jpost.com

Israelis to teach Serbs how to say ‘shalom’

8-10 minutes

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Serbia’s oldest and largest institute of higher learning, Belgrade University, announced earlier this month that students in its Faculty of Philology would be able to study Hebrew language starting October 1.

The decision to accredit the study of Hebrew and Jewish culture in the country was made by the Serbian national educational accreditation body and with the full support of Prof. Ljiljana Markovic, dean of the Faculty of Philology. The first professor to teach Hebrew at Belgrade University will be Prof. Gideon Greif, a historian and Holocaust researcher from Israel, who was named a full professor at the University of Belgrade. Greif will also continue teaching about the World War II-era Ustasha-run death camp Jasenovac, as detailed in his book Jasenovac – the Auschwitz of the Balkans, as part of his course on the Holocaust at the Ono Academic College in Israel.

Study of Hebrew in Balkans after World War II

The decision to teach Hebrew to Serbs may seem confusing at first glance due to the country’s Jewish demographics. For starters, the amount of Jews who remained alive in the entire former Yugoslavia after the World War II numbered just 14,000 and about half of them immigrated to the newly founded State of Israel. Following the break-up of the former Yugoslavia, Serbia maintained a Jewish community of less than 3,000 mostly elderly Jews. Many of the remaining Jewish youth took the war as a sign to move to Israel or somewhere else safer abroad and try their luck elsewhere.

However, the informal teaching of Hebrew in the former Yugoslavia already began in 1974 in under the auspices of Rabbi Cadik Danon – the former chief rabbi of Yugoslavia and a Jasenovac survivor.

Danon organized three groups of Hebrew courses that were held once a week on Mondays, says local Jewish historian Oliver Klajn. More advanced students were encouraged to help those who were just starting or were slow learners. A strong sense of solidarity existed among participants of the Hebrew lessons that were held in the community and willingness to help those left behind.

Five years after the course began, a strong connection was established with the World Hebrew Union (Brit Ivrit Olamit). Guests from that organization came to Belgrade and financially supported the educational endeavor. Soon Hebrew courses started in Novi Sad, Zagreb and elsewhere across the former Yugoslavia.

During the 1990s civil war, the Hebrew courses stopped, according to Klajn, but were soon renewed in the Jewish community of Belgrade. This includes the publication of a Hebrew-Serbian dictionary by Ana Shomlo, written in 1993. Another Hebrew-Serbian dictionary was published in 2001 by Zeljko Stanojevic. Today, an organization in Belgrade called “Center for Hebrew language and literature” teaches the subject. However, the move by the University of Belgrade to teach Hebrew is the first time the study of the language has received such high-level interest in Serbian academia and from state institutions.

Pact of brotherhood signed in blood

At least 80% of the Yugoslav Jewish population during World Word II was murdered along with more than 700,000 Orthodox Serbs killed by German and Ustasha fascists. This fact sealed a pact of brotherhood in blood between the two victim nations.

The “pact of brotherhood” isn’t just some Balkan poetry. It’s what you hear every day on the streets of Belgrade and elsewhere in Serbia. Serbs who are knowledgeable of their own history are quick to point out that the Jasenovac death camp alone, located in present day Croatia, was the size of 250 soccer fields – 2.5 times the size of Auschwitz. It also witnessed the brutality of 57 methods of torture, humiliation and execution for a conservatively estimated 750,000 inmates who never made it out alive. Serbian bystanders mention Jasenovac even to any foreign looking tourists willing to listen for a bit.

However, this expression of brotherhood among victims only expressed itself after the fall of Josip Broz Tito. Before then, his socialist regime sought to paper over ethnic differences from the past and ignore the psychic and physical toll the war had on Yugoslavia’s different ethnic groups. A path that left a festering wound in the heart Yugoslavia, and turned deadly in the 1990s. Much like the situation with the Palestinian territories.

How cultural heritage becomes realpolitik

This strong belief in shared victimhood in history’s wrongs appears to have gone both ways with Israel’s past non-interference and support for the Serbian position in the wars of the 1990s when Yugoslavia broke up. As a close US ally and financial dependent, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and the Serbian-Jewish Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Minister Tommy Lapid surprised many by breaking the Western consensus. Unlike the global hyperpower at the time, Israel acknowledged Serb grievances that lay at the roots of the conflicts in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo as well. It also supposedly found backchannel means to assist those Serbs opposed to their disenfranchisement in their own historical homelands.

20th century cultural outlook

One shared misfortune which has brought the Israeli and Serbian outlook closer together has been the experience of repeatedly being subject to partition by larger foreign powers flying the face of justice and historical rights.

“Many Serbs I have spoken with are grateful for Israel’s principled refusal to recognize the independence of Kosovo, which is the heartland of Serbian history and the cradle of the Serbian nation,” says Michael Freund, the founder of the Israel-Serbia Friendship Association. Freund also served as deputy communications director in the Prime Minister’s Office under Benjamin Netanyahu in the 1990s. “They [Serbs] often tell me that, ‘Kosovo is our Jerusalem.’ I believe that the establishment of a Hebrew faculty [at the University of Belgrade] represents a tangible step towards developing greater understanding between the two countries.”

Ensuring continued Hebrew education in Serbia

Continued education in Hebrew and Jewish culture in the Balkans will require the regular exchange of native Israelis (ideally of Balkan heritage) with Serbian Jews and non-Jews to Israel. Otherwise, a critical mass of knowledgeable individuals regarding this shared heritage would be lacking in both countries.

The academic starting point for this exchange in Israel will be at Ono Academic College and will involve four other faculties of the University of Belgrade: the faculty of law, teaching, medicine and physical education. Also included will be the Erasmus Programme – a student exchange mechanism for EU students.

Serb-Jewish connections through history

The doors for scientific, cultural and educational cooperation have in general opened following four years of close working ties between Serbia and Israel due to the efforts of Serbian Ambassador Ljiljana Niksic and Prof. Greif.

The government backers of this cultural endeavor emphasized that in their view the special historic and spiritual connections between the between Serbs and the Jewish people began when Saint Sava came twice on pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1229 and 1334.

“Sava was an heir to the Serbian throne who gave up his title to become a monk to help serve the establishment of Orthodox monasteries in the Balkans and the Holy Land,” Niksic said. To this day, Saint Sava is viewed as the protector of the Serb people.

“His status among Serbians is legendary but completely unknown to most Jews and Israelis,” added Niksic.

Words have meaning. Perhaps if Saint Sava’s trips to and from Jerusalem are the path to “learning” shalom in two volatile parts of the world.

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sputniknews.com

Kosovo: Land of the American Dream, Where Clinton and Albright Are Still in Power

Sputnik

6-7 minutes

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The former US President and Secretary of State, "the heroes of Kosovo" who have monuments and streets named after them in Pristina, have come to congratulate the Kosovo Albanians they saved from the "barbarism of the Serbs" 20 years ago.

According to them, Kosovo is a prosperous civilised country, which is an example of the triumph of democracy and economic well-being; basically a Disneyland. What do Kosovo Serbs who are "lucky enough" to live in this fabulous land think about this?

Sputnik has visited Pristina and Gracanica, a Serbian enclave near Pristina, and looked at how people work and live there.

On 12 June, Pristina celebrated 20 years since NATO peacekeeping forces first entered Kosovo. Ex-US President Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, General Wesley Clark, who commanded NATO forces in Kosovo during the Alliance's aggression against Yugoslavia in 1999, as well as former Croatian President Stipe Mesic, and former leaders of the terrorist Kosovo Liberation Army Hashim Thaçi and Ramush Haradinaj gathered on Skanderbeg Square [George Kastrioti, the national hero of Albania, leader of the anti-Ottoman uprising in the 15th century], former Karageorge Square [Georgiy Petrovic, the Serbian national hero who led the First Serbian uprising against the Ottoman Empire at the beginning of the 19th century].

© Sputnik / Dejan Simic

The flags of America and Kosovo in Pristina

The current Prime Minister of Albania, Edie Rama, and US Assistant Secretary of State Matthew Palmer, who came to congratulate the citizens of the self-proclaimed republic, either as a representative of the current Trump administration or as a deep state representative, also used this "time machine" to travel back to the Clinton era.

The leaders of the partially recognised Kosovo and their distinguished foreign guests have painted a picture of the fantastic prosperity and progress of "Europe's youngest state". The American guests solemnly called Kosovo a champion of democracy, human rights and multi-ethnicity, noting its "incredible progress"; they also called Kosovo one of the "few European countries demonstrating economic growth" and noted that Kosovo has become "a full member of the family of civilised nations".

© Sputnik / Dejan Simic

Poster in Pristina

Madeleine Albright was awarded an order and given a monument in Pristina [according to some observant Serbs, the monument very much looks like the Tito monument]; then she said that the forces that were fighting for democracy and human rights during the 1999 NATO operation had defeated the "barbarians". The monument to Bill Clinton has been in the capital of the self-proclaimed republic for 10 years already, since 2009; one of the city's central boulevards has been named after him. And now he also has the Kosovo Order of Freedom. "You are our hero", Kosovo's President Thaçi told Clinton while awarding him the order.

© Sputnik / Dejan Simic

Albanian flag in Pristina

"You'd better not ask me, anyway, I can't say what I want in front of the camera..." a passerby said when asked what he thought about Clinton, Albright, Clarke and Palmer's words about how lucky he was to live in Kosovo. Frankly, Sputnik faced more than one refusal to comment on the state of things in the province because of the inability to choose words fit for use in the media.

"Today, people gathered in Pristina who contributed to the fact that the terrorist organisation has turned into a legal authority [of course, Serbia, Russia, China and other countries that don't recognise Kosovo don't consider it legal]. Clinton and Albright are the mother and father of Thaçi and Haradinaj", one of the people in Gracanica's streets told Sputnik.

"Albright and Clinton should come to the countryside to see how Albanians live, not to mention us, the Serbs. They have caused us tremendous harm, and haven't done any good to them; but they don't dare to speak about it. I know some old-time Albanians, who I was at school with and played football with; it's them that I'm telling you about. I think they would hardly agree that they live in a prosperous country", another passerby said.

Another Gracanica resident argued that ordinary Kosovo Albanians who have nothing to do with the authorities and criminals, which, according to him, are the same thing in Kosovo, live no better and sometimes even worse than Kosovo Serbs. When asked about the many new houses that can be seen on the road from Kosovska Mitrovica to Pristina, he said that almost all of them were empty:

"Go this way and see. Everywhere the blinds are down; everyone has gone abroad".

Some of Sputnik's interlocutors are wondering what "these murderers who bombed us" want with the Serbian land:

"Let them take care of their country, and not help the Albanians. They are real killers. There's nothing from democracy, not even a letter. This is all a lie. What democracy are we talking about? No one was imprisoned [Not quite so, several minor Kosovo Liberation Army members were imprisoned by the Hague Tribunal for a short period of time and were released early]. Thaçi's and Haradinaj's arms are blood-stained up to their elbows…", one woman said.

Many Gracanica residents wonder how there can be a multi-ethnic society with such pressure on Kosovo Serbs, who are literally being pushed out of their native land by all means.

Even very young people in a café, claiming that they aren't interested in politics and, apparently, born after the 1999 bombing, consider Clinton and Albright's visit a provocation for the Serbs.

"Why have they come? Well, probably, to share the money", a young expert from a Gracanica coffee house suggested.

 

washingtonexaminer.com

A Clinton war crime, 20 years later

by Tiana Lowe  | June 11, 2019 02:26 PM

6-7 minutes

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Twenty years ago today, ash settled over Serbia, then a republic of Yugoslavia, in the wake of more than two months of continued bombings by NATO. The campaign had been initiated by President Bill Clinton. NATO acted without the authorization of the United Nations. Its states justified what they called "Operation Noble Anvil" as a humanitarian operation to respond to the Kosovo War.

Of all the atrocities levied by the Clintons, perhaps none is more unjustified, brutal, and lasting as his Serbian legacy.

The Kosovo War featured two sparring, violent sides with legitimate claims on the land in question. Kosovo had been a historical homeland of the Serbs, one from which Ottoman colonists had sought to purge them. Neighboring Albanians, aligned with the Ottomans, soon migrated to Kosovo, where a Serbian population ebbed but persisted nonetheless. Once Serbia had liberated itself from Ottoman conquest and then Habsburg rule, the newly independent principality of Serbia pushed many Albanians out of Kosovo toward the end of the 19th century. Kosovo remained a part of the Kingdom of Serbia, then communist Yugoslavia, all the way up until the Kosovo War.

Both sides committed ample atrocities, as they had through history. The Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts found that Serbs in Kosovo in the 1980s were subjected to the worst "physical, political, legal and cultural genocide" since the Nazis and Axis powers invaded the region in 1941. Ethnic tensions escalated over the next decade, coming to a head with the emergence of the ethno-nationalist Kosovo Liberation Army. The State Department deemed it a terrorist organization in 1998. That year, the KLA began to attack Serbian forces and the war broke out in full. The Yugoslavian crackdown on Albanians matched and at times exceeded the KLA's brutality. Clinton decided to align with the KLA. One year later, he bombed the Serbs.

Clinton's defense secretary hypothesized on national television that Serbs had "murdered" 100,000 Albanians. In reality, that number was likely between 4,000 and 5,000 over the course of a year-and-a-half-long war, and certainly not more than 11,000 — nowhere near the 100,000 figure used to gin up support for a war in which Clinton authorized bombings that killed hundreds of Serb civilians.

As a purely legal affair, the NATO bombing was an embarrassment. Amnesty International considers it a war crime. The U.N. Security Council did not vote to permit it as required under its charter for invasions of sovereign nations. As a "humanitarian" affair, the Kosovo War was a catastrophe. NATO intentionally bombed the headquarters of Radio Television Serbia — a literal, physical attack on civilian journalists sanctioned by the United States. We bombed Belgrade's Chinese embassy, killing three journalists and Chinese nationals in the process. More than two months after the bombings began, Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic accepted NATO's terms of surrender. By end of the bombings, NATO had killed some 500 Yugoslav civilians.

In the decade following the end of the Kosovo War, NATO and the U.N. kept a presence in Kosovo, transitioning to eventual independence, which it maintains to this day.

All's well that ends well, right? Sure, Clinton's campaign was a grave abuse of imperial power — intervention in a sovereign nation not for any diplomatic or strategic purposes, but simply to show we could do it. But perhaps all of it was worthwhile if it ended ethnic tensions, even if it did so based on a lie that the violence was coming solely from one side.

In the aftermath of the "liberation," Kosovo expelled hundreds of thousands of Serbs and Kosovar minorities and murdered hundreds. In one particularly brutal case, an anti-Serb pogrom in 2004 displaced thousands, burned hundreds of homes and Orthodox churches, and killed dozens.

Just don't call it ethnic cleansing.

Today, Kosovo has Europe's youngest population and its highest unemployment rate. Three out of five Kosovars are unemployed, its people remain ethnically stratified and its minorities terrorized. Kosovo's currently waging a trade war on Serbia, instituting a 100% tariff on all Serbian imports.

For its part, Serbia has recovered somewhat. Yugoslav officials arrested Milosevic for corruption shortly after the war. The government, economy, and culture have all strengthened, but there's one interesting side effect of NATO intervention.

Although Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union were both communist powers, rulers Josip Tito of the former and Josef Stalin of the latter notoriously despised each other. Soviet forces at one point threatened outright war against the Balkan nation. Yet when the world coalesced to destroy Serbia's capital, Serbia found a friend in the newly established Russian Federation. To this day, Russia remains the sole vote on the U.N. Security Council standing against the interests of the Kosovo government.

I visited Belgrade and its many ruins last year and was surprised to find that Vladimir Putin was a bit of folk hero there. He appears on tourist shirts in the bustling Kalemegdan Park and the Serbs who I spoke with were quite vocal in their support for him. When I asked about the Clintons, they made sure to express their ire with just one stipulation: our old president, they emphasize, was a monster. But they may just find themselves falling for President Trump.

 

How to revisit the EU’s framework for international mediation engagements

blogs.lse.ac.uk

Time for an update: How to revisit the EU's framework for international mediation engagements

10-12 minutes

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In 2009 the EU adopted the Concept on Strengthening EU Mediation and Dialogue Capacities, its first-ever strategic document focusing specifically on mediation. Ten years later, the EU's concept and practices of mediation need an update, write Julian Bergmann, Toni Haastrup, Arne Niemann and Richard Whitman.

The first two years of implementation of the EU Global Strategy focused on advancing the EU's security and defence capacities as well as its civilian crisis management missions through the adoption of the 2018 Civilian CSDP Compact. While this prioritisation was reasonable, it is now time to focus on the EU's diplomatic tools to prevent and resolve violent conflicts in order to achieve the 'full cycle implementation' of the EU Global Strategy. In this context, the tenth anniversary of the Concept on Strengthening EU Mediation and Dialogue Capacities provides an opportunity to reflect on the EU's role as an international mediator. Drawing on research findings from the EU as International Mediator Research Network, we identify entry points for a revision of the EU's framework for international mediation and more effective deployment of mediation as a tool of conflict prevention and crisis management.

Reflecting on the EU's mediation practices

To increase and streamline its crisis response capacities while sharpening its profile as an international mediator, the EU launched the Concept on Mediation under the Swedish Council Presidency in 2009. The Concept was the first EU policy framework to deal exclusively with the EU's role as a mediator in international conflicts and has become the main reference point for EU mediation activities.

In the ten years since the development of the Concept, the EU has systematically strengthened its institutional capacities for mediation, including through the establishment of a mediation support team within the European External Action Service. The EU has also engaged in mediation activities in various conflicts contexts, including the Kosovo-Serbia conflict, Ukraine, Egypt, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Yemen, and Myanmar. The scope of EU mediation activities and the diverse settings within which they take place are quite broad. The EU has acted as a direct lead or co-mediator in peace negotiations, but it has also played an important role in providing mediation support in terms of funding and operational support to international and regional organisations as well as NGOs and local civil society organisations.

EU facilitated dialogue meeting between Kosovo and Serbia in 2013, Credit: EEAS (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

As part of its mediation activities, the EU relies on an impressive diplomatic infrastructure, funding resources, and networks to provide offices, enhance communication and information exchange, and facilitate agreement on joint goals between conflict parties, priorities and strategies that are key resources for mediation engagements. These resources provide the EU with significant leverage that it can employ in its efforts to move conflict parties towards agreements. In its Eastern neighbourhood and the Western Balkans, the EU has been able to use its contractual relations with countries in conflict as incentive to progress in mediation processes.

Yet, the EU's experiences in international mediation are diverse, suggesting that there are also limitations to the EU's effectiveness as a mediator and its impact on the settlement of conflicts. Research findings show that when the EU is considered as a biased mediator, as in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the EU has been unable to use its leverage effectively to yield substantive results towards progress. In short, the EU's strength in terms of leverage does not guarantee the EU's success in mediating political settlements between conflicts parties, which is also demonstrated by the current deadlock in Kosovo-Serbia relations.

Version 2.0: towards a renewed strategic framework for EU mediation

Based on the EU's experiences within the last decade, we argue that the EU's approach to mediation needs revisiting after 10 years of developing practices. Specifically, priorities should be set out as follows in a new strategic framework that updates the Concept.

First, an update to the Concept should develop an overarching and systematic political strategy for EU mediation, both for the EU's own engagements and for its support to international and regional organisations in their mediation endeavours. Although the 2009 Concept provided a useful initial framework for showcasing the EU's commitments and highlighting intended areas of strength, it is mainly descriptive. To fully realise the EU's potential as international mediator, we need a substantive debate and strategic directions on where the EU should set its priorities in mediating conflicts and providing mediation support to other actors.

Second, an updated framework for EU mediation should include an Action Plan that sets out clear guidelines for EU mediators, institutions and member states' engagement in crises. Although the 2009 Concept described different mediation roles EU actors can play, it is sparse on offering specific guidance to EU mediators. The Action Plan should also clarify how the EU member states can be better integrated into the EU's mediation efforts. There is already clear evidence that member states have played an important role in supporting mediation efforts undertaken by EU institutions. There, however, needs to be more strategic guidance on how to feed member states' resources and expertise into the EU's mediation efforts, including better coordination and coherence among member states in their approaches to specific conflicts.

Third, the EU must include gender perspectives into its mediation architecture and practices to ensure truly inclusive processes and outcomes. Despite a commitment to gender mainstreaming, this has not always been evident in the EU's mediation efforts. Given renewed commitment to gender issues in the Global Strategy and the adoption of the 2018 EU Strategic Approach on Women, Peace and Security (WPS) there is the opportunity for a greater and more purposeful integration of gender perspectives into the EU's mediation apparatus.

This also links to the need to make a clear link between the EU's mediation activities and its efforts to implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Mediation can be a key instrument for the EU to contribute to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16, which focuses on the promotion of peaceful and inclusive societies, providing access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels. However, until now no clear link between SDG 16 and the EU's mediation framework exists, which is why an updated mediation concept should firmly establish the link between mediation activities and the EU's contribution towards sustainable development.

Finally, the EU needs to clarify the role and status of mediation within its broader toolbox for external action. Since the adoption of the 2009 Concept, the EU has made considerable steps towards forging integrated approaches to crises. However, only if the integrated approach spells out both the distinctiveness and connection points of mediation in relation to other EU instruments of crisis prevention and conflict management, can mediation take a prominent and permanent place within the EU's foreign policy toolbox.

This list of priorities is certainly not exhaustive. Nevertheless, the EU should take the tenth anniversary of its mediation concept as an opportunity to provide its mediation activities new impetus. It is now time for the EU to consider how to lift mediation to the centre of its foreign policy in order to fully realise the EU's potential as a power for peace in various conflicts around the world.

Please read our comments policy before commenting.

Note: This article gives the views of the authors, not the position of EUROPP – European Politics and Policy or the London School of Economics.

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About the authors

Julian Bergmann – Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik
Julian Bergmann is a Post-Doctoral Researcher at the German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik. His research interests revolve around EU foreign, security and development policy, the security-development nexus in EU external action, and the EU's role as international mediator. He has extensively published on EU mediation in leading disciplinary journals.

Toni Haastrup – University of Kent
Toni Haastrup is a Senior Lecturer in International Security at the University of Kent and a Deputy Director of its Global Europe Centre. Her current research interests center on the gender dynamics and processes of institutional transformation within regional security institutions. Her major publications include Charting Transformation through Security: Contemporary EU-Africa Relations (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013); Regionalizing Global Crises. She is an Editor in Chief of JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies

Arne Niemann – Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz
Arne Niemann is Professor of International Politics and Jean Monnet Professor of European Integration Studies at the Department of Political Science of the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany. His research has focused on European integration processes and European Union politics and policies, especially the EU's external relations. He has published widely in this area, including on the EU's mediation roles in international conflicts.

Richard Whitman – University of Kent
Richard Whitman is Professor of Politics and International Relations in the School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Kent, Associate Fellow at Chatham House and an Academic Fellow at the European Policy Centre. His current research interests include the external relations and foreign and security and defence policies of the EU, and the governance and future priorities of the EU. He is also an Editor-in-Chief of JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies.

 

Canadian parliament to vote on criminalizing Srebrenica genocide denial

 

Dear friends, 

I am addressing this to all English-speaking Serbs I know, as well as to non-Serbs with an interest in the issue.

I have just been informed by associates in Canada that the Srebrenica genocide denial law is coming up for a parliamentary vote in Ottawa. Given the climate of opinion, unless this bill is strongly and competently opposed, there is little doubt about the outcome. 

Here is basic information about that parliamentary project:

https://petitions.ourcommons.ca/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-1837

Petition presented to the House of Commons on May 29, 2019 (Petition  
No. 421-03975)

Here is how the measure's sponsor Brian Masse put the matter before his colleagues :

Madam Speaker, on the eve of White Armband Day, it is time to reflect  
on the genocide denial that continues to plague our world. Petition  
e-1837, which has obtained 2,134 signatures, is an opportunity to  
examine the possible actions and initiatives that the government could  
take to combat this horrific behaviour.

The House unanimously declared April as "Genocide Remembrance,  
Condemnation and Awareness Month" and named genocides, which have been recognized by Canada's House of Commons, including the Srebrenica genocide.

It is time for the government to extend resources to commemorate the  
victims and survivors of genocide, educate the public and to take  
specific action to counteract genocide denial, a pernicious form of  
hate which reopens wounds and reinvigorates division. Truth is  
justice; honesty is the path to reconciliation and peace.

https://www.ourcommons.ca/DocumentViewer/en/42-1/house/sitting-422/hansard#Int-10659620  

 

I was contacted about this by Canadian Serbs roughly two months ago when the Bosnian Muslim petition was inserted in parliamentary procedure. They were quite concerned and indignant at that time and started consultations on what might be done about it. However, since they are Serbs their enthusiasm was short-lived. A few weeks after that they told me that the Bosniak initiative was going nowhere, that nothing would come of it, and that therefore we did not have to undertake anything in particular to stop it. I was left unconvinced by their arguments since I know the Serbian mentality rather well, but there was little I could do without assistance from people in Canada. One of the ideas that were floated in that brief period of potential activism was to hold a conference on Srebrenica in Toronto. A few of them, to their credit, continued working on that in spite of the desertion of the rest of the crew, so something is being done at this moment to at least organize the conference to inform the Canadian public about Srebrenica. 

So the situation we have now is that they are shocked and horrified by something that was perfectly predictable. Bosnian Muslims are not Serbs, or at least they claim that they don't want to be, and in fact many of their cultural traits have become distinctly non-Serbian. One of the admirable traits they have acquired is persistence. Unlike Serbian Serbs, they do not give up. So it comes as no surprise to me that they have been mobilizing parliamentary support in Ottawa and quietly pushing their project so that soon it will be up for a vote. When, precisely, nobody knows, but now we do know for sure that it will be voted upon by the Canadian parliament. 

We need to formulate a coherent strategy to oppose this legislative travesty. To that end, I have suggested the following approaches. First, opposition to this measure should be framed in terms of a freedom of speech and conscience issue, not whether or not genocide occurred in Srebrenica. The Canadian constitution and international conventions to which Canada is a party guarantee freedom of speech and conscience, which includes scholarly research. The Srebrenica genocide denial law would not change anybody's mind about Srebrenica, but by suppressing public discourse it would constitute a serious infringement of Canadian citizens' constitutional rights. That is the issue of principle that all can agree on and that is what should be stressed in talking to Canadian legislators. A legislator is free to think whatever he or she wants about Srebrenica, including that it was genocide. But for Canadian citizens of all backgrounds, who also happen to be legislators, their fellow-citizens' freedom of expression should take absolute priority over the agenda of a foreign lobby. A legislator who thinks that Srebrenica was genocide can still vote against this measure on freedom of speech and conscience grounds. 

Secondly, the law is manifestly discriminatory in relation to the Canadian-Serbian community. I am unaware of a single Canadian Serb who thinks that what occurred in Srebrenica was genocide. This law would have a discriminatory effect on the ability of the Canadian Serbian community as such to enjoy the freedom of expression guaranteed by Canada's constitution. As Canadian Serbs they would be obliged to either maintain public silence about an issue of vital interest to their nation and community, or if they speak up in accordance with the dictates of their conscience they would have to face criminal prosecution. In Canada there is an elaborate system for filing complaints against parties deemed to have committed discrimination on religious, ethnic, or racial grounds. Those mechanisms must be taken advantage of by the Serbian community immediately. I therefore proposed that discrimination complaints be filed against all members of parliament who are sponsoring this bill, with a message thus being sent to the rest as well that should they vote for this measure they will also be targeted for committing a discriminatory act. 

Thirdly, I think that Canadian Serbs should explore forming alliances with other groups who have a natural interest in the defeat of this bill. The Jewish community immediately comes to mind. Canada does not have a Holocaust denial law protecting the dignity of six million victims, yet it is contemplating a massive curtailment of its citizens' civil rights in a matter involving 8,000 unverified deaths. That is a degradation and mockery of the Jewish community. But it gets even worse. In the Tolimir judgment in 2012, the Hague Tribunal ruled that the killing of three individuals in the nearby Muslim enclave of Zepa (which is part of the same conceptual package with Srebrenica) constituted genocide. That was allegedly because those individuals were endowed with such importance within the community of Zepa that as a result of their demise the community was rendered unviable, hence subjected to genocide. Denying this absurd and tortuously reasoned finding of the Hague Tribunal that genocide occurred in Zepa (that I am certain no member of the Canadian parliament had ever even heard of) by operation of the projected denial law would also incur criminal liability on the part of the speaker. That is the absurd level to which this matter has degenerated. I think that there must be sane segments within the Jewish community in Canada that would clearly see this point and join us in opposing this odious measure. 

Fourth, I would go full speed ahead with the projected Srebrenica conference in Toronto in September. As I have informed my Canadian Serb friends, should the law be adopted prior to that, as an American citizen I will have no problem saying at the conference or in a public square in Toronto that Srebrenica was not genocide. I look forward to being detained by the Canadian authorities in order that they would have to start proceedings against me that ultimately would lead to the testing of the constitutionality of this law before the Canadian supreme court. 

These are the ideas that immediately come to mind. Please give this some thought and let me know what you think we should do. 

 

Stephen Karganovic

President, Srebrenica Historical Project