Smith Honored for Human Rights Work in Bosnia

Press Release

Smith Honored for Human Rights Work in Bosnia

U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) was presented the "Srebrenica 1995" award last night in recognition of his "efforts to promote truth and justice" in the wake of the atrocities in Bosnia and for his "contribution to the resistance against genocide in the world."

Smith was selected for the award by mothers of the victims of the massacre in Srebrenica.

The award certificate—which only has been bestowed on two previous recipients—was presented to Smith by Grand Mufti Reis Ceric, the highest Muslim religious leader in Bosnia and the only Grand Mufti in Europe. The presentation coincided with the annual remembrance of the tragic massacre at Srebrenica in July 1995, where members of the Bosnian Serb Army murdered over 8,000 unarmed Bosniak males who had sought safety in the United Nations-designated "safe area" of Srebrenica.

"This week the international community must recommit itself to apprehending and bringing to justice once and for all those who perpetrated these heinous crimes. Justice is the essential prerequisite to sustainable reconciliation and no matter how long it takes, we must never tire or grow weary in the pursuit of justice," Smith said during the ceremony. "The perpetrators of genocide would like nothing better than that we forget. And that, of course, is something we cannot do—ever."

In 2005, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a resolution authored by Smith that clearly and unambiguously condemned the Srebrenica genocide and called for the international community to hold the individuals responsible for the war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity in the Bosnian War accountable for their actions.

Smith was one of the first to speak out against the atrocities at Srebrenica and to call it genocide, convening hearings to investigate the conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina—including one specifically on the massacre at Srebrenica—during his tenure as chairman of both the Helsinki Commission and the House International Relations Committee Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights.

"Future historians—like those of us here today—will be hard pressed to ever understand how a UN Security Council designated ‘safe area,' guarded by a significant deployment of UN peacekeepers, backed up by NATO's superior air power, could have capitulated in the face of unmitigated evil and enabled one of the most despicable acts in human history," said Smith, who was selected for the "Srebrenica 1995" award by groups representing mothers of the victims.

"Adding unnecessary insult to injury some in the international community further exacerbated matters by employing euphemisms that masked the reality of the genocide. Somehow, they just couldn't utter the word genocide. Thankfully, the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia found ‘beyond any reasonable doubt that a crime of genocide was committed in Srebrenica,'" Smith added during his remarks.

Prior to arriving in Bosnia, Smith traveled to Russia where he encouraged deputies of the Duma to build on their laws to combat human trafficking by adding more protections for victims and to the Ukraine where he participated in the 16th Annual Session of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's (OSCE) Parliamentary Assembly.

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