Srebrenica in its 26th year, but not only Srebrenica

Toward the end of the 20th century, in the very middle of Europe, a genocide was attempted against a people solely because of its religion and identity. This was despite the humanitarian sensibilities that formed after the Second World War. Moreover, it happened at the very time when "genocide denial laws" were being brought onto the agenda and enforced in an exaggerated manner, on the pretext of saying that such a thing must never happen again.

Europe can always be characterized as speaking grandly in this way and swallowing everything it says, but the most typical example of this must be Srebrenica. What made Alija Izetbegović exclaim "In Europe, at this time, Srebrenica!" was of course not that he had not expected such a thing from Europe. For a sage of his stature even to be astonished at such a civilized savagery was in fact not possible. For he knew Europe's racist nature, its spirit.

Twenty-six years have passed since the Srebrenica genocide. On 11 July, twenty-six years ago, in Srebrenica, which the UN had declared a safe area, the Dutch, the distinguished sons of the pure European race, who collected the weapons of the Bosniaks pursued by armed Serbs and handed them over to the Serbs, had of course drawn the necessary lessons of humanity from the discourses on the Jewish genocide. But they had taken the lesson as though it meant that they would never again turn a blind eye to anyone harming a hair of a Jew. When the Serb Chetniks, under the pretext "We are investigating war criminals, we will question the Bosniaks," demanded that the town's people be handed over to them, they did not hold back from handing them over, even though all the signs indicated that the Serbs would slaughter them. Even though the Bosniaks they had loaded onto buses, knowing what would happen, begged the UN soldiers not to hand them over to the Chetniks, and even though the sound of gunfire killing those sent earlier could be heard up ahead, the UN soldiers continued to transfer the Bosniaks to the site of the massacre.

Within a week, 8,372 Bosniaks were savagely slaughtered in Srebrenica under UN supervision. Their bodies were buried in mass graves. In order to avoid the investigations conducted after the war, the bodies of those slaughtered were dug out of their mass graves with shovels and moved elsewhere. Because the bodies were torn to pieces in the process, the body of a single person can be found in 4-5 separate mass graves identified later.

Every year, for the martyrs whose remains are found and brought together through DNA identification, both commemorations and funerals are held on 11 July. Thus a total of 6,652 people's bodies have been reached so far, identified and buried. Yesterday as well, a funeral was held for the 19 people found this year, on the occasion of the 26th anniversary commemoration. Because only the skull of one child could be found, only the skull was placed in his grave. The other parts of his body are probably in other, as yet undiscovered graves.

However, since the occasion has arisen, on the occasion of this year's 26th commemoration of the Srebrenica martyrs, it is necessary to draw attention to a politics at work to trivialize the whole of the Bosnian genocide, to make it ordinary and dilute its meaning. Indeed, while dwelling on Srebrenica, there arises a risk that the crimes against humanity committed every day for four years in Bosnia, each of them a Srebrenica in its own right, will remain in the shadows and become unimportant. Yet when genocide and Srebrenica come side by side, a shameless dilution can be displayed solely on the basis of the number of those killed. It is the shamelessness of saying "Can the death, the killing, of 8-9 thousand people amount to genocide?" and of brazenly placing the number ahead of the dimensions of the crime committed.

With the encouragement or the turning of a blind eye of the most advanced countries of civilized Europe, for four years the Serbs and Croats tried to destroy step by step the Bosniaks, their former neighbors, a people with whom they had lived together for centuries. Cities, Sarajevo first of all, were put under siege, and the entry of the most basic necessities was not permitted. Civilian life was brought to a complete standstill for years by fire opened on civilians by snipers from a distance.

Not only those who died in Srebrenica but the number of mass graves of those who died in other massacres exceeded a thousand. When a map of all the mass graves found after the war was drawn up, it was seen that all of them were in regions under Serb and Croat control. That not a single mass grave was found in any place where the Muslim Bosniaks lived or which was under their control is by itself more than enough to show the Muslim difference on this matter. This mass grave map should suffice as a lesson against the Islamophobic world that has lately taken to attributing violence and bigotry to Muslims.

A trap we wish to underline here is that all the serial massacres committed over four years are forgotten in the shadow of Srebrenica. Yet in this period, even in the UN's official records, at least 110 thousand Muslims were slaughtered. The Bosniaks' claim is that this figure is more than 200 thousand. Whatever it is, it is very clear that, in proportion to their population, this was an outright attempt at genocide. Srebrenica is perhaps the peak of this savagery, this genocide, but the crimes committed in Bosnia are not limited to it.

A second trap is of course a defense argument resorted to by the Serb side. In this argument an attempt is made to present the event as nothing more than a mutual killing between different ethnic groups. Indeed, Naser Orić, the corps commander of the Bosniaks in Srebrenica during the events, was arrested on the charge of being responsible for massacres he allegedly committed against the Serbs and was handed over to The Hague. But Orić was acquitted in The Hague of all the charges attributed to him, because no evidence was found that he had killed a single civilian. By contrast, during the Bosnian war he did indeed kill plenty of Serb Chetniks in armed clashes.

The perpetrators of genocide may not have been able to draw a legal result from this, but it is seen that they have not held back from resorting to this argument at length in order to secure a moral and rhetorical advantage.