Srebrenica Memorial Week

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Tuesday 4th July 2023 Westminster Hall

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Srebrenica Memorial Week.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Robert. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing us the opportunity to hold this debate in time to mark the commemoration of the Srebrenica genocide. I also thank the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns) and the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford), who are co-sponsors of this debate. Their support is a testament to the fact that this issue transcends all party divides in this House and across the country.

The Srebrenica genocide and the events leading up to it contain important lessons on which we must take this opportunity to reflect. The House is familiar with the story of the appalling atrocity. The Bosnian war from 1992 to 1995 saw the planned, systematic and industrialised murder of just under 100,000 Muslims, the displacement of 2 million people and the genocidal rape of about 50,000 women simply because of their Muslim identity.

In July 1995, the Bosnian Serb General Mladić and his forces seized the Bosnian town of Srebrenica, which had been declared a UN safe area. Over just a few days, more than 8,000 people, mainly Bosnian Muslim men and boys, were systematically murdered by the Bosnian Serb forces. The bodies were dumped in mass graves and later moved to secondary and even tertiary mass graves as the Bosnian Serb soldiers sought to cover up what they had done. There are still some people missing.

I am sure that, like me, colleagues here today remember the harrowing scenes of the war in Bosnia on our television screens. We watched neighbours turn against neighbours, friends against friends, ethnicity against ethnicity. I will not forget seeing the images of the emaciated prisoners held in the concentration camp while looking on in disbelief that ethnic cleansing, systematic mass rape and genocide were all happening not in a faraway place, but in Europe.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Lady for securing this debate. I apologise to you, Sir Robert, and to the hon. Lady for not being able to make a speech. I wish to do so, but I have to attend the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee—I have permission to leave it for a short time and then return.

The genocide convention places obligations on the UK Government not only to punish the perpetrators of such crimes, but to predict and prevent those atrocities from happening. Unfortunately, as Srebrenica showed, we keep forgetting that duty. The International Development Committee’s report, “From Srebrenica to a safer tomorrow”, challenged the UK Government to incorporate prevention at all stages of the policy cycle, including trade, education, supply chains and asylum policy. Does the hon. Member agree that that work needs to be done at pace to prevent an escalation because of not just what happened in Srebrenica, but what is happening now in Sudan and Nigeria?

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I entirely agree and thank the hon. Member for his intervention. We need to continue to work on this and take action across the board, so that these things do not happen again.

Bosnia was a horrific reminder of the vulnerability of ordinary people. It made me question how that could happen on our doorstep when the world had pledged “Never again” after the second world war. I also questioned what chance ethnic minority communities have in Europe if the xenophobic claims of ethnic superiority could prevail among white indigenous people who have been assimilated, integrated and lived together for hundreds of years. For me, Srebrenica demonstrates where the hatred and the dehumanisation of others can lead. Only when we reflect on those lessons can we truly strengthen our resolve to stand up to hatred in our own society.

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

I welcome the debate and commend all those who called for it. I worked in Bosnia during and after the war, and visited the site of the Srebrenica memorial to the genocide of more than 8,000 people in July 1995.

My hon. Friend refers to saying, “Never again”. Does she agree that when we say “Never again”, we must demonstrate the commitment to keeping peace in the region, opposing genocide denial and opposing the Serb separatism of Milorad Dodik and other politicians, and take pride in the work our embassy has done to support the Srebrenica memorial and to support local organisations working for peace in the region?

[Yasmin Qureshi]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that we need to be vigilant. Especially in the western Balkans, as she has rightly said, issues of ethnic nationalism are arising, and the Serbians are trying to hide the fact that this event ever happened. I am grateful for the fact that the United Kingdom is the only European country to commemorate the Srebrenica genocide, although I will come later to the lack of resources and the funding cuts that have been made. I thank our Government and our country for recognising the event and for being the world leader in commemorating the Srebrenica genocide.

While much has been achieved in building a cohesive society in the UK, there is more work to be done. According to Home Office figures released last year, police recorded hate crime in England and Wales has risen consistently over the past several years. I know the Minister will agree that standing up to hatred and intolerance in the UK remains extremely necessary and should be a priority for Departments.

The Minister will be aware of the vital work done by the charity Remembering Srebrenica, which was set up 10 years ago with the support of the then Prime Minister, David Cameron. The charity has established 11 regions, as well as other bodies across the UK, and has gone from holding one memorial event at Lancaster House in 2013 to holding nearly 2,000 annual community actions in schools, town halls, mosques, synagogues, churches, community centres and police stations to bring communities together in a collective act of remembrance. Remembering Srebrenica has educated nearly 150,000 young people through its educational resource and teacher training programmes about Srebrenica, and has appointed community champions who work together to unite communities in order to work against hate and to build a safer, stronger community.

As part of the charity’s work to commemorate the genocide each year, it selects a theme that speaks to communities here in the UK. For 2023, the theme is “Together We Are One”, which is particularly potent when we remind ourselves that Bosnia and Herzegovina is well known for being a melting pot of cultures and identities in which Muslims, Christians and Jews have lived side by side for centuries. Many colleagues will know that the capital, Sarajevo, is known to have been the Jerusalem of Europe, and it is the only European city with a mosque, a Catholic church, an Orthodox church and a synagogue in the same neighbourhood.

However, after the break-up of Yugoslavia, nationalist leaders who played on identity politics rose to power across the region. Those ultra-nationalist forces promoted hatred and division with the agenda of creating a greater Serbia, but only with ethnically pure Serbs. One of the most well-known integrated societies in Europe imploded. The theme “Together We Are One” underlines why we have a responsibility to do everything we can to combat divisive rhetoric, by focusing on the things that unite us together as one.

This year’s theme also reminds us to remain vigilant against the forces of hatred that seek to “other” groups as being negatively different—the narrative of us and them, or where one group dehumanises and denies the humanity of another, and the dominant group is taught to see the target group as less than human and not belonging to their community or society.

[Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Lady for securing this debate. It is less a debate and more a commemoration and recognition of the unity that we have in this Parliament never to forget what happened in Bosnia and Srebrenica. She makes the excellent point that there is a real danger of history repeating itself. Right now, our position towards the Balkans is not alert enough to the problems faced by Bosnian citizens.

Does the hon. Lady agree that we need to take three steps? First, we need to upgrade our resources in Bosnia, with more British troops available and on the ground, and through NATO. Secondly, we need to use Magnitsky sanctions on those perpetrating crimes in the area. Thirdly, we need to ensure that we do not cut funding to the Remembering Srebrenica group, which we have by 50%. After all, is an ounce of prevention not worth a pound of cure?

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I entirely agree. I know that the Minister does listen, so I hope she will take back to others in the Foreign Office the point about more spending and more resources in the western Balkans to ensure that we do not have any further eruptions there. I say gently that both the first world war and second world war started in that part of the world. That is important.

Remembering Srebrenica is the charity doing the most work on this matter, but, year on year, it has had funding cuts. I wrote to the Foreign Office and to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to ask for funding, but that was sadly rejected. They—especially DLUHC—have responded by saying they are not going to make any change, which is a shame because this is an important cause. The only way in which so many people are finding out about this is because of the work done by Remembering Srebrenica on the memorial, through volunteers and others across the United Kingdom. It is very much volunteer-led, but it needs resources. After this debate, I hope that the Foreign Office will consider putting in some money and that, hopefully, it will talk to DLUHC to ask it to consider funding as well.

We know that polarisation and propaganda drive groups further apart, through deepening division. We saw that played out in the years leading up to the Srebrenica genocide in 1995. Non-Serbs had to mark their houses with white flags or wear an armband. There was a systematic and careful process of dehumanising Bosnian Muslims. Anti-Muslim propaganda was instrumental in Bosnian Serbs turning against their Bosnian Muslim neighbours, who were constantly referred to as “Islamic fundamentalists”.

That is why commemorating Srebrenica is so important, so that we can stop to reflect on our own society as well and help people in our country better understand the behaviours and influences around them, which can either build or damage the cohesion of communities. We need to help equip them with skills and confidence to challenge such behaviours, and dismantle the foundations that allow intolerance to survive. We must do more to encourage people to reflect on how we can create an environment that helps find common ground with people from different backgrounds, instead of focusing on a single facet of their identity.

The work that Remembering Srebrenica does across the country in Srebrenica Memorial Week, and throughout the whole year, empowers communities to actively challenge stereotypes, the scapegoating, hate speech and dehumanising language, and to counter that by working towards creating a society that is characterised by embracing our common humanity. It is a reminder of the role that each of us, irrespective of our background, has in us all coming together as one community against hatred and division. I look forward to hearing the Minister acknowledge some of the importance of that work in her remarks and I hope that DLUHC and the Foreign Office will consider funding the charity.

[Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

Every year when we reflect on the horrors of the Srebrenica genocide, we all reiterate our commitment to stamping out the Islamophobia, prejudice and intolerance that led to the murder of the 8,000 Muslim men and boys in 1995, yet we are witnessing the ethnic cleansing of Uyghur Muslims at the hands of the Chinese Government in Xinjiang, and the persecution of Muslims in Kashmir by the Indian Government. Does my hon. Friend agree that to avoid another Srebrenica happening in Xinjiang, Myanmar, Kashmir or elsewhere, the very real threat of Islamophobia must be taken seriously and tackled on a global scale?

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[Yasmin Qureshi]

I thank my hon. Friend and I entirely agree. I do not normally criticise colleagues, but comments were made recently by a certain Home Secretary and she needs to reflect on what she says. Those kinds of things do not help in the situation we are facing.

The events in Srebrenica have stayed with me. Indeed, they have shaped me. A few years after the genocide, I worked for the United Nations mission in Kosovo to help to rebuild the justice system and department after the war. That region of the world is personal to me. I saw the after-effects 23 years ago, when I worked in Kosovo. That is part of the reason why I have dedicated so much of my work to challenge hate and division, and that is why I set up the all-party parliamentary group on Srebrenica, with the help of Baroness Sayeeda Warsi.

After the holocaust, we said “Never again”, yet what happened in Srebrenica proved that words are not enough—they must be met with action. As we approach the 28th anniversary of this harrowing tragedy, we must all come together to unite and reaffirm our commitment to challenging hate, wherever and whenever it arises, and to take actions so that things like Srebrenica never happen again.

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[Alicia Kearns]

It is so important that if I make that point, I do so with the whole support of the House, so I thank hon. Members for attending today’s debate, because it gives me the ability to speak up and say that it is not just me saying this; the whole House wants to see this.

It is our job to make sure that we create the circumstances in which reckless decisions cannot be taken by Dodik and others. We must wrap Bosnia and Herzegovina in a protective blanket to make sure that the Balkans do not experience war again. The Government must rejoin the European Union force. Chile, Turkey and other countries that are not in Europe are part of EUFOR, and we must rejoin it. As a signatory to the Dayton peace agreement, a member of the Peace Implementation Council and a UN Security Council permanent member, we have a responsibility to stand by Bosnia, but that is not enough to guarantee peace.

We know that Russia holds a veto over EUFOR. Every single year, we in this place wait and see whether Putin will decide to act in the interests of peace or to support the idea of sovereignty through violence. So far, he has renewed the mandate, but this is not sustainable. Putin could refuse to renew it at any time, and we do not have the UN mandate in place to block him militarily. The Government need to work with allies to commit to a NATO military presence in key areas across Bosnia and Herzegovina, particularly the Brčko district, which Dodik has plainly said in the last weeks that he will take by force if he has the opportunity. That is a legally mandated right in the Dayton agreement, and it would send a firm message that Bosnia’s territorial sovereignty is not up for debate and will not be taken by force. By joining EUFOR now and transitioning to a NATO-led peacekeeping mission, we can play our role in maintaining peace in Bosnia. We cannot afford to be reactive when peace is at stake.

I want to place on the record my personal commitment to the Office of the High Representative, which is the ultimate arbiter of peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Attacks against the office and role are designed to weaken the foundations of peace. This does not mean that we cannot criticise or critique individual decisions by the High Representative, but we must protect the institution itself, and I fear that Russian and secessionist propaganda are succeeding in undermining its role in Parliaments across Europe. As a House, we must stand behind that vital institution, because if the worst were to happen and we fail to live up to our sacred promise of “Never again”, there will be violence, not just in Bosnia, but across the Balkans.

Kosovo is critical, and the United Kingdom has a unique responsibility there. We need to call a spade a spade. What is currently happening in Kosovo is a result of foreign interference by Belgrade 18 months ago, when it committed foreign interference in Kosovo’s domestic elections. Belgrade told Kosovo Serbs not to participate in the elections. The elections were fair and free but did not have the attendance or participation that we wanted because Vučić told Kosovo Serbs not to take part.

If we then fast forward, we see mayors trying to take up their electoral positions, and the response is that western countries—the EU and the US worst of all—attack Kosovo for wanting to uphold the rights of mayors to go into their offices to do their job. We then saw a brutal attack by a Belgrade-backed, funded and armed militia on KFOR, with 26 military officers being severely wounded or hospitalised. The response was to criticise Kosovo: “How dare Kosovo have created this situation!” We know, however, that it was Belgrade-funded militias, and the situation was ultimately created by Belgrade when it said, “Do not participate in the elections.”

Worse still, we then saw Serbian counter-terrorism police go on to Kosovan territory and illegally kidnap—kidnap is always illegal under international law, yet apparently our allies did not recognise that—three Kosovan police officers, who were taken to Serbia. That is not allowed; it breaches all international law and specific agreements reached between Serbia and Kosovo. Finally, there was a response and we saw some balance: “Belgrade and Pristina must work to normalise, calm down and de-escalate.” However, Serbia was at fault, and there was no calling-out of the fact that it was arbitrary and illegal detention.

When Kosovo called on its mayors to take up their positions in the mayoral offices there was a great deal of response by the US Government. The US Government said, “Right, Kosovo, you are no longer allowed to participate in a scheduled military exercise We will no longer help you to be recognised by other countries. Good luck to you—you are not welcome in DC.” When Serbia kidnapped three Kosovan police officers, there was no punishment. In fact, Serbia took part in a military exercise with the US only a week later while the Kosovan police officers were still being held illegally. What message does that send to Kosovo, a democratic ally that has stood with and supported us on Ukraine, and done everything that we have asked of it? There were significant punishments from the US and the EU, which have now introduced sanctions against Kosovo, but nothing for Serbia.

When Serbia finally released the three police officers, it told Viktor Orbán in Hungary first and allowed him to announce it. I say to the EU, what message does it send when Victor Orbán is the person chosen by Serbia to send those messages? It is a failure of deterrence diplomacy and it is a disproportionate and unbalanced approach. The UK has an independent voice within the quint and the international arena to say no to the EU and the US. We can say to them, “You will allow us to take part in the peace talks in Kosovo, and you will not continue to take the approach that you currently are, because all you are doing is enabling the autocrats and, frankly, hitting our democratic allies with a stick.”

That is why the security picture is so severe. For too long we have failed to call out the armed Serb militias operating in the north of Kosovo. The Government are well aware, with the Fusiliers having only just returned from serving in KFOR, that there are weapons being smuggled across the border from Serbia into Orthodox churches in ambulances. When our troops become aware of that, and try to get permission to go and get them, the permissions take too long. By the time there is permission—quelle surprise—an ambulance has turned up at the church and taken all the weapons out again.

I will touch briefly on our export policies towards Serbia. I am gravely concerned about the fact that we are selling small ammunitions to Serbia. Given that the counter-terrorism police there carried out attacks and kidnapped three Kosovan police officers, how do we know that nothing we have sold to Serbia is being used in that context? I urge that a handbrake be put on all export sales to Serbia.

I call on the Government to make it clear that the United Kingdom stands by Kosovo’s territorial sovereignty and democracy. To do that, we need to expand KFOR’s mandate to ensure a more proactive approach to countering weapon smuggling and militias north of Kosovo. We need to ensure fairness and take the action required to operate a meaningful policy of deterrence diplomacy.

It is a critical moment in the Balkans. As we watched the cold-blooded murders of innocent Bosnians in 1995 we made a promise: never again. The Government must now wake up, take the initiative and ensure that sacred promise is honoured. They must recognise that the power to deter sits in this House and at King Charles Street. We can do this. I therefore urge the Government: let us rejoin EUFOR, let us commit NATO peacekeepers to Brčko district, let us transition to a NATO-led peacekeeping mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina, let us allow KFOR to take the front foot in anti-militia and anti-weapons smuggling operations in the north of Kosovo and finally, let us implement a more even-handed approach to Kosovo that prioritises the protection of Kosovan sovereignty and democracy.

I thank everyone who has spoken today, and I am grateful for being given the time to make those points. I will conclude by returning to the commemoration of all those who were massacred during the Srebrenica genocide. Their memory can never be forgotten, because this was a genocide in Europe and on European soil. It is a genocide that still marks our future, and my children’s future could still potentially be shaped by the actions that took place at that time. It is important we do everything we can in Parliament to take more people to Bosnia and Herzegovina. When you go, that country gets into your heart and your soul. I do not know how to describe it; I do not how to find the words. I will take another delegation of the Bosnia APPG next year, so I encourage all hon. Members to tell me who to reach out to.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

On the hon. Lady’s point about visiting the Srebrenica genocide memorial and how that affects people, I went there with a couple of my members of staff, and I have to say that they were so impacted by it. My office manager does not travel much and she started crying when she was there. She is a quite a hardened soul and I could see how much of an impact it had on her. I just wanted to confirm how going there impacts people.

[Alicia Kearns]

I thank the hon. Lady. I remember that my first visit to Srebrenica was with former British serving members of special forces who had not returned there since they had served in Bosnia. I saw the trauma in their faces, the pain and the knowing in them that there is a risk that violence could once more return to the places where they had hidden in a dugout for 10 days and seen children shot in the street by those who had hatred in their hearts. I took away from that experience that we could never ever allow that.

I thank the Mothers of Srebrenica and Remembering Srebrenica for all they do. I also thank the Backbench Business Committee for giving us the time to discuss this matter. When we say “Never again”, we must mean it. The risk, if we do not, is far too great.

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[Yasmin Qureshi]

I thank all right hon. and hon. colleagues for taking part in the debate, including those who had to go because of other parliamentary business. I also thank the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns), the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, for sharing my efforts to get this debate.

I also want to put on record my particular thanks to the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford), because he might not be here for next year’s commemoration, as he is stepping down. From the beginning, when he because the leader of the SNP at Westminster and I approached him about this subject, he has been an absolutely tremendous supporter. It is fair to say that he was initially the only leader at Prime Minister’s Questions who would commemorate or refer to the Srebrenica genocide. I thank him from the bottom of my heart for all the support and everything he has given to the all-party parliamentary group on Srebrenica.

Ever since the fantastic Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee has been in that role, we have worked very well together. The hon. Member for Livingston (Hannah Bardell) and I worked closely on another campaigning APPG—the all-party parliamentary group on hormone pregnancy tests, which dealt with Primodos. I have also worked well with my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty). When I approached the Minister for another campaign, her response was absolutely sterling and fantastic, and I thank her for replying to the debate today. I take heart from what she said about what the Government will do about what is happening in the Balkans. She also said she is looking at the funding. Remembering Srebrenica does work throughout the country, and we would not be here if its funding had not been cut over a number of years, so I hope the Minister will help it.

I am grateful to all Members for their support. As we say, it must never happen again.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered Srebrenica Memorial Week.