Not another Srebrenica, Please!
By Naveed Khan
San Jose, CA
On the 15th anniversary of the 1995 mayhem, 60,000 Srebrenica people stood bravely to bury another 750 people found in a mass grave, some as young as 16-year-olds. By most conservative estimates 7,000-10,000 Bosnian Muslims were killed in three days of unrelenting mayhem perpetrated by the Serbs in 1995. One must admire the steadfastness and courage of Bosnians who always remember their loved ones and continue to move on with life. The Western world has given a number of extenuating circumstance for the genocide to have taken place. Two questions still hound the conscience of all fair-minded people: Given the UN Dutch contingent may have been outnumbered by marauding Serbs, two questions remain to be answered;
-Why didn't UN deploy more troops in Srebrenica and its surroundings when all commanders operating under the United Nations knew of the impending danger?
-When genocide started why didn't the Dutch contingent of the United Nations call for reinforcements, like use of air power, to stop the massacre?
The role of the United Nations and the Dutch contingent is not above board, in fact all evidence points to the fact that the Dutch were complicit in the crime.
As the Western World goes through the motion of delivering justice and bringing the culprits to trial the fact remains that not a single high profile person has been punished.
Let us all be clear that Bosnians were killed because they were Muslims. This is what the Muslim world must not forget. I believe 1995 was the year when global and regional powers started to believe that Muslims have become so weak that they could be pushed around, killed in large numbers without retribution. The Russians unleashed a brutal war against Chechen people and killed over 50,000 civilians in Grozny starting in 1999. India started its most brutal annexation of Kashmir in 1996 and has killed over 60,000 Kashmiris and its unabated killings in Kashmiris continue even today. Israel started its West Bank annexation policy by building settlements to practically blockade any realistic chance of an independent and viable Palestinian homeland.
Since the War in Bosnia and the genocide of Bosnian Muslims in 1995, over 1.5 million Muslims have been killed in conflicts because of foreign invasion of Muslim lands. Another 150,000-200,000 have died in state terrorism in Palestine, Chechnya and Northern Caucuses, Kashmir and Myanmar. Nearly 70 Millions live under foreign occupation and their values remain under consistent threat.
As Bosnians turned out in large numbers on the 15th anniversary of the genocide, it is painful that there is little remembrance of the tragic happenings in other parts of the Muslim world. I scanned English newspapers from fourteen Muslim countries and only two newspapers from Iran and Turkey had editorials recalling the atrocities.
As we go about our normal way of life, let us take a few moments to remember the victims of Srebrenica and offer prayers for them. If possible, try to write about them so that another Srebrenica is not repeated.
