The Genocide in Bosnia

“The tragedy of Srebrenica will haunt our history forever.”

“Through error, misjudgment and the inability to recognize the scope of evil confronting us we failed to do our part to save the people of Srebrenica from the Serb campaign of mass murder.”

“The cardinal lesson of Srebrenica is that a deliberate and systematic attempt to terrorize, expel or murder an entire people must met decisively with all necessary means.”

U.N. Report on failure to stop 1995 Bosnia massacre

The term Bosnian Genocide refers to either genocide at Srebrenica and Žepa. committed by Bosnian Serb forces in 1995 or the ethnic cleansing campaign throughout areas controlled by the Army of the Republika Srpska that took place during the 1992–1995 Bosnian War.

The events in Srebrenica in 1995 included the killing of more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys, as well as the mass expulsion of another 25,000–30,000 Bosnian Muslim civilians, in and around the town of Srebrenica in Bosnia and Herzegovina, committed by units of the Army of the Republika Srpska (VRS) under the command of General Ratko Mladić.

The ethnic cleansing campaign that took place throughout areas controlled by the VRS targeted Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats. The ethnic cleansing campaign included unlawful confinement, murder, rape, sexual assault, torture, beating, robbery and inhumane treatment of civilians; the targeting of political leaders, intellectuals and professionals; the unlawful deportation and transfer of civilians; the unlawful shelling of civilians; the unlawful appropriation and plunder of real and personal property; the destruction of homes and businesses; and the destruction of places of worship.

In the 1990s, several authorities, along with a considerable number of legal scholars, asserted that ethnic cleansing as carried out by elements of the Bosnian Serb army was genocide. These included a resolution by the United Nations General Assembly and three convictions for genocide in German courts, (the convictions were based upon a wider interpretation of genocide than that used by international courts). In 2005, the United States Congress passed a resolution declaring that "the Serbian policies of aggression and ethnic cleansing meet the terms defining genocide".