Srebrenica Massacre Anniversary

Stephen Williams Excerpts

Wednesday 9th July 2014 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Stephen Williams)]

First, I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown), as I often do in these debates. As usual, she delivered her speech powerfully and in an emotionally charged way. I thank her for doing so because this is an occasion when it would be very easy to talk about diplomacy, and the rights and wrongs of what happened 19 years ago and earlier, but it is what happened to the people in those circumstances that counts. I thank her for speaking in the way that she did.

It is customary on these occasions to thank the initiator of the debate, the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Ann McKechin), so I do that both in the customary sense and in the sincere sense. I do so not only because I am the Minister responsible for the Government’s work in this sector but because it is something that, as a Minister, I find incredibly moving and powerful, compared with some of the other things that I have to do. In addition, it is an issue that has interested me for a long time.

Both the hon. Lady and my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) reflected on the events that took place in the 1990s. With the possible exception of yourself, Dr McCrea, none of us who have taken part in this debate were MPs at that time. I was a young councillor—I was in my mid-20s—in Bristol, watching the TV coverage night after night, from the original invasion of Croatia and the bombardment of Vukovar by the Yugoslav national army, as it was at that time. I then saw how events unfolded in Bosnia and then, of course, in Kosovo in 1999. I felt angry and impotent that all this was happening in our European family of nations.

I will not stray into discussing the culpability of any of the troops on the ground, as some colleagues have done; for a start, that is probably beyond my remit. What I will say, however, is that we ought to remind ourselves that troops on the ground—whether they were from the UN or from the nations that were referred to—are responsible to democratic Governments. Perhaps it is the politicians of that era who should have been spoken of in condemnatory language, and I will stray no further than that in going beyond my remit.

The Department for Communities and Local Government gives significant amounts of money—the hon. Member for West Ham mentioned the £970,000 that our community integration budget has put into the Remembering Srebrenica events, both for last year and the next two years—and staff in the Department make a big personal commitment. There is a ministerial commitment as well. Those who were at Lancaster house last night would have heard all three Ministers who have an interest in this issue—the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Baroness Warsi and myself—speak from different perspectives. The three of us do not always agree on everything, but we are committed to this project, both for what it says about Britain in Bosnia—the project is very much appreciated in Bosnia itself—and for the effect that it can have on the next generation of community leaders and politicians in this country.

The hon. Member for Glasgow North opened the debate by mentioning Sarajevo and its resonance this year. When I was in Bosnia in April, I, too, stood on the corner where Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated. The generation of politicians who put together the League of Nations after world war one said, “Never again”; the generation of politicians after 1945 who put together the UN said, “Never again”; and no doubt our predecessors back in the mid to late 1990s said, “Never again.” Well, “never again” does not happen by accident; it happens by tough, grinding diplomacy.

I will stray slightly beyond my remit again, Dr McCrea, to say that, as a passionate Europhile within the Government, I think we sometimes need to remember that it is a major achievement of the European Union that conflict has not broken out among its member states. Moreover, apart from Albania it is the former Yugoslav republics that are still queuing up to join the EU. Of course, Slovenia and Croatia are already in. A couple of years ago, I went on a Westminster Foundation for Democracy visit to Macedonia with the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) to help Macedonia with its preparations to become a member of the EU, and one day—I hope soon—Serbia and Bosnia will join that European family of nations as well. Then, perhaps, “never again” will actually have achieved a diplomatic outcome.

The hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) mentioned commemorating Holocaust memorial day in the UK. She also said, in respect of the second world war, that all the attention tends to be given to the holocaust and asked about what is happening next year. In 2015 it will be both the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz—the hon. Member for West Ham has not been to Auschwitz yet, but I went many years ago, and we will renew the agreement to go together at some point soon, before that anniversary—and the 20th anniversary of events in Srebrenica.

I represent the Government on the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust and I assure the hon. Member for West Ham that we are thinking carefully about the significance of both those anniversaries and making sure they get all the appropriate attention from the Government, the royal family and—they more important than the politicians or other leaders—the survivors. The survivors of the holocaust are now smaller in number and many of them are quite old and frail, so we need to ensure that it is done in an appropriate setting for them, too.

Let me turn to the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust and our commemoration of Holocaust memorial day each year. Some of us spoke in the annual debate in January in the main Chamber, and most hon. Members were careful to ensure that we talked about all of the genocides that have taken place, which, with the exception of the holocaust, have sadly all happened in the lifetimes of all hon. Members in this Chamber: the unravelling of Yugoslavia; Rwanda; Dafur; the events taking place in South Sudan, and Cambodia.

[Mr Marcus Jones]

I agree. Does the hon. Gentleman agree with me that we need to disseminate that information, particularly to our schools, to ensure that it is firmly embedded in our education system, so that youngsters learn about these atrocities and can learn from the mistakes of the past?

[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.