Srebrenica Massacre Anniversary

Ann McKechin Excerpts

Wednesday 9th July 2014 Westminster Hall

[Ann McKechin (Glasgow North) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Dr McCrea. I very much welcome the opportunity to mark this week’s annual Srebrenica memorial day in the United Kingdom. First, I declare for the record that I visited Bosnia in February as part of a visit arranged and funded by the Remembering Srebrenica charity, which, as the Minister is aware, is supported by the UK Government.

Just over a week ago, we marked the 100th anniversary of the key event that prompted the descent into the outbreak of world war one. It was appropriate that, when we visited Sarajevo, our city tour passed the spot where Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated. That reminded us, first, that Bosnia is a country at the heart of modern European history and, secondly, that it is one that, sadly, has known conflict and strife over a prolonged period, both before and following the momentous events of world war one. The scars of conflict often remain for generations. Our visit was not only about commemorating the dead, but about how we could build a lasting legacy, both in Bosnia and at home, that would work to heal those scars and prevent further conflict.

It is heartening to witness the strong cross-party support, evidenced by the hon. Members present, for the excellent work of Remembering Srebrenica, together with the financial and diplomatic assistance provided by the Government. Last night, along with colleagues, I had the pleasure of attending the memorial event at Lancaster house, at which the President of Bosnia and Herzegovina was present, along with the Mothers of Srebrenica. A similar event is being hosted on Friday this week by the Scottish Government in Edinburgh.

[Angus Robertson (Moray) (SNP)]

I am delighted that the hon. Lady secured this debate. It is very heartening to see people across the political parties taking an interest in it. She has highlighted the commemorative event last night at Lancaster house. It was addressed by President Izetbegovic and attended by Baroness Warsi, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the Minister and many others.

The hon. Lady also highlighted the fact that there will be a commemorative event in Edinburgh this week, hosted by the Scottish Government Minister Humza Yousaf. Does she agree with me that this instance of Governments, politicians and charities such as Remembering Srebrenica, doing tremendous work, is a model? Would it not be helpful for other European countries that have pledged to mark the tragedy in Srebrenica to look at what is happening across the nations, regions, towns, cities and communities of the UK to mark this important date, and to try to follow that model in the years to come?

[Ann McKechin]

I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman, who accompanied me on the visit in February. Following the passing of the resolution by the European Union in 2009, and given the problems within Europe—I will touch on those later—it would be very helpful for other countries to look at the good practice being followed across the United Kingdom. I know that the delegation will also be visiting Cardiff and Birmingham as part of its week of visits to see the good work being done by the charitable sector and by central and local government across the country.

Srebrenica’s fate in July 1995 continues to haunt us as the starkest failure in Europe’s history post-world war two. It was not, of course, the only massacre in the long and bloody war, which lasted more than four years, following the collapse of Yugoslavia, but it was by far the largest and most calculated in its planning, its execution and in the subsequent attempts at cover-up.

Following months of constant siege and the failure of the Dutch UN peacekeeping force to safeguard the population, the Bosnian Serb forces took control of the town on 11 July 1995. A day later, on 12 July, women and children were evacuated from the town while Bosnian Serb forces began separating out all men between the ages of 12 and 77 for

“interrogation for suspected war crimes”.

The night before, about 15,000 Bosnian Muslim men had attempted to escape from the town and were shelled and shot at as they fled through the mountains. It was basically a walk of terror and death, which for many of them lasted over five days. In the five days after the Bosnian Serb forces overran Srebrenica, more than 7,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were killed. Many of the bodies were buried in hastily dug mass graves, but following the unintended release of US satellite photographs showing the location of a number of the sites, a gruesome and chaotic reburial was organised, scattering body parts in many cases over multiple sites in the heavily wooded hills surrounding the town.

As we discovered on our visit in February to the International Commission on Missing Persons, it was only after the possibility of using DNA technology just over a decade ago, and the taking of tens of thousands of samples from the surviving family members of those who were massacred, that substantial numbers of the victims could be properly identified and interred with the respect and dignity that they deserved.

Nineteen years after the massacre, a number of Bosnian Serb leaders have been indicted for war crimes at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. The two most prominent—Radovan Karadzic, the former President, and Ratko Mladic, the military leader—remain on trial to this day at The Hague.

In February, I travelled to Bosnia with five fellow Scots: the Very Reverend Lorna Hood, who was then moderator of the Church of Scotland; the Church’s director of communications, Seonag MacKinnon; the hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson); Sergeant David Hamilton from the Scottish Police Federation; and David Pratt, the foreign affairs editor at the Sunday Herald. We were met with warmth and friendliness at all our meetings, including with the Grand Mufti and the remarkable Mothers of Srebrenica, who have fought so hard to ensure that their dreadful loss does not vanish from our memories. However, there was an overwhelming sense that this was a country and people too long stuck in an uncomfortable limbo, relying on a bare ceasefire agreement that halted the killing but has failed to address the main problems that the country faces. The presidential palace had been firebombed the week before our visit, and protests were continuing, as we witnessed on our visit.

The Dayton agreement was never designed to be a permanent solution. Twenty years later, that agreement has institutionalised the factionalism that over the years has led to the current political impasse. In my role as vice-chair of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, which has worked extensively in the region for many years, I am only too aware of how the current overloaded bureaucracy throttles political progress and leaves many in Bosnia giving up hope of finding a better alternative.

Understandably, attention in the European Union during the past few months has focused on the emerging conflict in Ukraine, but I argue that there is a clear need, post the May European Union elections, for a much greater focus on finding a long-term political solution for Bosnia.

[Karen Lumley (Redditch) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Lady for securing the debate. Does she agree that it is important that we keep Bosnia and Herzegovina high on the agenda? Obviously, as chairman of the all-party group for Bosnia and Herzegovina, I have visited it many times, and I visited previously with the Westminster Foundation for Democracy. I will visit it again in a couple of weeks with Lady Warsi to do some refurbishment of a rape crisis centre outside Sarajevo. Does the hon. Lady agree that it is important that we keep up these visits and that we make them as often as we can, to ensure that Bosnia is high on the political agenda?

[Ann McKechin]

I entirely agree. I know that the hon. Lady has done a lot of good work personally in this area, both in her current position and in her work previously with the Westminster Foundation for Democracy.

When a country comes off our TV screens and out of our newspapers, it is all too easy for us to forget and think that the situation has been solved, but that is not what is happening in this case. I visited Croatia the year before, and the difference in tone and approach that I witnessed in Croatia and Bosnia was stark. That drove home to me the need for us to ensure that this issue is a foreign policy priority.

While I was in Bosnia, I met a senior female member of the Social Democratic party, one of the Labour party’s sister parties. She stressed that the engagement of the international community was vital in creating the necessary momentum and support for change in the political process.

The Westminster Foundation, as the hon. Member for Redditch (Karen Lumley) is aware, has been working to encourage the development of secular political parties, particularly in work with young people and women. I believe that the encouragement of a secular political landscape should still be a key part of the United Kingdom’s contribution.

[Angus Robertson]

Does the hon. Lady agree with me on another potential benefit, in addition to those she has mentioned, of greater international interest in Bosnia and Herzegovina? I am sure she is as shocked as I am by the repeated voices that one hears from Republika Srpska denying holocaust, appearing to justify ethnic cleansing and opposing the idea of Bosnia and Herzegovina thriving as a state with a place for all peoples and offering a better future for all regardless of their faith or ethnic background. Does she agree that it is important to shine a light on the darker recesses of extreme politics in Bosnia and Herzegovina to ensure that it can move towards a better European future for all in that country?

[Ann McKechin]

The hon. Gentleman touches on a point that the President of Bosnia and Herzegovina raised in his speech to us last night at Lancaster house. All political parties and leaders in Europe, particularly in this region, are beholden to do what he describes as they address conflicting views. The understandable reaction of the Bosniak population to the threatening tone and manner that has been adopted is one of great concern. It is important that the United Kingdom and other members of the European Union clearly state that such language and tone in the debate are completely unacceptable.

As the hon. Member for Moray is aware, we met the Grand Mufti, who spoke about the long history of links among the country’s faith groups—Muslim, Orthodox, Catholic and Jewish. However, outside Sarajevo and its main towns, those links are becoming increasingly threadbare, with little direct contact between the different communities. The current structures have encouraged separation. Young people attend separate schools, and they grow up with little or no contact with their Bosniak, Croat or Serbian neighbours. Economic stagnation, overwhelming and corrupt bureaucracy and high unemployment have meant that many have already left. The prospect of European Union membership since the global recession appears even more distant, and the lack of political will to change has led to despair, which we have witnessed in this year’s protests.

Constitutional amendments to break down administrative silos are one thing and an economic plan with outside support is another, but the lack of any proper grass-roots reconciliation process after such a long period is probably the greatest challenge that needs to be addressed if one nation is truly to emerge from the grim civil war. I note that since our visit, there have been a few encouraging signs of communities trying to come together outside the established but separate networks, and I hope that the Minister can give us some indication of how the Government hope to assist that process over the coming weeks and months.

In our conversations with the Mothers of Srebrenica, there was strong criticism of the International Criminal Tribunal. The delay in apprehending key figures, which we all know about, and the length and cost of proceedings, contrasted uneasily with the original claims that justice would be achieved for the victims and their families. The tribunal was the first of its kind, and undoubtedly, despite the acknowledged problems, it was an important step forward in setting international standards.

The Mothers of Srebrenica spoke eloquently about the failure, domestically and internationally, adequately to attend to the equally important need to provide justice locally. Few cases have been taken against those who directly carried out the dreadful murders over many agonising hours or undertook the burials and reburial of the victims. We learned that at least one of the direct participants in the massacres is currently employed at a senior level in the local regional government, which covers the town itself. We were frankly astonished to find that the Serb population is still using a school that was a site of one of the massacres, where many hundreds were killed.

We all need to learn the lessons about what has happened in Bosnia when we consider our current and future work in post-conflict states. International tribunals will, of course, continue to play an important part in justice, but truth and reconciliation at the grass roots is equally important in giving people permission to move on without disrespect to those who have lost their lives in such dreadful circumstances. Our meeting with the impressive International Commission on Missing Persons, established in 1996 by President Bill Clinton, reinforced the fear that too little attention was being paid to the increasingly open genocide deniers, whom the hon. Member for Moray has mentioned. The ICMP still faces regular challenges by Bosnian and Serbian politicians about the probity of its evidence.

The ICMP maintains the world’s largest DNA laboratory system dedicated exclusively to identifying missing persons. It works worldwide and is currently assisting in parts of the middle east afflicted by conflict. I am sure that its workload will continue to grow, given current events in the region. The focus of much of its work over the past 18 years in the former Yugoslavia has been to produce consistent, incontrovertible evidence to counter those who seek to deny. The ICMP’s record speaks for itself: 70% of the 40,000 missing from the Yugoslavian conflicts, and almost 90% of those reported missing from Srebrenica, have now been accounted for.

As a Glasgow MP, it was a great pleasure to meet Adam Boys, the ICMP’s director of international programmes, who is originally from Glasgow and has worked in Bosnia for many years, together with Dr John Clark, who has been the chief pathologist for the International Criminal Tribunal and who lives a few hundred yards from me in Glasgow. The UK Government have been a consistent and strong supporter of that work from the outset, and I hope that we can be confident that that support will continue.

As the Minister is aware, the charity Remembering Srebrenica is holding a series of events across the United Kingdom this week to commemorate the anniversary, as well as organising visits to Bosnia for young people so that they can become advocates in their local communities. The charity’s work and obvious passion have been rightly commended by many Members, and it has made many friends in Bosnia.

In an age when xenophobia and racism can all too quickly spring up, and where people are regularly urged to retreat behind domestic borders, it is essential that communities throughout the United Kingdom have the opportunity to learn more about the history that surrounded events in Srebrenica and why that history is relevant to their lives. The chair of Remembering Srebrenica, Dr Waqar Azmi, who conducted last night’s commemoration, pointed out:

“If the xenophobic claims of ethnic superiority could prevail amongst white, indigenous people who are assimilated and have lived together for hundreds of years, what chance do ethnic minority communities have in Europe?”

That is a question that we all need to address. It is vital that we do not forget why a country in our own continent fell into such a disastrous and brutal civil war. The sad truth is that the cost of conflict can continue for many decades after the guns stop.

We need to invest politically and financially in a process that embeds reconciliation and provides local as well as international justice. If we have not succeeded so far, we must be determined to keep trying. The 7,000 men and boys who died in July 1995 deserve nothing less.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Williams]

Yes. The hon. Gentleman is inviting me to stray again from my remit, but I have done it once, so let me do so once again, this time into the territory of the Department for Education.

Having visited schools, as I am sure all hon. Members do, I have spoken to history teachers—and to history admissions tutors at universities, in the days when I was the Lib Dem higher education spokesman—who tell me that children do learn about the holocaust and the Nazi period, although perhaps too much. I think they also need to learn about world war one, which is highly relevant over the next four years, and about the other genocides that have taken place in the lifetime of their parents. I am sure that every responsible history teacher and citizenship teacher in the country will ensure that they do so in the next 12 months.

Hon. Members mentioned closure, and the hon. Member for Glasgow North mentioned the important work of the International Commission for Missing Persons. Many powerful memories will stay with me from my visit to Bosnia, and the visit to the ICMP in Tuzla will certainly be one of them. Adam Boys, a Scotsman, is doing the archaeology of warfare—forensic science—digging up mass graves that contain not whole bodies, but dismembered bodies.

Such was the planned nature of what took place in the mid-1990s, it was not just a massacre; there was an attempt to cover it up by physically separating the bodies with bulldozers—I am being graphic—and scattering the remains over a wide area, deliberately, so that the crime was to some extent physically covered up. The remains of the people were thought at the time impossible to identify. Of course, now, through advances in science, it is possible to identify them. Many people are now getting that closure, but sadly it is often closure from the match of a DNA blood sample—the laboratory in Tuzla has blood samples donated by all surviving relatives who wished to do so, to be matched with a missing male relative—with a piece of a ribcage, the bone of a hand or part of a skull, not to a whole body. However, at least at that point a burial of partial remains can happen and some closure is afforded.

Every day, remains of parts of new bodies are being discovered and individuals are identified. However, there are still thousands of unidentified, unaccounted-for deaths in Bosnia, so the ICMP’s work will need to continue for many years to come.

[Ann McKechin]

Just on that point, the Minister will be aware, from his visit to the ICMP offices—I also visited and was moved by the warehouse where the remains yet to be identified are still kept—that it is now working in the middle east. It has already been to Libya and, given the events that are occurring as we speak in Syria and Iraq, it is likely that this type of work will be required on an even larger scale. I hope that the Government consider supporting this venture, allowing it to expand, because it will provide in future years the closure that it has provided to the victims in Yugoslavia.

[Stephen Williams]

That point was forcefully made to me at the time by Adam Boys, but continuing the funding is a matter for other parts of Government. The British Government have been one of the main supporters of the ICMP—that is certainly acknowledged—but sadly its work will probably be needed for many years, not just in the former Yugoslavia, but in other conflict areas.

The hon. Member for West Ham, who leads for the Opposition, mentioned the Remembering Srebrenica project—a £1 million commitment by the Government—and also Dr Waqar Azmi’s Ummah Help charity, which helps to take delegations of young people to Bosnia, specifically to Srebrenica. It is curious that the Department of Communities and Local Government does that, but we do it for two reasons. First, people from all over the world live in our major towns and cities, which, as a Liberal, I celebrate. In my constituency casework there are still refugees, mainly from Kosovo rather than Bosnia, and I am sure that there are people living in West Ham, Bolton and Bristol who are directly touched by what is happening. The effects of other conflicts are felt by families in our country. It is right that we support that reflection and understanding.

Secondly, we ask people who go on these delegations—the plan is to take some 800 people to Bosnia in the next two years—to use that time and apply the lesson of history that they will have learned in Bosnia in their own communities when they return to the UK. The 75 people who have been out on these delegations so far are all now feeding back their pledges about how they are going to make Tower Hamlets, Newham, Luton, Birmingham, Bolton, Blackburn and other places more cohesive and harmonious places to visit. The most obvious thing they are able to do is organise their own Remembering Srebrenica events throughout the country this year, and 16 events are taking place, in addition to the official events in London, Cardiff and Edinburgh that have been mentioned.

On Sunday evening, I attended an amazing event in Luton, which was organised by the five young people who were on my delegation in April. They made their own powerful speeches; two of the mothers, who I will mention shortly, spoke; and Ed Vulliamy, who was an ITN journalist at the time but now writes for The Guardian, gave his perspective as a British witness who was there. That powerful event was followed by an Iftar event, this being Ramadan. Several other events are taking place, including many organised by the police, including the police in Hertfordshire, City of London, Greater Manchester and Northamptonshire.

The practical reason why we are funding the project is so that people can learn the lessons of what so easily can happen. Several Members referred to that. Let us not forget that this is a place where the winter Olympics took place and where, when I was growing up, better-off friends went on holiday. I would still like to go to Dubrovnik on holiday. It was a civilised part of Europe, albeit a Communist dictatorship, where people had co-existed for a long time, and it unravelled very quickly. We must learn the lesson that community cohesion does not happen by accident. It is the responsibility of us all in public life to constantly work at it and nurture it in our constituencies and communities across the country. That is why it is right that a significant amount of British taxpayer’s money goes into that programme—not just to appreciate the lessons of history, but because it has direct practical application in making our country a better place.

The hon. Member for West Ham, my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham and the hon. Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew), who was with us earlier, mentioned that ugly phrase, “ethnic cleansing”. While the practice had been around for a long time, the phrase came into use during that conflict. We all remember Martin Bell, who compered last night’s events in Lancaster house, speaking about it. It shows how we can use phraseology to obscure an awful practice, and it is right that the hon. Member for West Ham used graphic language to bring to life what actually took place.

To add some of my own reflections to those of other Members, on my visit we were hosted in Srebrenica itself, by its mayor. He must have been a decade younger than me. He was the only person from his class in school to survive that massacre. Imagine that happening to any of us. We are all of an age where we possibly have school reunions. Imagine if someone’s school reunion was just them; the only person left from their class. That was the experience of the mayor of Srebrenica. The person who looked after him at the time was our guide for the whole visit, Mohammed, who was a couple of years older than the mayor. He guided the future mayor up into the mountains. A lot of people survived by fleeing into the forests and the mountains, pursued, shelled and shot at by the Bosnian Serb army, trying desperately to get to the safe haven of Tuzla. Members will be familiar with those awful scenes at the Potocari battery factory of people behind barbed wire pleading to be saved. I am not sure whether it is the same Hasan as the one mentioned by the hon. Member for West Ham, but the Hasan who guided us round that battery factory lost male members of his family. The most awful thing of all is that he lost his twin brother.

Opposite that battery factory where people sheltered is the Srebrenica memorial cemetery, where 8,372 marble obelisks stand as a physical memorial to the men and boys who were killed. The youngest had not yet entered his teens and the oldest had not quite entered his 80s, and there were all ages in between. On the memorial we saw in Sarajevo, on every single line—it was in alphabetical order and there were no Stephens to be seen—was the year 1966, which is the year I was born. In trying to comprehend the scale of the deaths that took place in a few short days, those sorts of things bring it home.

What really brought it home to me, and the most powerful memory of all—this remarkable group of people has been mentioned by several Members—was the Mothers of Srebrenica, a group of women of all ages who have dedicated themselves to ensuring that the rest of Europe never forgets what happened in their homeland. While they are called the Mothers of Srebrenica, they are widows and people who have lost a brother, a nephew, a father or a grandfather. The scale of male bereavement is all-embracing. Some lost 40 or 50 male members of their family. I have quite a small immediate family; others might have larger families. Imagine someone losing just about every male relative they know—that brings home how they have suffered. The hon. Member for West Ham was right to point out that some of these people have suffered not only with their bereavement, but with the physical and sexual abuse that they had from the Bosnian Serb army that murdered their menfolk.

How do we get something from this issue? That is what we should reflect on. The Government are putting investment into the visits, so that all the young people, police and other community leaders going to Bosnia can come back to Britain, having learnt the lessons. I will end my speech the same way I ended my speech in Lancaster house last night. Learning the lessons of history, thinking about what a reasonable parliamentary occasion this has been and going to the events are all very well, but none of that counts for anything unless we all pledge, just as we are asking the young people to pledge on these visits, to look at how we can make all our constituencies better places. That is my challenge to myself, to Members and to everyone else.