian Muslim population of the area.

UN peacekeeping forces in Srebrenica were charged with enforcing Security Council Resolution 836, which had pledged to defend areas it declared as safe with 'all necessary means, including the use of force.' But, when it came to enforcing its own resolution, the UN forces offered limited resistance to an overwhelming Serb offensive. UN military and political commanders quickly redefined their primary mission, not as protection forces for the people of Srebrenica, but to ensure the safety of UN forces themselves. Tragically for the citizens of Srebrenica, who took the United Nations at its word for their safely and security, the pledges were never backed up with military resources to ensure that aggression against Srebrenica could be met and defeated. The peacekeepers became observers to genocide rather than protectors of life.

After World War II and the experience of the Holocaust the Allies said, 'Never again.' How short are our memories. President Clinton has acknowledged that the West ignored the signs of the 1994 Rwanda genocide until it was too late. In 1996 and 1997 we failed to act on credible reports that the Rwandan Patriotic Army was engaging in mass slaughter of Hutu refugees.

A change came in 1999 as the Serbs threatened to do in Kosovo what they had done in Srebrenica. Tony Blair vowed that this time the West would not stand by, citing the Srebrenica experience to illustrate the consequences of Western inaction. NATO's involvement in the successful military action in Kosovo marked a turning point. The following year British troops intervened, again successfully, in Sierra Leone. In March this year another British Prime Minister, David Cameron, successfully rallied wavering US and European armies with a passionate plea, as Colonel Gaddafi massacred civilians in Libya, that: 'Words are not enough and what we will be judged on is our actions.'

The time is long past for Australia to officially declare 11 July as Srebrenica Remembrance Day. With recognition of this day, Australia acknowledges the importance of this event in helping to bring closure for the Bosnian people. Srebrenica Remembrance Day every 11 July will help to inform future generations and guide all Australians to advocate only peaceful foreign relations. At a minimum, the lesson of Srebrenica requires that, when we are put on notice about the possibility of impending violence or massacre, we must not wait for proof beyond a reasonable doubt before acting to prevent it. Such proof, as history shows us, always comes far too late.

Recognising the devastating effects of the July 1995 Srebrenica genocide, this motion allows the opportunity for all Australians to stand with the Bosnian Australian community to honour the memory of those massacred. May the memory of those lost never be forgotten and may we never let events of this significance happen again. Let us ensure that this time we really mean 'never again'.

Laurie Ferguson (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

One of the more moving events I had was with a group of approximately 20 Bosnian women, who were participating in a Granville TAFE course, who came into this parliament. During their tour I addressed them about parliament and parliamentary procedures, et cetera, and saw that those women, most of whom had lost their husbands during Srebrenica and other conflicts in Bosnia, had a deep commitment to democracy in this country and to learning about civics. Their wish to be involved politically was truly inspiring.

I want to say at the outset that I have had a very strong connection with the Bosnian community. Yesterday I was at an event at one of their clubs in Bringelly in my electorate. However, when I come to this debate, I come with no enmity towards the Serbian people.

Only in the last week has the President of Serbia, Mr Boris Tadic, visited Bosnia. He made an important commitment that Serbia will, 'never cross the red line of interference in Bosnia's affairs.' He also went on to stress the geographical, cultural, economic and infrastructure ties between the two countries. This, of course, does follow some recognition by Serbia's parliament of the truly horrific massacre in Srebrenica in July of 1995. In 2010 Boris Tadic made the comment that the resolution by the Serbian parliament represented the highest expression of patriotism. Truly, that is worthwhile noting. Whilst they might not have come to a formal use of the word 'genocide', they made an apology for the Serbian people not doing enough to overcome this massacre, and truly there is reconciliation by Serbia.

This was, of course, a very horrific event. We have heard tales of nine-year-old boys being murdered because they would not rape their sisters and of children being bayoneted out of their mother's wombs. We heard from the member for Melbourne Ports earlier in this debate of the very moving last words between a husband and wife. Of course, there was the guilt of Messrs Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic, and it is very valuable that they are being brought to justice.

The wording of this motion does not come from thin air, as people have noted. It comes from the European Parliament and is based on the decision of the International Court of Justice. It is, indeed, quite proper that we in Australia join the international community in recognising this for what it was. It was genocide, it was the attempt to eliminate people, it was the murder of a lot of people of non-military ages and it was the destruction of families. Whilst the Serbian parliament has come to a very noteworthy and very valued decision, there are those who still wish to deny. In March 2005, during another debate on this matter, Milos Milovanovic, a former commander of the Serbian paramilitary unit the Serbian Guard, representing the Serbian Democratic Party in the Srebrenica Municipal Assembly, made the outrageous remarks that the massacre is a lie, that it is propaganda to paint a bad picture of the Serbian people, that the Muslims are lying and that they are manipulating the numbers and exaggerating what happened. Unfortunately for him, he is up against a variety of very credible international court systems. He is up against the United Nations, he is up against the European Parliament and he is up against the reality of the graves that started to be discovered after 2006 and which, as we know, are still being uncovered today.

I had the opportunity during the Sydney Film Festival this year to see the film Circus Columbia, a very eerie reminder of those days—a Bosnian film which is placed in a small village on the eve of the conflict with a local Croatian militia starting to plan attacks on the local Yugoslav army forces. That was the beginning of this process. I want to identify myself very strongly with this motion. The massacre has been described in the criminal tribunal as a crime of genocide, which was deliberately and methodically undertaken to eliminate large numbers of Bosnian males, some of them in their late 60s and some of them under age. It is commendable that this parliament has joined across the political divide to make sure that we do recognise this massacre and that it is not forgotten.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.