By David J. Scheffer* – Council on Foreign Relations
This month marks the thirtieth anniversary of the killing of thousands of Bosnian Muslims, the first genocide in Europe since the Holocaust. Yet alongside global commemorations, denial persists.
The killings at Srebrenica marked the most infamous episode of a yearslong war that killed an estimated one hundred thousand people and displaced half the Bosnian population. The leading perpetrators of the genocide during the Bosnian War have finally been brought to justice, yet genocide denial continues to disinform many in the region. Much of the international community has failed to absorb the lessons of Srebrenica, contributing to the uphill battle that constitutes genocide prevention elsewhere in the world today.
What happened at Srebrenica?
Since 1993, Srebrenica had served as a UN-protected “safe area” for Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) fleeing Bosnian Serb forces in other parts of the country. On July 6, 1995, Bosnian Serb forces began shelling Srebrenica. Days later, on July 11, Bosnian Serb forces, led by General Ratko Mladić, entered the enclave.
By July 12, the Bosniak population had fled to the UN peacekeeping compound in Potočari north of Srebrenica, experiencing horrific conditions. Men and boys were separated from the nearly thirty thousand women, children, and elderly men being expelled from Potočari. Thousands of other men and boys fleeing through the forests were captured and detained. The mass killings then commenced and lasted through July 17, with sporadic killings continuing until early August. The lightly armed 450-soldier Dutch UN peacekeeping force failed to stop any of the Bosnian Serb detainment and killing operations and were not permitted to leave the enclave until July 21. Within one week, up to eight thousand Bosniak men and boys were killed or still missing.
Why was the Srebrenica massacre a genocide?
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) established in one of its casesthat, “by killing all of the military aged men, the Bosnian Serb forces effectively destroyed the community of the Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica as such and eliminated all likelihood that it could ever reestablish itself on that territory.”
The legal criteria for genocide are found in the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide [PDF] (Genocide Convention) and in the statute and jurisprudence of the ICTY and its successor, the International Residual Mechanism of Criminal Tribunals. The ICTY and Residual Mechanism cases established that the Bosniaks of Srebrenica were a substantial part of the country’s Bosniak population and qualified as one of the categories of protected groups—national, racial, religious, ethnic—that could be targeted for genocide.
The ICTY and Residual Mechanism brought to justice seven of the Bosnian Serb architects of the Srebrenica genocide. Five of these men demonstrated the specific intent to commit genocide at Srebrenica, meaning that the only reasonable inference based on the evidence was that they intended to kill every able-bodied Bosniak male from Srebrenica. They were also convicted of conspiracy to commit genocide or participation in a “joint criminal enterprise.”The two Bosnian Serb leaders convicted of aiding and abetting genocide acted with the knowledge that they were assisting other leaders who had the specific intent to commit genocide.
The ICTY and Residual Mechanism also found that five of the perpetrators committed the genocidal act of causing serious bodily or mental harm to the Bosniaks who were detained and then led to execution sites. The forced removal of thousands of women, children, and some elderly men from Srebrenica also factored into the genocide convictions.
In its 2007 judgment in Bosnia v. Serbia [PDF], the International Court of Justice concluded that genocide had occurred in Srebrenica and held that Serbia violated the Genocide Convention by failing to prevent the genocide by its ally, the Bosnian Serbs, and failing to cooperate with the ICTY.
Who was convicted of genocide and where are they now?
Serving lengthy prison sentences today following their appeal judgments are former Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadžić on the Isle of Wight off the southern coast of England, Major General Radislav Krstić in Estonia, and Lieutenant Colonel Vujadin Popović in Germany. Mladić—who was finally captured in northern Serbia in May 2011— is serving his sentence at the UN Detention Unit in The Hague. Mladić’s lawyers recently sought his release [PDF] on humanitarian grounds after he was diagnosed with a terminal illness, but no decision has yet been made on the matter.
Former Bosnian Serb Assistant Commander Zdravko Tolimir, Second Lieutenant Drago Nikolić, and Colonel Ljubiša Beara died as imprisoned war criminals shortly after their convictions for genocide at Srebrenica.
Slobodan Milošević, president of Serbia following the breakup of Yugoslavia, was indicted by the ICTY on the charge of genocide at, among other places, Srebrenica. However, his trial was aborted at a late stage following his death in March 2006.Milošević, who directly dealt with Karadžić and Mladić, was indicted for supporting the Bosnian Serbs with an intent to destroy the Bosniak population in whole or in part. At trial, evidence emerged that Milošević knew in advance of a plan to commit genocide at Srebrenica.
What steps could U.S. authorities have taken to prevent the Srebrenica genocide?
For months prior to the genocide, the United States and other major governments had struggled over two military plans for Bosnia. One was to withdraw UNPROFOR, the UN peacekeeping force in Bosnia, under cover of a temporary NATO military deployment and essentially abandon the Bosniaks to fight on. The other was to deploy a NATO or UN-led Rapid Reaction Force (RRF) to support UNPROFOR’s continued presence and enable it to fulfill its humanitarian mandate, including in Srebrenica. The latter plan was gaining steam.
Yet the international community’s failures in Srebrenica long preceded the genocide. A funding fight delayed plans for any RRF deployment. The necessary helicopters and NATO soldiers were also not positioned as planned. UNPROFOR denied approval for air strikes requested by the Dutch peacekeepers as the Bosnian Serb forces approached. When the forces assaulted the Srebrenica enclave in early July, Washington saw no credible military option to deter it.The United States had ignored the warning signs from the enclave—the rising death toll in Sarajevo in June 1995 appeared more urgent than the plight of the safe areas and much of Washington’s attention had shifted to the defense of the capital city. The Bosnian Serb blockage of humanitarian convoys to Srebrenica and two other safe areas that month should have been seen as a military tactic to isolate these communities, rather than as an isolated logistical challenge to overcome.
When it became known that thousands of men and boys had vanished after being rounded up, the possibility that they were destined for extermination should have immediately activated a Western response. The United States and its allies ought to have at least threatened to train devastating NATO air power on Bosnian Serb targets. Karadžić and Mladić, the top Bosnian Serb leaders most directly engaged in the action, should have been personally warned by Washington and NATO not to kill Srebrenica’s detained men and boys. Instead, the fate of the Dutch peacekeepers at Srebrenica seized more attention than that of the enclave’s civilians in those early hours of the crisis.
Tragically, along with the rest of the world, policymakers in Washington did not become aware of killings that would constitute genocide at Srebrenica until they had stopped. Finding the missing victims, in mass graves and elsewhere, took time and evidence of bodies continued to be discovered for years thereafter.
Why does genocide denial persist in the Balkans?
Despite the overwhelming evidence of genocide at Srebrenica, widespread genocide denial persists at the highest levels in Serbia, Croatia, and Republika Srpska, the ethnic Serb sector of Bosnia Herzegovina where Srebrenica is located. For nationalist politicians, fomenting genocide denial is a convenient way to stoke ethnic tensions, energize voters, and maintain their grip on power.
Among the denialists are Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić, senior Serb official Miodrag Linta, and Croatian President Zoran Milanović. Milorad Dodik, the president of Republika Srpska, has been the most vociferous denialist of the genocide, calling it “a fabricated myth” and “the greatest deception of the twentieth century.” Genocide denial was outlawed in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2021, and in 2024, the UN General Assembly condemned “any denial of the Srebrenica genocide as a historical event.” Yet Bosnian Serb activists and politicians continue their campaign against the truth.
What are the lessons on genocide prevention from Srebrenica?
While convictions for the Srebrenica genocide constitute a landmark achievement in international criminal justice over the last three decades, they alone cannot prevent a future genocide elsewhere in the world. Timing is everything in genocide prevention, and the foremost lesson to draw from Srebrenica is to seek and analyze the warning signs and to act rapidly to prevent such atrocities. Whether the international community can effectively apply these lessons in future conflicts will be the true test of Srebrenica’s legacy.
The persistence of genocide denial in Bosnia highlights the fragility of the justice rendered by international criminal courts. Peace in Bosnia cannot hold when persistent genocide denial sows distrust and division among its peoples. A refusal to face the past—coupled with Balkan politicians’ freedom to traffic in denial with little consequence—obscures the warning signs of genocide that should trigger international action. Obtaining justice for genocide victims and stamping out genocide denial form the twin bulwarks of genocide prevention and are a moral imperative. The thousands of headstones at the Srebrenica memorial cemetery remind us of that.
*David J. Scheffer is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, with a focus on international law and international criminal justice. He served as senior advisor and counsel to the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations during the first term of the Bill Clinton administration. He also represented the U.S. Mission to the UN on the Deputies Committee of the National Security Council.