Remembering Srebrenica: Fighting China’s Genocide Honors the Victims of the Bosnian Genocide
By: Ismail Allison, CAIR National
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This week, the people of Bosnia and others around the world commemorated the worst genocide committed in Europe since the Holocaust.
Between July 11th and July 22nd, 1995, Bosnian Serb forces massacred over 8,000 Muslim Bosniak men and boys in the U.N. Safe Area of Srebrenica and buried their victims in mass graves in the surrounding countryside, while Dutch U.N. peacekeepers looked on and did nothing. Human remains are still being unearthed in the area to this day — nine newly discovered victims were given funerals on Sunday. 16 men, two teenage boys, and one woman.
The Srebrenica genocide was part of a larger campaign waged by Serbian leaders and their separatist allies to create an ethnically and religiously pure Greater Serbia out of the ruins of Yugoslavia. Motivated by rabid nationalism and anti-Muslim hatred, the Serbs burned, raped, and pillaged their way though Bosnia.
They ethnically cleansed much of the north and east of the country. In towns like Bijeljina, Prijedor, Zvornik, Foca, and Visegrad, thousands of Bosniaks were killed. Bosnia’s capital of Sarajevo was besieged by Serb forces for nearly four years, during which they cut off power, water, and gas and shelled the city unrelentingly. Over 10,000 civilians died as a result of the shelling and other causes related to the siege.
Serb forces ran concentration camps where Bosniak prisoners were subjected to horrific abuse. Women were sometimes sent to specially purposed rape camps.
Bosnia’s Islamic culture and heritage were heavily targeted by the aggressors. 92% of Bosnia’s mosques were either destroyed or severely damaged. Over a thousand mosques were damaged or destroyed by the Serbs. Religious schools, shrines, cemeteries and other religious structures were also destroyed.
The war in Bosnia, and the genocide against the Bosniak people, started in 1992 when Bosnia seceded from Yugoslavia, which had come to be dominated by Serb ultra-nationalists following the decline of communism. In the prior two years, Yugoslav republics Slovenia and Croatia had declared their independence as well.
Serb nationalists in Croatia who wished to remain part of the Serb-dominated Yugoslavia formed a separatist entity within the republic, and began fighting Croatian government forces. Croatia, a Catholic country that has historically been oriented westward, received immediate uncritical support from Europe.
After the Serbs followed Bosnia’s declaration of independence by declaring the Republika Srpksa, or Serb Republic, and began setting up the barricades on Belgrade’s orders, the West wasn’t so supportive. While Bosnia was recognized in the United Nations, and humanitarian aid trickled into the country, Europe and the United States sat silent as the Serbs carried out their onslaught.
The United Nations placed an arms embargo on Yugoslavia in 1991 at the start of the conflicts in Slovenia and Croatia, but both Serb and Croat forces had had time to arm themselves before the resolution was passed. In Bosnia, the Serb-dominated Yugoslav Peoples’ Army simply handed the keys to their armories over to the Serb separatists. Bosnia’s army was left with little more than rifles to defend its people from extermination.
Much of the Muslim world came to Bosnia’s aid. In spite of the embargo, countries like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Iran delivered desperately-needed arms and supplies to Bosnia’s outgunned defenders. Hundreds of millions of dollars of aid poured in from Muslim countries. Muslim leaders spoke out against the actions of genocidal Serbian militias before the indifferent international community, which intervened far too late.
History is repeating before our eyes. Once again, a defenseless Muslim population is facing a juggernaut that seeks its extermination. Once again, Muslims are languishing in concentration camps, this time not at Uzamnica, Omarska or Trnopolje, but at Akto, Aksu, and Kalpin.
Between 1.5 and 3 million Uyghurs have been detained in facilities where torture and rape are widespread. Uyghur women face forced sterilization and abortions. Chinese companies use Uyghurs for forced labor in factories and cotton fields. China has systematically targeted mosques in the Uyghur region, demolishing about 8,500 since 2017. Thousands more have been damaged. 30% of shrines and cemeteries have also been destroyed. Countless Uyghurs have disappeared and some have allegedly been murdered.
The Uyghurs are facing a genocide, but much of the Muslim world remains silent — far less vocal than it was during the genocide in Bosnia. In the 1990s, the Serbs were without powerful allies. Their geopolitical patron Russia was still reeling from the collapse of the Soviet Union and unable to exert itself on the international stage. Their spectacular atrocities were taking place in the context of a major war covered by media throughout the world.
China is a global power. It is rapidly expanding its geopolitical and geoeconomic reach and challenging the United States. Getting into the Uyghur region is extremely difficult for journalists, and getting access to the concentration camps is virtually impossible. China’s genocide is hidden. It is easy to ignore.
Unlike the Serbian genocide of Bosniaks — when many Muslim countries supported the people of Bosnia and western nations eventually intervened with military force — numerous nations today, including some Muslim majority-nations, have either ignored or publicly expressed support for China’s policies toward the Uyghurs. In 2019, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation commended China for “providing care to its Muslim citizens.” It is perhaps telling that Bosnia was one of two Muslim countries that officially condemned China at the United Nations.
By ignoring or legitimizing China’s genocide of the Uyghurs, corporations and countries that pledge support for human rights have betrayed their claims and the memory of those whose lives were lost to the Serbian genocide and anti-Muslim bigotry. Such an attitude toward the suffering of millions of Muslims at the hands of a tyrannical government shows that much of the world has learned nothing from Srebrenica.
We owe it to the victims of the Bosnian genocide to fight back against the violent persecution of Muslims worldwide today, including in China.
Ismail Allison is a researcher with the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization.
