Bosnia and Herzegovina: Stability and Peace

Tom Hunt Excerpts

Thursday 2nd December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns) for securing this incredibly important debate.

My interest in this matter is connected to two things. First, I have not really spoken about this, but my academic background is in Russia, and Russian and eastern European history. If I have any international knowledge, it is connected to that. I also had the great privilege of going to Bosnia only about two months ago, on a delegation to Bosnia and Herzegovina led by my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), who gave a fantastic tour.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Tom Randall) said, Bosnia and Herzegovina is a country and a nation with, in some respects, so much going for it: the great, unique beauty of the physical environment; by and large, lovely, interesting people; a culture and a history that is unmatched; and a capital city that is probably one of the most fascinating that I have ever had the privilege of visiting. It is slightly disappointing that we are now at a point where we cannot fly direct to Sarajevo. I hope that that changes at some point in the future, and that many of my constituents and those of every hon. Member in this place can go and see the wonders in Bosnia and Herzegovina that a lot of us have had the benefit of seeing.

It is sad that so long after the Dayton agreement, the political lines remain very narrow. We do not see political parties that transcend the particular ethnic and religious groups in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and that has been made more difficult by the self-interested behaviour of various political actors there that have held back the process. I do think it is possible that Bosnia and Herzegovina can be a sustainable nation, if given the chance to do so by those who have the ultimate responsibility for making that happen and for ensuring that the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina can live together in peace and harmony.

During my visit to Bosnia, I went to Ahmići, which is in the north of the country. My right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Beckenham was at the heart of witnessing the horrors that happened there. Of course, it was Bosnian Croats who committed that genocide; and it was a genocide, and it was right that it was called that.

Srebrenica will stick with me forever in terms of what I saw there and the graves. Although more than 8,000 people died, there are nowhere near that many graves there, because a lot of the remains have not been found. But they continue to be found, and when I was there, I saw new, fresh graves being dug.

We also had the great privilege of meeting the mothers of a lot of the boys and young men who were massacred, and the women whose husbands were massacred. That will stick with me perhaps more than anything. It was probably the most depressing thing about the visit, because I have been to a similar place where such horrors happened, and that place was Auschwitz. My visit there will also stick with me for the rest of my life, but there is something particularly depressing about a visit to Srebrenica, because not all the lessons have been learnt. In fact, most of the lessons have not been learnt by those connected to and close to the horror that took place.

We should listen to the mothers of those who were massacred explain how, to this day, they see in their communities those linked to the people who carried out the evil that happened, how they are a victim of abuse in the streets, and how they know that within schools in the Republic of Srpska revisionist history is taught and the mayor of a local town has not even bothered to visit the cemetery. This is happening on our doorstep and any country that supports the individuals involved in this should be ashamed.

What do we know would happen if we were to say that the Republic of Srpska can succeed? What message would that send in giving in to the tactics of many people who do not see this for what it was—a genocide—and who are not apologetic for the evil that happened? What message does that send?

[Alicia Kearns]

The importance of going to Bosnia must not be understated. I thank my hon. Friend for sharing that because I remember visiting the Srebrenica memorial in 2015, and two Serbian young men driving past in their car with music blaring, throwing bottles of urine into the memorial. I remember attending the funerals of people whose body parts had finally been pulled together because the Serbians went in with diggers and dug up the mass graves to try to deny and hide how many people they had murdered. I remember people screaming, “The deaths are made up—they are not real, what is going on?” and people picketing these funerals. Does he agree that it is vital that as many Members of this House as possible visit and learn, because it is only through seeing the visceral pain that was there in 2015, and is there now, that we can truly understand how much of a tinderbox Bosnia is?

[Tom Hunt]

I thank my hon. Friend for that fantastic intervention. I think any Member who has the opportunity to go there should go there. Anyone outside this place who has the opportunity to go there should go there. I admit that before I went I was quite blind to the reality of the present-day situation and the extent to which many of the problems still exist. I probably naively thought, “That was a little while ago now. I assume it’s all moved forward and the lessons have been learned.” The most depressing thing about all this is the extent to which, in many ways, that is not the case.

I use that comparison: that visit and my visit to Auschwitz. That is a relevant comparison because the scale is not the same, but the brutality, the genocide and the evil intentions are the same. The difference is this. We know that antisemitism still exists in our country and in the world and we should not stop until it is completely eradicated, but, other than a few fringe conspiracy theorists, nobody denies the brutal evil reality of what happened in the holocaust. But, to this day, not far away from where we stand, there are many people, and many countries backing people, who do deny what happened in 1995. That should cause us all great concern. I do not profess to be an expert on international affairs or that country, but I am an honourable Member in this place who was incredibly moved by what I saw on my visit, and it has shaped my thinking in a way that I doubt many visits will ever do for me as long as I am a Member in this place.

In terms of what we do now, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton because, at the very least, this will raise awareness and that is good and an end in itself. But in terms of concrete actions, I would like to share the views expressed by the vast majority of hon. Members about what we need to do. We do need to stand tall because so often this great country is relied upon to do so and we must not let the people of Bosnia down.