The next item of business is a members’ business debate on motion S6M-17419, in the name of Michelle Thomson, on 30 years on from the Bosnian genocide in Srebrenica. The debate will be concluded without any question being put. I invite members who wish to participate to press their request-to-speak buttons.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament recognises the 30th anniversary of the Bosnian genocide in Srebrenica in which 8,372 innocent civilians were murdered by Bosnian Serb forces; remembers the victims who suffered violence, torture and brutality in what it believes to be the single largest act of ethnic cleansing in Europe since the Second World War; understands that 54 individuals have been prosecuted to date for their role in the massacre but considers that many more were involved in creating the culture and environment, which led to the genocide in Srebrenica, through their use of hate speech, oppression, discrimination and propaganda against the Bosnian Muslim population; praises the work of Mothers of Srebrenica, which, it understands, engaged in protests and other acts of public defiance to demand that the mass graves be found and the victims identified; believes that, to date, more than 7,000 of the reported missing from Srebrenica have been accounted for and buried in marked graves; commends the work of Beyond Srebrenica, whose efforts through its programme, Lessons of Srebrenica, challenge hate and intolerance using the lessons learned from the 1995 Srebrenica genocide, ensuring that they are better understood and prevented in the future; considers that genocide, recognised as an international crime usually carried out during war, is complex to stop and notes the belief that all world leaders must pledge to eradicate it, but that individuals can challenge hate and intolerance, which it considers are the root causes of many conflicts, and reflects on the atrocities of the Srebrenica genocide 30 years on.
12:50
I am honoured to speak to my motion on 30 years on from the Bosnian genocide in Srebrenica. In the troubled world of today, it is important to reflect, and I am indebted to the work of the charity Beyond Srebrenica and its programme lessons from Srebrenica. I thank David Hamilton, Sabina Kadic-Mackenzie and all others involved in the charity for the chance to participate in its delegate programme, and I thank the Scottish Government for its sponsorship.
I was rereading a published document from the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and it is telling how it, in quite a matter-of-fact way, described the significance of the events in Srebrenica in July 1995. It states:
“The massacre that occurred in Srebrenica in July 1995 was the single worst atrocity committed in the former Yugoslavia during the wars of the 1990s and the worst massacre that occurred in Europe since the months after World War II.”
Some of the evidence that was presented in subsequent court cases was harrowing. In June 2005, during cross-examination of a witness in the case against Slobodan Miloševic, the court viewed rare video footage showing a Serbian paramilitary unit, calling itself the Scorpions, execute a small group of Bosnian Muslim men and teenage boys who were captured after the fall of Srebrenica in 1995. The images of Serbian soldiers tormenting and then shooting the Bosnian Muslim prisoners, whose hands were tied behind their backs and who offered no resistance before being shot, was to prove a telling piece of evidence.
The trial examined evidence of mass executions at a total of nine sites from 13 to 17 July 1995. Dozens of burial sites were created for the mass disposal of bodies, and the evidence showed it to be a lie that those killed were combatants. It was also not a result of some spontaneous revenge killings—far from it. It was a premeditated and planned mass killing operation of men and boys. It was a genocide.
Soldiers were mobilised to guard the prisoners, move them to execution sites and shoot them. Thousands of rounds of ammunition to shoot the prisoners were supplied. A great many vehicles were commandeered to move the prisoners, and bulldozers and excavators were commissioned to dig their graves. The killings were done in a grotesque fashion. One of the rare survivors recounted to the court:
“When they opened fire, I threw myself on the ground ... And one man fell on my head. I think that he was killed on the spot. And I could feel the hot blood pouring over me ... I could hear one man crying for help. He was begging them to kill him. And they simply said, ‘Let him suffer. We will kill him later.’”
This was a case of both genocide and androcide—the systematic killing of males because of their sex as part of a deliberate campaign to eliminate a specific religious and ethnic group. It was a horrific exercise in ethnic cleansing. Besides the thousands of men and boys killed, tens of thousands of women and children were uprooted and removed from the area.
As my motion states,
“54 individuals have been prosecuted to date for their role in the massacre but ... many more were involved in creating the culture and environment, which led to the genocide in Srebrenica, through their use of hate speech, oppression, discrimination and propaganda against the Bosnian Muslim population”.
I should have added “only” before the number 54. The international community failed in 1995. Too many, including the blue helmets of the United Nations, looked the other way.
I would like to offer a personal perspective, after having been invited to visit Srebrenica by the charity last year. It was one of the best organised trips that I have ever been on, and it gave a proper sense of what happened and the extent to which events still rest heavily on those who remain—and rightly so.
Women are always casualties in war, too, and this war was no different. While visiting the cemetery where more than 6,000 bodies have now been officially buried, we spoke with Mejra Djogaz, who lost her husband and three sons in the conflict. Quoted in an article by my fellow delegate Eddie Barnes, she said:
“I would never have returned to Srebrenica if one of my children was alive but since they are all dead then this is the only place I can be near to them”.
We visited the charity the Association of Women Victims of War, which gives voice to many women who were raped during the conflict. It not only collects their stories but attempts to bring about prosecutions of the perpetrators—men who move openly still in Serbian society today. We drove past a warehouse in Kravica, one of the places where more than 1,370 men were shot. The bullet holes have been plastered over, and a wall has been built around it that stops the mothers and wives from laying flowers in homage to their loved ones.
Bosnian politics have long been notoriously complex, and they remain so to this day. Despite promises made, accession to the European Union feels no closer for many of the successor states of Yugoslavia, and the lack of progress continues to lead to irritation and a sense of being let down across the entire region. The shift away from a European focus in the new American foreign policy can only embolden other actors in the region, and I fear that we feel further away than we have ever been from acknowledging what happened and taking the steps that are required to allow for healing and moving forward.
The work of the International Commission on Missing Persons continues. It is still finding remains of the men who were killed, sometimes in multiple locations, as the bodies were buried, lifted and buried again—sometimes multiple times.
I give the final words to Mejra. Speaking to Eddie Barnes, she said:
“Why do we do this? We are fighting for justice and truth to be heard. Our fight is for the truth and justice for our beloved ones who were killed.”
Her fight for truth and justice is a fight for us all.
Thank you, Ms Thomson. We move to the open debate.
12:58
I thank Michelle Thomson for her motion and for bringing this debate to the chamber. I also congratulate her—if that is the right word—on a speech that brought home again to all of us the horrors, the harrowing detail and the memories of what occurred 30 years ago in Srebrenica, because that was indeed an act of horror: 8,372 Bosniak men and boys were murdered in cold blood.
Amid that massacre—that genocide—another crime was committed, which although it was less visible, was no less devastating. That was the mass, systematic rape of Bosniak women and girls. Sexual violence was not incidental to the conflict; it was used deliberately as a tool of ethnic cleansing, humiliation and destruction. Tens of thousands of women were subjected to unspeakable abuse, and many carry that trauma today, largely in silence.
That is why the preventing sexual violence in conflict initiative—PSVI—matters. That United Kingdom-led initiative exists because of the failure to prevent atrocities from being committed, including those in Bosnia, and the lack of prosecutions when they are. It seeks to end the culture of impunity around conflict-related sexual violence and to place survivors at the heart of justice and peacekeeping.
Srebrenica is a stark reminder of what happens when hate is left unchecked and when international resolve falters. Thirty years on, fewer than 1 per cent of sexual violence cases in Bosnia have led to convictions. That failure of justice is not just a historical shame; it is a continuing injustice. We commend the work of the Mothers of Srebrenica and Beyond Srebrenica for keeping the truth alive. However, we must do more. If we are to truly honour the victims, we must confront the on-going use of sexual violence in conflicts today, from Africa to the middle east, and ensure that PSVI has the political backing and resources to make a difference.
Remembrance alone is not enough. Justice must be pursued. Survivors must be supported, not with pity, but with purpose, and we must challenge the hatred that seeds such atrocities in Bosnia, Europe and wherever it may surface, because the truth that we must deal with is that, for most of us in the chamber, this is an event that happened in our lifetimes when the vow of a previous generation had been that such events would never occur in Europe again. Let this Parliament stand as one in saying never again, not in words alone, but in action.
13:01
I thank my colleague Michelle Thomson for bringing this vitally important motion before the Parliament.
The 30th anniversary of the genocide in Srebrenica is not only a time to mourn the 8,372 lives lost; it is a time to reflect on the responsibilities that we carry as parliamentarians, as educators and as human beings. We say never again, but that promise must live in action, not just in memory, because genocide does not begin with weapons; it begins with words, dehumanisation, division and the slow erosion of empathy.
It is in our schools, our homes and our institutions that we must build the resilience to resist that, which is why I am proud to mention the young people and teachers at Banff academy in my constituency. This year, three of its religious, moral and philosophical studies pupils received national recognition in the Beyond Srebrenica national schools competition for their powerful and compassionate writing about the genocide.
Finlay in secondary 4 was named the overall senior phase winner, and he will soon travel to Bosnia on a fully funded visit, including a trip to the Srebrenica memorial centre. Kellan and Nikolas, both in S3, were also highly commended. All three pupils and the staff who supported them are here in the Parliament today, and I am delighted to welcome them, along with other Banff academy pupils, who are here to celebrate and support one another’s achievements.
Earlier this year, Banff academy also took part in a powerful international art project called “Banff to Bethlehem”, working with a Palestinian artist to explore themes of resilience and solidarity. The Banff academy pupils’ artwork was actually projected on to the separation wall in the West Bank. That is essential education with critical engagement, teaching not just what it means to care but what it means to act.
In a year that marks both 80 years since victory in Europe day and 30 years since the horror of Srebrenica, education such as this could not be more vital. Schools do more than teach lessons; they ensure that fostering emotional intelligence, social responsibility and a deep understanding of justice is a part of our education system. After all, is that not the most important education that we could give our children?
We have a moral duty not to look away from what has happened and is happening in the world. The genocide in Srebrenica happened in plain sight, in a United Nations-declared safe zone, and it was made possible by years of hate speech, scapegoating and propaganda. The Mothers of Srebrenica, who have fought tirelessly for justice and recognition, show us the enduring cost of silence and the strength of truth. I commend the work of Remembering Srebrenica and Beyond Srebrenica for preserving the truth and passing it on to future generations. Their efforts ensure that remembrance is not a relic of the past, but a living force that challenges hate wherever it surfaces.
Let us be clear: when we see the rise of far-right rhetoric in the United Kingdom and witness on-going atrocities around the world, including in Palestine, we must not lose our moral clarity. We do not meet hate with hedging, but with courage and conscience.
True leadership is not found in dog whistles or division but in the values that we pass on to our children, in the stories that we choose to tell and in the communities that we choose to stand with. Today, as we honour those who died in Srebrenica, we must also commit ourselves to the living—to standing up for truth, dignity and justice. The greatest lesson to learn is that we must ensure that “Never again” is not just a phrase that we say but a promise that we keep.
13:05
I add my thanks to Michelle Thomson for lodging the motion and opening the debate; I recognise the way that we have engaged across parties in the chamber to ensure that the debate could take place today. I also pay tribute to the excellent work of Beyond Srebrenica Scotland and to its chair, Sabina Kadic-Mackenzie, for all her efforts in ensuring that we protect the memory of Srebrenica and educate people about what happened there 30 years ago.
To that end, I urge colleagues to join the events in Parliament today. There will be a drop-in in the Fleming room, where some of the young people whom Karen Adam referenced will talk to members, and a photograph will be taken outside at quarter past 2. I hope that colleagues will be able to join us in those endeavours.
Like Michelle Thomson, I was honoured to take part in the delegation to Bosnia and Herzegovina in March, along with minister Siobhian Brown and many others from across public life in Scotland. It was one of the most profound things that I have done as an MSP and, as Michelle Thomson referenced, a great opportunity to understand and encounter people who lived through those horrendous experiences 30 years ago.
When I was in that delegation, each evening I tried to write something to capture my thoughts and experiences. In the speaking time that I have, I will read to colleagues one of the reflections that I wrote on the day that we came back from Srebrenica:
The sun is slowly dipping below the hill. There has been some warmth today and all around are hints of spring, but as evening falls there is a chill that seems to reach down to us from the mountains. Nzad has just finished speaking to us. He is framed by row upon row of white gravestones. He survived a mass execution as a child and walked with bullet wounds to his head and stomach for days to reach safety. He is a softly spoken man. He speaks calmly and generously answers our questions. He speaks about his daughters, who just yesterday played with Bosnian Serb girls in the local volleyball team.
Despite the horrors done to him and to those he loved, he wants a better future for his children. A silent reverence lingers before we rise to walk one last time in the fading light around the thousands of graves, touching the names etched into the grey stone on the Srebrenica genocide memorial—each a son, a father, a brother, a husband.
There is something incomprehensible here—something that makes me want to stay longer, to try to understand, to cry out, to do something, although nothing seems to meet the enormity. The journey here reminded us of the fragility of the peace agreement and the prevalence of denial of the genocide in the Republika Srpska. In each service station and each town, there would be people who had turned on their neighbours, people who had stayed silent in the face of what was happening, and people who even carried out those unspeakable acts. They are walking these roads, sipping coffee, watching our bus pass.
We visited the memorial centre at the battery factory, which was the Dutch UN base at Potocari, and we retraced the footsteps of those days in July 1995. We were all rendered speechless by video footage of what happened after the UN allowed the Bosnian Serb forces to separate boys and men from women and girls. Promises of safe passage to free Bosnian territory were a lie.
In the video, filmed by their executioners, we watched six men shot dead. The two youngest were spared until they had dragged the four bodies of their comrades into a shallow grave. There are no words. We all reach out to each other without speaking as we climb the stairs to meet the directors of the centre.
Before we left, we met Mother Fadala. She speaks to us at her shop, selling flowers, books and memorial items. Like all the mothers, she lost everything. The shop is her defiance, her reason to go on. The authorities of the Republika Srpska do not want her here, but this unassuming, smiling small lady in her 80s is a rock, unmovable, strong. She tells us that soon she will travel to the United Nations in New York to call for the international community not to forget and to do more. This is what the mothers do. They stand because others cannot.
In the darkness of our journey back to Sarajevo, there is much to process. I think of the sun setting on those rows and rows of white stones and the words that are written in the books held in common by the Abrahamic faith. What have you done? Listen—your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground.
13:10
First, I express my gratitude to Michelle Thomson for sponsoring today’s motion. I also sincerely thank everyone who has kindly taken this opportunity to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide, which will take place on 11 July, and white armband day. I echo the heartfelt words that have been offered by my fellow members in remembrance and recognition of the victims across Bosnia and Herzegovina, just as I did earlier this year when we came together to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Holocaust. I also give a warm welcome to those in the gallery, including the young people and their teachers from the lessons of Srebrenica schools competition. I can also see Sabina Kadic-Mackenzie, who graciously led me and others on a delegation to Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Barry Fisher, the secretary for Beyond Srebrenica.
Members will be aware that Paul O’Kane and Beyond Srebrenica have organised a drop-in session this afternoon to raise awareness of white armband day, and I encourage members to attend if they can. There will also be a national commemoration of the Srebrenica genocide in Glasgow on 10 July. I hope to see members at those important events.
I thank members for their very powerful contributions this afternoon. I think that those of us who had the honour and the privilege to go on the delegation to Bosnia will all agree that it was totally life-changing. It definitely was for me.
White armband day, which will be commemorated on Saturday 31 May, provides an opportunity to recognise and honour the victims of the atrocities in Prijedor and the surrounding areas. It represents the enforcement of a decree that was issued on the local radio that compelled non-Serb citizens to wear a white armband, segregating them simply for who they were.
At the UN’s International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, witnesses from Prijedor shared that
“life was very hard. Our movements were restricted. If you went to buy anything in a shop, you had to wear white armbands. On the windows of our houses and apartments, we had to hang out white flags.”
That slow process of dehumanisation singled out many non-Serb citizens and set in motion heinous campaigns of brutality, violence and ethnic cleansing. Violence in the region continued to escalate, including through concentration camps in the north-west, which were discovered and shared to a shocked world by journalists Ed Vulliamy and Penny Marshall in the early 1990s. In 1997, Ed Vulliamy described a camp in Omarska as a
“dark inferno of mutilation, starvation, torture and murder.”
Prijedor is the site of one of the largest mass graves in Bosnia, where the bones of several hundreds of people were unearthed. Thirty years later, across Bosnia, many mothers and wives have still not been reunited with the remains of their loved ones.
In March, I had the privilege of joining a delegation to Bosnia and Herzegovina with the charity Beyond Srebrenica. The delegation underlined the importance of standing up to hatred, of understanding and challenging the impact that prejudice can have, and of building a cohesive and resilient society. I travelled to Srebrenica and visited the cemetery in Potocari, which is the site of the graves of more than 8,000 men and boys.
There, we heard from survivors Nedžad Avdic and Almasa Salihovic, who shared the terror, destruction and violence that they had endured. As they told their experiences, it was like watching them relive every moment of terror that they had endured. It was a truly humbling experience. Despite the sheer inhumanity that they described, they and many others show remarkable resilience and commitment by returning to Srebrenica to preserve those memories and to challenge and confront those who deny them.
In the memorial centre, we saw hard-hitting real-life footage of young men—some of whom I would call boys, as they were the age of my son—who had been brutally beaten and were being carted on a truck like animals, before being lined up and shot. That is the footage that Michelle Thomson referred to as being used in the court case and that Paul O’Kane mentioned in his speech, too.
We saw shoes and other belongings that were left behind as people desperately attempted to flee to Tuzla, which was a journey that later became known as the death march.
Although the war is over, many of its scars remain. In 1984, Sarajevo hosted the winter Olympic games and, as part of the delegation’s guided tour, we visited the site of the old bobsleigh track that was used during the games. On our descent down to Sarajevo city, we saw built-up areas in which we were told snipers had been positioned. Although that was 30 years ago, the evidence of the war is still engrained in Sarajevo’s everyday life. All around Sarajevo, the streets are damaged by historical artillery and bullet marks, which are painted red in remembrance of those who lost their lives.
We heard reflections from ordinary people on the extraordinary methods that they use to protect themselves and their families, even to this day, 30 years later.
Although some wounds deepen with time, there are also remarkable illustrations of strength, resilience and hope. We were fortunate to be led by our guides Suvad and Sabina, who shared their raw personal experiences of the historical events with bravery and grace.
On our delegation, we visited many organisations. We had the honour of meeting the tour de force that is Bakhira Hasecic, who established the Association of Women Victims of War, which is a charity that brings together victims of sexual assault and holds perpetrators to account. We met representatives of Žene za Žene, or Women for Women, which was founded in Bosnia to help women who have been displaced by war. We met representatives of the International Commission on Missing Persons, which conducts DNA identifications and challenges denial as it continues, 30 years later, to find the remains of the 8,000 boys and men so that they can be buried by their families.
There was also a profound visit to the War Childhood Museum, which archives artefacts belonging to young children, encouraging us to confront truths from the past while instilling a sense of hope for a peaceful future.
We are indebted to Beyond Srebrenica for the power of work that it does across Scotland to educate about and commemorate the genocide. The delegation was an incredibly profound, moving and confronting experience that challenged us all to bring home what we had seen and experienced.
We must lead by example and remain ever vigilant. Days such as white armband day are crucial to ensuring that the grave consequences of the past are never forgotten and never repeated.
We are committed to combating all forms of hatred and prejudice, including through the delivery of our ambitious hate crime strategy. Preventative work that builds strong, respectful and cohesive communities can prevent the narratives that foster prejudice from taking hold. The First Minister’s gathering on strengthening and protecting democracy brought key members of our society together to agree a common approach to asserting the values of our country and to creating a society in which everyone can flourish.
Let us challenge anyone who would deny our values, and let us work co-operatively to stand against division. The Scottish Government will continue to do so.
That concludes the debate.
13:19 Meeting suspended.Previous
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