IV 
116TH CONGRESS 
2D SESSION 
H. RES. 1045 
Condemning the genocide and other crimes against the Bosniak community 
perpetrated by Bosnian Serb forces at Srebrenica in Bosnia and 
Herzegovina in July 1995. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
JULY 13, 2020 
Ms. JOHNSON of Texas (for herself, Mr. ENGEL, and Mr. MCGOVERN) sub-
mitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on 
Armed Services 
RESOLUTION 
Condemning the genocide and other crimes against the 
Bosniak community perpetrated by Bosnian Serb forces 
at Srebrenica in Bosnia and Herzegovina in July 1995. 
Whereas, beginning in April 1992, aggression and ethnic 
cleansing perpetrated by Bosnian Serb forces supported 
by the military and paramilitary forces from Serbia while 
taking control in the surrounding territory resulted in a 
massive influx of Bosniaks seeking protection in 
Srebrenica and its environs, which the United Nations 
Security Council (UNSC) designated a ‘‘safe area’’ with-
in the Srebrenica enclave in Resolution 819 on April 16, 
1993, under the protection of the United Nations Protec-
tion Force (UNPROFOR); 
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•HRES 1045 IH 
Whereas the UNPROFOR presence in Srebrenica consisted 
of a Dutch peacekeeping battalion, with representatives 
of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 
the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the 
humanitarian 
medical 
aid 
agency 
Medecins 
Sans 
Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) helping to provide 
humanitarian relief to the displaced population living in 
conditions of massive overcrowding, destitution, and dis-
ease; 
Whereas, early in 1995, an intensified blockade of the enclave 
by Bosnian Serb forces supported by the military and 
paramilitary forces from Serbia deprived the entire popu-
lation of humanitarian aid and outside communication 
and contact, and effectively reduced the ability of the 
Dutch peacekeeping battalion to respond effectively to a 
deteriorating situation; 
Whereas, beginning on July 6, 1995, Bosnian Serb forces at-
tacked UNPROFOR outposts, seized control of the iso-
lated enclave, held captured Dutch soldiers hostage and, 
after skirmishes with local defenders, took control of the 
town of Srebrenica on July 11, 1995; 
Whereas an estimated one-third of the population of 
Srebrenica at the time, including a relatively small num-
ber of soldiers, attempted to pass through the lines of 
Bosnian Serb forces to the relative safety of Bosnian 
Government-controlled territory, but many were killed by 
patrols and ambushes; 
Whereas the remaining population sought protection with the 
Dutch peacekeeping battalion at its headquarters in the 
village of Potocari north of Srebrenica, but many of these 
individuals were with seeming randomness seized by Bos-
nian Serb forces to be beaten, raped, or executed; 
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•HRES 1045 IH 
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 in north-
eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina under their control, and 
then summarily executed the captives and buried them in 
mass graves; 
Whereas Bosnian Serb forces, hoping to conceal evidence of 
the Srebrenica massacre, subsequently moved corpses 
from initial mass grave sites to many secondary and ter-
tiary sites scattered throughout parts of northeastern 
Bosnia and Herzegovina under their control; 
Whereas the Srebrenica massacre 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 
Slobodan Milosevic and the Yugoslav Government led to 
the displacement of more than 2,000,000 people, more 
than 100,000 killed, and tens of thousands raped, tor-
tured, and abused, including at concentration camps in 
the Prijedor area, with the innocent civilians of Sarajevo 
and other urban centers repeatedly subjected to trau-
matic shelling and sniper attacks; 
Whereas in addition to being the primary victims in 
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 
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•HRES 1045 IH 
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 UNSC adopted Resolution 
827 establishing the International 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 human-
ity, 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 and in Serbia, have indicted and convicted 
more than 1,000 individuals at the highest and additional 
levels of responsibility for grave breaches of the 1949 Ge-
neva Conventions, violations of the laws or customs of 
war, crimes against humanity, genocide, and complicity 
in genocide associated with the Srebrenica massacre; 
Whereas the ICTY found Radovan Karadzic guilty of geno-
cide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity and found 
Ratko Mladic guilty of war crimes and crimes against hu-
manity, and ultimately sentenced both to life in prison; 
Whereas both the ICTY and the International Court of Jus-
tice have ruled that the actions of Bosnian Serb forces 
in Srebrenica in July 1995 constitute genocide; 
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•HRES 1045 IH 
Whereas House Resolution 199, passed on June 27, 2005, 
and House Resolution 310, passed on July 8, 2015, ex-
pressed the sense of the House of Representatives that 
the aggression and ethnic cleansing committed by Bos-
nian Serb forces supported by military and paramilitary 
forces from Serbia in Bosnia and Herzegovina meets the 
terms defining genocide according to the 1949 Genocide 
Convention; 
Whereas the United Nations has acknowledged its failure 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, 
including 
current 
Serb 
member 
of 
Bosnia 
and 
Herzegovina’s three-member presidency, Milorad Dodik, 
who has falsely labelled the Srebrenica genocide a ‘‘fab-
ricated myth’’ and ‘‘the greatest deception of the twen-
tieth century’’, have denied that the massacre at 
Srebrenica constituted a genocide or have sought to oth-
erwise trivialize the extent and importance of the geno-
cide; 
Whereas other prominent Serbian and Bosnian Serb officials 
have denied or refused to acknowledge that the 
Srebrenica massacre constituted a genocide, or have 
sought to trivialize the extent and importance of the mas-
sacre by disputing the number and identities of 
Srebrenica’s victims, claiming the existence of an inter-
national anti-Serb conspiracy, and disputing definitions 
under the UN Genocide Convention; 
Whereas many in the Republika Srpska, the Bosnian Serb 
entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and municipalities, in-
stitutions, and other authorities within it have honored 
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