Walk with Me Through Sarajevo Streets
Nader Hussein, Press Secretary/Communications Director
Content Warning/Trigger Warning: Rape, genocide
This week marks the 25th anniversary of one of the most heinous acts of aggression the world has ever seen, the Srebrenica massacre. In July of 1995, the Bosnian-Serb army and paramilitary units from Serbia carried out a genocide that left over 8,000 dead as part of a larger campaign of genocide against Bosnia’s Muslim population.
The Serb campaign was able to be carried out with minimal resistance because the world was abiding by a United Nations embargo of weapons to the new nation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, a decision then U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in 2005 would “haunt our history forever.”
Thankfully, the Bosniaks were not left to go it alone forever. A bipartisan group of U.S. Senators led an effort to lift the embargo and provide military aid; a group that included Bob Dole (R-KS), Joe Lieberman (D-CT) and Joe Biden (D-DE).
While one side of the Senate preferred a stance of neutrality and inaction, Joe Biden took to the Senate floor to make the moral and humanitarian case for U.S. intervention.
“If this does not represent our interests and our values, then nothing that has happened since the end of World War II represents our values.”
Then Senator Biden visited the war-torn country in 1993, and even met Serbian leader Slobodan Milošević, telling him “I think you’re a damn war criminal, and you should be tried as one.” When he returned, he described in brutal detail the horrific abuses that he witnessed and was told about.
“Walk with me through Sarajevo streets,” Biden told the Senate. “I came back and pointed out that this was raw, unadulterated genocide. That the Serbs had set up rape camps. A policy explicitly designed to take Muslim women into camps, rape them, have them carry the children to term, in order to intimidate and pollute the Muslim people in Bosnia.”
Biden not only told the tragic story, but he took action to help bring about the end of the genocide. He introduced an amendment to lift the embargo on Bosnia, provide $50 million in military aid and provide air cover to carry out the assistance.
“The Bosnians know where they want to be. They want to be free,” he pressed. “They will fight for themselves. All they have ever asked is ‘lift the embargo.’”
Biden began his efforts to support Bosnia early on in the conflict, criticizing the administration of George H.W. Bush for their inaction, and maintained his pressure on the Clinton administration, until the U.S. finally came to the support of the Bosnian people. His honorable stance was praised by Elvir Klempic who, with his family, were among the lucky few to escape from Srebrenica.
“When the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina felt as if no one was paying attention, that the world had forgotten and turned its back on us, we can be sure there was at least one person who cared and fought for us. That person’s name is Joseph R. Biden. Today he is running to be the President of the United States of America.” he wrote. “We need to support him.”
Originally published at https://bidenwarroom.org on July 16, 2020.
