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individuals were with seeming randomness seized by Bos-
nian Serb forces to be beaten, raped, or executed; 
Whereas Bosnian Serb forces deported women, children, and 
the elderly in buses, but held over 8,000 primarily 
Bosniak men and boys at collection points and sites in 
northeastern Bosnia and Herzegovina under their con-
trol, and then summarily executed these captives and 
buried them in mass graves; 
Whereas Bosnian Serb forces, hoping to conceal evidence of 
the massacre at Srebrenica, subsequently moved corpses 
from initial mass grave sites to many secondary sites 
scattered throughout parts of eastern Bosnia and 
Herzegovina under their control; 
Whereas the International Commission for Missing Persons 
(ICMP) deserves recognition for its assistance to the rel-
evant institutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina in account-
ing for close to 90 percent of those individuals reported 
missing from Srebrenica, despite active attempts to con-
ceal evidence of the massacre, through the careful exca-
vation of mass graves sites and subsequent DNA analysis 
which confirmed the true extent of the massacre; 
Whereas the massacre at Srebrenica was among the worst of 
many atrocities to occur in the conflict in Bosnia and 
Herzegovina from April 1992 to November 1995, during 
which the policies of aggression and ethnic cleansing pur-
sued by Bosnian Serb forces with the direct support of 
the Serbian regime of Slobodan Milosevic and its fol-
lowers ultimately led to the displacement of more than 
2,000,000 people, more than 100,000 killed, tens of thou-
sands raped or otherwise tortured and abused, including 
at concentration camps in the Prijedor area, with the in-
nocent civilians of Sarajevo and other urban centers re-
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peatedly subjected to traumatic shelling and sniper at-
tacks; 
Whereas in addition to being the primary victims at 
Srebrenica, individuals with Bosniak heritage comprise 
the vast majority of the victims during the conflict in 
Bosnia and Herzegovina as a whole, especially among the 
civilian population; 
Whereas Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and 
Punishment of the Crime of Genocide defines genocide as 
‘‘any of the following acts committed with intent to de-
stroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or 
religious group, as such: (a) killing members of the 
group; (b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to 
members of the group; (c) deliberately inflicting on the 
group conditions of life calculated to bring about its 
physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) imposing 
measures intended to prevent births within the group; 
and (e) forcibly transferring children of the group to an-
other group’’; 
Whereas, on May 25, 1993, the United Nations Security 
Council adopted Resolution 827 establishing the Inter-
national Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia 
(ICTY), based in The Hague, the Netherlands, and 
charging the ICTY with responsibility for investigating 
and prosecuting individuals suspected of committing war 
crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity and grave 
breaches of the 1949 Geneva Conventions on the territory 
of the former Yugoslavia since 1991; 
Whereas the ICTY, along with courts in Bosnia and 
Herzegovina as well as in Serbia, have indicted and in 
most cases convicted approximately three dozen individ-
uals at various levels of responsibility for grave breaches 
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of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, violations of the laws 
or customs of war, crimes against humanity, genocide, 
and complicity in genocide associated with the massacre 
at Srebrenica, most notably Radovan Karadzic and Ratko 
Mladic whose trials are ongoing; 
Whereas both the ICTY and the International Court of Jus-
tice (ICJ) have ruled that the actions of Bosnian Serb 
forces in Srebrenica in July 1995 constitute genocide; 
Whereas House Resolution 199, passed on June 27, 2005, 
expressed the sense of the House of Representatives that 
the aggression and ethnic cleansing committed by Serb 
forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina meets the terms defin-
ing genocide according to the 1949 Genocide Convention; 
Whereas the United Nations has largely acknowledged its 
failure to fulfill its responsibility to take actions and 
make decisions that could have deterred the assault on 
Srebrenica and prevented the subsequent genocide from 
occurring; 
Whereas some prominent Serbian and Bosnian Serb officials, 
among others, have denied or at least refused to acknowl-
edge that the massacre at Srebrenica constituted a geno-
cide, or have sought otherwise to trivialize the extent and 
importance of the massacre; and 
Whereas the international community, including the United 
States, has continued to provide personnel and resources, 
including through direct military intervention, to prevent 
further aggression and ethnic cleansing, to negotiate the 
General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and 
Herzegovina (initialed in Dayton, Ohio, on November 21, 
1995, and signed in Paris on December 14, 1995), and 
to help ensure its fullest implementation, including co-
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operation with the International Criminal Tribunal for 
the former Yugoslavia as well as reconciliation among all 
of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s citizens: Now, therefore, be 
it 
Resolved, That the House of Representatives— 
(1) affirms that the policies of aggression and 
ethnic cleansing as implemented by Serb forces in 
Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995 meet 
the terms defining the crime of genocide in Article 
2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punish-
ment of the Crime of Genocide; 
(2) condemns statements that deny or question 
that the massacre at Srebrenica constituted a geno-
cide; 
(3) urges the Atrocities Prevention Board, a 
United States interagency committee established by 
the Administration in 2012, to study the lessons of 
Srebrenica and issue informed guidance on how to 
prevent similar incidents from recurring in the fu-
ture, paying particular regard to troubled countries 
including but not limited to Syria, the Central Afri-
can Republic and Burundi; 
(4) encourages the United States to maintain 
and reaffirm its policy of supporting the independ-
ence and territorial integrity of Bosnia and 
Herzegovina, peace and stability in southeastern Eu-
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rope as a whole, and the right of all people living in 
the region, regardless of national, racial, ethnic or 
religious background, to return to their homes and 
enjoy the benefits of democratic institutions, the rule 
of law, and economic opportunity, as well as to know 
the fate of missing relatives and friends; 
(5) recognizes the achievement of the Inter-
national Commission for Missing Persons (ICMP) in 
accounting for those missing in conflicts or natural 
disasters around the world and believes that the 
ICMP deserves justified recognition for its assist-
ance to Bosnia and Herzegovina and its relevant in-
stitutions in accounting for approximately ninety 
percent of those reported missing after the 
Srebrenica massacre and seventy percent of those re-
ported missing during the whole of the conflict in 
Bosnia and Herzegovina; 
(6) welcomes the arrest and transfer to the 
International Criminal Tribunal for the former 
Yugoslavia (ICTY) of all persons indicted for war 
crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and grave 
breaches of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, particu-
larly those of Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, 
which has helped strengthen peace and encouraged 
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reconciliation between the countries of the region 
and their citizens; 
(7) asserts that it is in the national interest of 
the United States that those individuals who are re-
sponsible for these crimes and breaches should con-
tinue to be held accountable for their actions, and 
that the work of the ICTY therefore warrants con-
tinued support until all trials and appeals have been 
completed; and 
(8) honors the thousands of innocent people 
killed or executed at Srebrenica in Bosnia and 
Herzegovina in July 1995, along with all individuals 
who were victimized during the conflict and genocide 
in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995, as 
well as foreign nationals, including United States 
citizens, and those individuals in Serbia, Bosnia and 
Herzegovina, and other countries of the region who 
risked and in some cases lost their lives during their 
brave defense of human rights and fundamental 
freedoms, and advocacy of respect for ethnic identity 
without discrimination. 
Æ 
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