Syed Qamar Afzal Rizvi
WHILE drawing parallels between the current situation in Kashmir and that of Srebrenica, PM Imran Khan on Saturday said he feared a massacre similar to the 1995 genocide in Srebrenica could happen in India-occupied Kashmir and urged the international community to take notice and prevent it from happening. In this context, this is, by all means, a matter of legal and moral responsibility that to prevent any such situation in Kashmir, the international community must take action on the Indian committed crimes against humanity in the Vale. Today, like the Serbian killers of the Bosnian Muslims, PM Narendra Modi is a poster child for killing the innocent Kashmiris. In his call for soliciting compassion for humanity, the Prime Minister of Pakistan said: ‘’Today, we are observing the 25th memorial anniversary of the genocide that took place in Srebrenica. I still remember the day very well along with most people who have humanity in their hearts. I remember when it happened. We were shocked. We were appalled how in a what was a safe haven of United Nations peacekeeping forces, this massive massacre was allowed to happen’’.
“I still feel the shock how such a thing could have been allowed by the world community, Khan said in a video message aired by state-run Pakistan Television. “I think, it is important that we learn lessons from that, the world community must never let such things to happen again,” he went on to say. “July 2020 marks 25 years since the Srebrenica Massacre, the murder of over 8000 Bosnian Muslims and ethnic cleansing of over 20’000 people. The world has a collective responsibility to ensure history is not repeated,” the FM Shah Mahmoud Qureshi said on his twitter handle. Here, history cannot forget the devilish role played by Slobodan Milosevic, Gen Ratko Mladic, Gordovan Karadzic , Goran Hadzic , all those who faced the charges in The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) of Srebrenica genocide.
During the war in former Yugoslavia (1992-1995), Bosniaks sought refuge in Srebrenica from the surrounding area as the Bosnian Serb army sought to expel non-Serb populations. The UN had declared Srebrenica a “safe area” for civilians in 1993, but it fell in July 1995, after more than two years under siege. Mr Karadzic was accused of orchestrating a campaign of ethnic cleansing together with former Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladic. He was arrested in 2008 in Belgrade, where he had spent years masquerading as a faith healer, heavily disguised. Gen Mladic was tried separately. Another key suspect, Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, died in 2006 before the end of his trial. More than 100,000 people died in the Bosnian war, in which atrocities were committed by these culprits.
The Bosnian War (1992-1995), historically witnessed a period of ‘displacement and ethnic cleansing’ of Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats by the Bosnian Serb army and paramilitary forces. More than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were killed when Bosnian Serb forces attacked the UN “safe area” of Srebrenica in July 1995, despite the presence of Dutch troops tasked with acting as international peacekeepers. Srebrenica was besieged by Serb forces who were trying to wrest territory from Bosnian Muslims and Croats to form their own state. The UN Security Council had declared Srebrenica a “safe area” in the spring of 1993. However, Serb troops led by General Ratko Mladic — later found guilty of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide — overran the UN zone.
After the fateful fall of Srebrenica in July 1995, almost all captured Bosnian Muslim men and boys, altogether several thousand, were executed at the places where they had been captured or at sites to which they had been transported for execution. The Srebrenica massacre started on 11 July 1995, when Commander Ratko Mladiæ occupied the town of Srebrenica. Thousands of Bosnian Muslim families sought refuge with the Dutchbat, a Dutch battalion under the United Nations forces. The Dutch troops failed to act as Serb forces occupied the area, killing about 2,000 men and boys. Some 15,000 Srebrenica residents fled into the surrounding mountains, but Serb troops hunted down and killed 6,000 of them in the forests. By any touchstone, today, Kashmir depicts an organic similarity between the Bosnian Muslims detained in Srebrenica’s enclave and now Kashmiris being imprisoned in the Vale under Modi’s imposed lockdown.
Geographically, multiple colonial borders run through the Kashmiri territories including Indian, Pakistani and Chinese. Kashmir is the most militarized region in the world, with more than 8, 00000 armed Indian troops deployed in the India-occupied Kashmir. Modi is repressing Kashmiris through use of colonial war acts, including the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, the Public Safety Act and martial laws that have given Indian troops complete impunity. Modi’s Hindutva policies reflect nothing but fascist and narcissist course par excellence matching the Serbian crimes. Kashmiris’ freedom struggle— being indigenous against colonial occupation— is striving for exercising their right of self- determination.
The truth on Kashmir is rightly enlightened by a UN diplomat Josef Korbel who said: “The people of Kashmir have made it unmistakably known that they insist on being heard… The accession of the State of Jammu and Kashmir to India cannot be considered as valid by canons of international law. The issue itself cannot be sidetracked, the history of the case has made it clear that time has only aggravated, not healed, the conflict, that neither Pakistan nor the Kashmiris will accept the status quo as a solution. But no high hope should be entertained that bilateral negotiations will lead to a settlement. The United Nations has a principal responsibility to seek a solution”. Gross human rights violations have occurred under Modi’s yoke, according to a 2018 United Nations report. They include gang rapes by military and mass disappearances of approximately 8,000 to 10,000 people. As many as 100,000 Kashmiris have been killed and several thousands wounded, blinded and maimed, including through torture tactics in custody. Under UNDRIP, India is morally and legally bound to reverse decisions that impact the Kashmiris unilaterally and to grant them the right opportunity for self-government and self-determination.
—The writer, an independent ‘IR’ researcher-cum-international law analyst based in Pakistan, is member of European Consortium for Political Research Standing Group on IR, Critical Peace & Conflict Studies, also a member of Washington Foreign Law Society and European Society of International Law.
