The Betrayal of Srebrenica
The Oxford Union, 25/10/2000
Uncorrected

After five years, still I cannot forget the testimonies of unspeakable atrocities that together describe the strategy of “ethnic cleansing”. I cannot forget the look in the eyes of Hasan Nuhanovic, a young Bosnian who worked as a translator for Dutchbat – whose father, mother and brother were among the 242 refugees delivered to their executioners by the Dutch battalion commander.

“467. The tragedy that took place following the fall of Srebrenica is shocking for two reasons. It is shocking, first and foremost, for the magnitude of the crimes committed.
Not since the horrors of World War II had Europe witnessed massacres on this scale. The mortal remains of close to 2,500 men and boys have been found on the surface, in mass grave sites and in secondary burial sites. Several thousand more men are still missing, and there is every reason to believe that additional burial sites, many of which have been probed but not exhumed, will reveal the bodies of thousands more men and boys.
The great majority of those who were killed were not killed in combat: the exhumed bodies of the victims show large numbers had their hands bound, or were blindfolded, or were shot in the back or the back of the head. Numerous eyewitness accounts, now well corroborated by forensic evidence, attest to scenes of mass slaughter of unarmed victims”. (UN Report)

“468. The fall of Srebrenica is also shocking because the enclaves inhabitants believed that the authority of the United Nations Security Council, the presence of UNITED NATIONS PROTECTION FORCE (UNPROFOR) peacekeepers, and the might of NATO air power, would ensure their safety.” (UN Report)

More than five years ago, on 11 July 1995, the United Nations "safe area" of Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia was overrun by Bosnian Serb troops. Some 8,000 civilians, virtually the entire male population were systematically massacred in cold blood during four days of carnage and delivered to their executioners by the UN. It was the worst massacre on European soil since the Third Reich.

When the Serbian onslaught rolled through Srebrenica, it made a mockery of United Nations Security Council Resolution 819, establishing Srebrenica as a "safe area”.
Resolution 836 "guaranteeing" protection for the people in the enclave "by all necessary means, including the use of force",

UNPROFOR Force Commander took a different approach from the Security Council, demanding from the Bosnian Army that they should sign a demilitarisation agreement in return for the promise of a cease-fire, stipulating that "all military or paramilitary units should either withdraw from the demilitarised zone or surrender their arms."

In February 1995, the battered enclave was place under the care of the Dutch battalion operating under the flag of the United Nations.

Instead of a safe area, Srebrenica under relentless shelling became a nightmare zone. The town was teeming with refugees, many living on the streets as the Serbs prepared their final solution to the siege.

For two years, the Serb blocked most UN aid convoys to Srebrenica, cutting off food shipments, medical supplies and even the supply of shoes. They even confiscated cooking salt from UN aid convoys, replacing it with industrial salt to poison the towns people.

The title "safe area" became an obscenity. It was a legitimised concentration camp unprotected from aggression and cut off from help and supplies. After the fall of Srebrenica, there was one lonely voice which refused to be an accomplice to the cover up: Tadeusz Mazowiecki, the former prime minister of Poland, who had been appointed by the UN as envoy for human rights and had advocated the establishment of “safe areas”.
In his letter of resignation shortly after the massacres, he wrote: "One cannot speak about the protection of human rights with credibility when one is confronted with the lack of consistency and courage displayed by the international community and its leaders . . …. the very stability of international order and the principle of civilisation are at stake over the question of Bosnia. Crimes have been committed with swiftness and brutality and, by contrast, the response of the international community has been slow and ineffectual".

The man who oversaw the genocidal slaughter was General Ratko Mladic, commander of the Bosnian Serb army. Today General Mladic is an international fugitive from justice, wanted for genocide, as is Radovan Karadzic, the political leader accused of giving General Mladic his orders. More than five years have elapsed since the fall of Srebrenica, and despite the scale of the carnage, the veracity of shocking testimonies to it and the warrants for the arrest of Mladic and Karadzic, there has been no effort by the international community to capture them. Indeed, there has been extreme reluctance to do so, furthermore, there has been no blame attached tot he UN officials and troops who delivered the men of Srebrenica to the slaughter.

Before the fall of Srebrenica, a pivotal deal between the supreme UN military commander of the former Yugoslavia, General Janvier of France and General Mladic had already been cast in stone. General Bernard Janvier, had met with Mladic at the Hotel Vidikovac in the town of Zvornik on the Bosnian-Serbian border on 4 June 1995.The meeting took place at a time when the Bosnian Serbs held a number of UN soldiers hostages. The two men struck a deal: if the Serbs released the hostages, many of whom were French, and stopped shooting at UN troops, the UN would in return cease to grant permission for NATO air strikes against them.

"We were the supplicants," one of Janvier's aides said. "Janvier proposed the meeting. Janvier proposed the deal." It was the latest in a miserable litany of acquiescence and capitulation to the Serbs by the United Nations, among which was the setting up of the doomed safe areas themselves.

The three-point agreement drawn up between Janvier and Mladic said:

"1. The Army of Republika Srpska will no longer use force or threaten the life and safety of members of UNPROFOR [The UN Protection Force].

2. UNPROFOR commits to no longer make use of force which leads to the use of air strikes against the targets and territory of the Republika Srpska.

3 The signing of this agreement will lead immediately to the freeing of all prisoners of war."

The UN hostages were, freed by the middle of June

According to the UN report:
“196. The Secretary-General of NATO, Mr. Claes, wrote to the United Nations Secretary-General on 21 June, noting the public speculation that the freeing of the hostages had not been unconditional, and may have been accompanied by engagements or assurances concerning the further use of NATO air power. Mr. Claes sought clarification on this matter.” (UN Report)

There was a meeting at the Dalmatian port of Split in Croatia on 9 June, chaired by Yasushi Akashi, the UN Secretary General's special envoy to former Yugoslavia. Akashi had established a consistent record of stifling attempts at intervention against the Serbs, using his close contact with Belgrade to do so.

General Smith observed: "We have been neutralised." He argued that "if we hit them, they [the Serbs] will be more co-operative". Janvier disagreed. "I insist we will never use force to impose our will on the Serbs, he said, admitting, "the Serbs are controlling the situation."

The strategy was that the UN should rather than defy the Serbs, placate them by abandoning the “safe areas” to the mercy of the executioners. "What would be most acceptable to the Serbs, General Janvier said bluntly, "would be to leave the enclaves. It is the most realistic approach and it makes the most sense from the military point of view, but it is impossible for the international community to accept”.
He was wrong only on the last point. Such a betrayal was utterly acceptable to the international community. By striking a treacherous deal with Mladic, General Janvier, who represented the United Nations, had already condemned Srebrenica to the sword.

According to the remarkable set of documents that I was given which have been obtained from inside the United Nations, former President Milosevic and the UN high command were acting as a close-knit cabal during the massacre at Srebrenica.

They were in constant touch with each other, they even meeting in the Serbian capital of Belgrade to force "agreements" about the safety of their own soldiers and equipment while women were being raped and murdered, and the men of the town, which included old men, were systematically shot and dynamited to death.

On July 7, Mr. Carl Bildt, a former Swedish Prime Minister and European Union envoy, currently the UN special envoy for the former Yugoslavia, met in Belgrade with Milosevic and General Mladic. Mr. Bildt however did not address the Serb attack against Srebrenica during this meeting. The UN Dutch battalion was even giving the Bosnian Serbs the fuel to drive the buses that brought the victims to the execution sites and the bulldozers, which ploughed the corpses of their victims into the ground.

According to the UN Report, Special Representative of the Secretary General Mr. Yasushi Akashi wrote to Karadzic:
“219. The SRSG, conveying what he considered to be the shared views of the Force Commander and the Secretariat, wrote to Dr. Karadzic on 19 June, as follows:

(Akashi): “I wish to assure you that these theatre reserve forces [Rapid Reaction Force] will operate under the existing United Nations peace-keeping rules of engagement and will not in any way change the essential peace-keeping nature of the UNPROFOR mission.
While the reserve will enhance UNPROFORs security, the understanding and co-operation of the parties themselves will be the best guarantor of the Forces continued effectiveness as an impartial force”.

The Permanent Representative of the United States issued a statement protesting this letter, stating that, The method, timing and substance of this letter are highly inappropriate.”(UN R)

“220. On 6 July, the day the Serb attack on Srebrenica began, as night was falling in Srebrenica the Secretariat [Kofi Annan] met again with troop contributors, repeating that the Rapid Reaction Force would not be used for peace enforcement.
The Force would be used to assist UNPROFOR forces to carry out their peacekeeping mandate. The Force will not have any function outside of this role.” (UN Report)

While Under-Secretary for Peace-keeping operations, Kofi Annan was advocating to the troop contributors not to use the Rapid Reaction Force for peace enforcement, he made no mention that the Bosnian Serb Army (BSA) had launched their attack on Srebrenica in the early morning hours of that day. Fighting took place at a number of points on the perimeter of the enclave, and shells exploded at various locations within the enclave.

“471. On a number of occasions the Dutchbat commander made appeals to UNPROFOR requesting Air Support in response to the Serb attacks. Even after many UN troops had been taken hostage and faced potential Serb reprisal. These requests were unheeded by his superiors at various levels. He was told that the risk of confrontation with the Serbs was to be avoided, and that the execution of the mandate was secondary to the security of his personnel, the Dutch battalion withdrew from Observation Posts under direct attack.”
(UN Report)

I will read you an excerpt from the UN report in which Kofi Annan says:
“482. What is clear is that my predecessor [Bouthros Bouthros-Ghalli], his senior advisers (amongst whom I was included as Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations), the Special Representative of the Secretary General (SRSG) and the Force Commander were all deeply reluctant to use air power against the Serbs (485). We were, with hindsight, wrong to declare repeatedly and publicly that we did not want to use air power against the Serbs except as a last resort, and to accept the shelling of the safe areas as a daily occurrence.”

Although the United Nations has published a report on the fall of Srebrenica until today the UN has not publicly disclosed the full details of the attack on Srebrenica from the 6th to 11th of July. The accounts that David Harland presented in his report were reconstructed mainly from the report filed at the time by Dutch battalion and UN Military Observers (UNMO).

On that same day in Srebrenica the “acting-Commander of Bosnian forces in Srebrenica, asked the UNPROFOR Battalion Commander to give the Bosniacs back the weapons they had surrendered as part of the demilitarisation agreements of 1993, but this request was refused. One of the Dutchbat Commanders superiors, with whom he consulted on this decision, has since stated that he supported the decision not to hand back the weapons, because it was UNPROFORs responsibility to defend the enclave, and not theirs...”
(p.240 UN Report).

Bosnian Serb Troops began their final, bloody push into Srebrenica in the afternoon of 11 July 1995. The first official UN document to mark the offensive is a full record of a meeting held by the "Blue Sword Crisis Action Team", the UN high command for the entire region, in Zagreb that day. The meeting was led by special envoy Akashi.

His senior military commander, General Janvier, was there, as was the chief of staff, brigadier General Steren, as well as the Nato liaison officer, British Air Commodore Rudd, and three other senior military officers.

The meeting started with the news that the Bosnian Serbs were attacking the Dutch UN battalion, and that Nato planes were "forming a strike package en route to Srebrenica." General Janvier's deal with Mladic seemed to be in trouble. However, two minutes after this bulletin, Akashi told the meeting about a telephone call he had with former President Milosevic, who in theory had nothing to do with the war since May 1992.

Akashi explained to Milosevic the difference between "close air support" for his UN soldiers and "air strikes" against the Serbs, apparently insisting that this Nato action was not an air strike and that the Janvier-Mladic deal was intact.

Milosevic replied on behalf of Mladic, saying that Mladic would not recognise the difference. At 2.40 p.m. Nato planes struck two targets, a tank and an armoured personnel carrier, missing the tank. Janvier then stepped in and ordered the Dutch soldiers to withdraw from their observation posts and retreat to the battalion compound at Potocari near Srebrenica.

Extraordinarily, the telephone rang. Milosevic was on the line, apparently outraged by the timid air strike. Akashi explained that the Nato action was in response to an attack on his men and, that if the Serbs withdrew, there would be no more strikes.

Then, suddenly, Akashi started to talk to Milosevic about a Dutch soldier killed by the Bosnian army the previous week, saying he hoped these latest developments would not
jeopardise the peace process.

The Bosnian Serbs were, by now, tearing into Srebrenica while Akashi was stating Milosevic's position to the meeting: that the Serbian troops were advancing only in response to "terrorism" by the Bosnians.

On July 10, according to the UN report, the Secretary General Kofi Annan says: “rather than attempting to mobilise the international community to support the enclaves defence, we gave the Security Council the impression that the situation was under control. The day before Srebrenica fell we reported that the Serbs were not attacking when they were. We reported that the Bosniacs had fired on an UNPROFOR blocking position when it was the Serbs. We failed to mention urgent requests for air power.” (p.496 UN R)

The Secretariat failed to report to the Security Council that there had been a series of requests from the Dutchbat for the Close Air Support between 6 to 8 July, and that they have been turned down in Sarajevo. He also did not mention that a formal request for Close Air Support have been submitted UN Protection force headquarters in Zagreb the day before, although a copy of the request had been transmitted to the UN headquarters in New York.

At 8.08 p.m. that evening, the town taken and the slaughter under way, Akashi wrote to Kofi Annan. Akashi acknowledges that "Serbs harassed the column of Bosnians leaving Srebrenica for Potocari". There were "exploding shells so close to the column of the displaced" that they created "panic".

What he referred to here was not panic; it was what Judge Riad called the massacres in the woods, the ambushing of civilians with shells and mortars as they fled the safe area declared by his own UN.

It has since emerged that even during the morning of the day Srebrenica fell, intelligence documents were reporting that Mladic intended to exterminate the entire population of the town. Two-thirds of the population of 40,000 had fled to the Dutch base at Potocari. The Dutch had been given orders from UNPROFOR "to protect the refugees" and escort them to "the safe areas". The Serbs, however, insisted on the horrific separation of these people by sex in full view of the UN Dutch battalion commander and soldiers.

On 12 July, a column of between 12,000 and 14,000 able-bodied men and boys set off across the frontlines. More than half of them were ambushed or executed en route. During the days that followed, the rest were bussed to a place of execution and summarily murdered.

A debriefing by Dutch Brigadier General van der Wind, delivered in October 1995 to the Dutch government, told how Mladic set out his conditions for the evacuation of refugees. He insisted on the separation of women and children from the men. Karremans is reported to have "objected to the screening, but also to no avail; that is to say, the process of separation was not only accepted by the Dutch battalion but that they participated in the screening as early as 12 July.

The debriefing report continued: "In order to prevent excesses with regard to transport, the battalion commander decided to co-operate in the evacuation.
When the first buses arrived, they were stormed by a large number of refugees who wanted to board as quickly as possible. Dutchbat [Dutch battalion] personnel then formed an orderly pathway to the buses."

Next day, the 13th, "the transports were resumed at 06.30 hrs".

Extraordinarily, the report notes that "a list of men of fighting age was drawn up on the initiative of the deputy battalion commander [Major Franken.] This was done partly on the compound itself."

Approximately 60 men refused to give their names. Ultimately, there were 239 names on the list in addition to three members of Hasan Nuhanovic family. At approximately 19.30 hrs on 13 July the last refugees left Potocari, with the exception of a few whom stayed behind. In fact, these individuals were handed over by Dutchbat to the Bosnian Serbs -- they were never seen again.

The report notes that the "events which occurred from 6 to 13 July were particularly hectic, confusing, and disorganised" This was the official UN description of the carnage summarised in Judge Riad's chilling verdict.

There is official acknowledgement of at least a portion of this direct delivery of men in a restricted memorandum dated 15 July from an UNPROFOR officer in Tuzla, Ken Biser, who cabled to Zagreb to say that "239 persons, presumable draft-age males were removed [from the Dutch compound] presumable to Batkovici near Bijelina in Bosnian Serb army-controlled territory." He went on to say that "of the 15,000 to 20,000 people in the area outlying Potocari, 7000 were removed."

There is an even more remarkable piece of co-operation between the Dutch and the Serbs.
The Dutch debriefing report specifies that on the second day of the hand over of the Muslims, 13 July; "Dutchbat transferred 30,000 litres of fuel to the BSA [Bosnian Serb Army] in accordance with Mladic's demands".
The Dutch were fuelling the very vehicles that Mladic used to bring the executioners to Potocari, and the buses that brought their victims to the killing fields.

General Van der Wind argued that Mladic had a hold over the UN Dutch battalion. The Dutch ministry of defense was busy shredding evidence of its dealings with the Serb general to get its men away, after the fall of Srebrenica vital video evidence went ‘missing’ however, Serb television showed enough pictures of Dutch officers drinking champagne with Mladic.

Meanwhile, during the delivery of the Bosniac by the Dutch to their Serb executioners, Colonel Karremans turned his attention to protecting his troops.

On 13 July, the Bosnian government warned the world that systematic slaughter was taking place at Srebrenica. Government minister Hasan Muratovic told US Ambassador John Menzies in Sarajevo that more than 1,000 men had been collected in a stadium at Bratunac.

That evening, the Bosnian Serbs surrounded a column of men three kilometres long at the village of Glodzanje and took an order from their commander, Major Obrenovic: "You must kill everyone. We don’t need anyone alive."

On the same day, Akashi again cabled Annan in New York. He focused on the exodus of women and children to Tuzla, failing to mention the executions. However, in a grotesque classic of understatement, he informed his superior that "we are beginning to detect a shortfall in the number of persons expected to arrive in Tuzla”. There is no further information on the status of approximately 4,000 draft-age males.

On 17 July, the UN Serbian cabal gathered in Belgrade, just as the summary executions of Bosniac males by Mladic's death squads were reaching a bloody climax in Potocari, Karakaj, Nova Kasaba, Kravica and Pilica.

Akashi sent Annan a cable to report that "Carl Bildt , Mr. Thorwald Stoltenberg [of the Geneva standing "peace conference”] and myself met in Belgrade with Milosevic on Saturday 15 July. I was accompanied by General Rupert Smith. Milosevic, at the request of Bildt, facilitated the presence of General Mladic at the meeting.
Mladic and Smith had a long, bilateral discussion. Despite their disagreement on several points, the meeting established dialogue between the two generals. Informal agreement was reached on a number of points."

He concluded: "in view of the highly sensitive nature of the presence of Mladic at the meeting, it was agreed by all participants that the fact should not be mentioned at all in public."

The upshot of the meeting was an "agreement" between Smith and Mladic at another rendezvous two days later. Smith's adjutant wrote up the minutes, warning in his cable that:
"General Smith does not wish the agreement to fall into public domain. We view it as a first, limited step towards a normalisation of relations with the BSA".

The terms of the agreement are well known: the pertain to access for the Red Cross and for "future aid convoys" into what was, by now, a ghost town which was being freely looted and pillaged.

UNPROFORs own freedom of movement was high on the agenda, but there was scant mention of the fact that the rattle of the executioner's guns was not beginning to subside because most of the men of Srebrenica were dead.

The minute does; however, record Mladic's chilling, and apparently unchallenged, version of things. He was at pains to point out that Srebrenica was finished in a correct way.

He stated: "The population who moved to Potocari were evacuated at their own request and with the full help and co-operation of UNPROFOR." He accepted that "some skirmishes had taken place, with casualties on both sides", and that some unfortunate incidents had occurred." He had just described to his opposite numbers form the United Nations the most horrific, cold-bloodied mass murder of our age.

The UN listened, impotent . . . complicit?
There is no suggestion that Smith had been party to the overrunning of Srebrenica, but what about his superiors, Janvier and Akashi.

When Srebrenica was declared a "safe area" in 1993, those who had for 18 months tried to defend the town were obliged to hand over their weapons.
In return, they were promised the tutelage and protection of the UN and its professional soldiers. In law, those who are placed in a position of responsibility (not least to the weak and vulnerable) are liable if they fail to fulfil it.

Does that premise alone qualify Janvier, Akashi and the UN Dutch battalion's commanders to be considered to stand trial? Moreover, what role did the Secretariat in the New York headquarters played?

However, Srebrenica was no isolated butchery. The massacres were the culmination of three years of continuous slaughter, a pogrom of violence that was exposed to the world.
It could, and should have been stopped at any time by the huffing and puffing politicians and diplomats with the authority for clinical air strikes, which would have stopped the Bosnian Serb army from its persecution of civilians.

But the pogrom was deliberately allowed to go on and on, to the debacle at Srebrenica, and beyond. From the UN and the international community, there were consistent lies, duplicity, cowardice, intrigue, appeasement and deals; deals like Janvier's treachery at Zvornik, the existence of which Akashi has denied over and over again.

General Janvier was once asked at a press conference what he thought of Mladic. His reply: "I think he is a professional soldier trying to defend his people."

The international community wants to forget Srebrenica, and it is reluctant to apprehend the war criminals. It knows all too well that to bring to trial those responsible for the massacres will highlight its own liabilities. Indeed, I learnt in one of my trips that Karadzic and Mladic have stated privately that they are assembling their defence and are prepared to implicate those who were "complicit" in their crimes.

The UN, which was supposed to be guarantor for the safety of civilians in Srebrenica, has not seen fit to establish a commission of inquiry to determine whether its peacekeepers and officials should be held accountable for the crimes against humanity and violations of the laws of war. [complicit in genocide, aiding and abetting genocide]

Do Janvier and Akashi share some responsibility with Mladic and Karadzic for the carnage that followed, since they cut deals with the BSA that led to the sacrifice of Srebrenica?

Should the Dutchbat officers and soldiers be brought to trial for delivering the civilians of Srebrenica into the hand of their executioners when they had the mandate and obligation to protect them?

What role the UN officials at the New York headquarter otherwise known as a Secretariat play in the fall of Srebrenica? Did they fail to abide by the Genocide Convention.

Why has the French government not set up a commission of inquiry to determine Janvier's share of responsibility in the massacre at Srebrenica? Did his negotiations with General Mladic give the Bosnian Serbs the green light to annihilate the enclave?

Why are the US government, the CIA, the State Department, the Pentagon and the National Security Agency suppressing important documents and photographs requested under the freedom of Information Act by human rights organisations, by the Hague War Crimes tribunal and those seeking to establish that Yugoslavia violated the Geneva and Convention?

Why did the US government keep secret, for almost a month, crucial satellite photographs of men kneeling in the field near Srebrenica awaiting execution when many lives might have been saved if they had been released immediately?

These are all profoundly serious questions that remain unanswered. There will be no lasting peace in Bosnia until the war criminals are apprehended. The litany of false promises, hollow threats and betrayal is endless. Were they the product of a deliberate policy of appeasement and collaborations? The arrest of Karadzic and Mladic are a test of Prime Minister Tony Blair's commitment to put human rights at the top of his foreign policy.

There will be no lasting peace without justice. If American and European leaders turn their backs on the dead and missing of Srebrenica, they will have traded away everything that democratic nations claim they stand for.

A few months after the fall, I went to Srebrenica with a Bosnian translator and a driver. Right away, I knew we were entering a forbidden city. People were looking out from their windows shocked to see strangers. There was no question that we all felt apprehensive and the threatened. After the take-over the town was occupied by Serb refugees, some forced to do so by their leaders, other because they had no other place to go.

However, it was obvious that they were as apprehensive as we were. They perceived us as intruders who wanted to uncover the unspeakable atrocities that had taken place on this soil. Although Srebrenica was inhabited again, it feels like a ghost town. But the marks of the mortars and shells where only too real. One can almost feel the presence of those massacred. The stench of sewage was still coming from the filthy brook that runs through the town.

I stopped by the Dutchbat base at Potocari--by the football pitch at Nova Kasaba-- and many other places that were scenes of execution.

For five years, I have been haunted by the atrocities perpetrated in Srebrenica. How can I forget those who were executed, massacred, tortured, buried alive. If I forget them, I will be completing their extermination.

How can I forget the grief of the women of Srebrenica: those mothers, daughters, wives, sisters and grandmothers. The women of Srebrenica are convinced that there is a conspiracy on the part of the international community not to arrest Karadzic and Mladic and stall the exhumation and identification process. Since the last five years, of the 8,000 missing persons, less than 3,000 bodies have been recovered.

Throughout the conflict and its aftermath, there were those who have advocated a policy of neutrality and appeasement in Srebrenica and Rwanda.

Dante wrote: "The darkest place in Hell is reserved for those who, in a period of crisis, claim neutrality."

Srebrenica and Rwanda have been a failure of our morality. It has also been an indictment of international law and order. The real question is how we will live with the blood of Srebrenica on our conscience after working so hard to keep it off our hands. The world is a different place because of what has happened in Srebrenica and Rwanda. Confidence in the UN one of our most trusted institutions has been shattered. Our hopes for the post-Cold War era have been cast into doubt.

The failure of the UN to protect the victims in Srebrenica and Rwanda is not just an indictment on the UN and the international community, but also on ourselves, it is not just the death of those massacred in Srebrenica and Rwanda but also our own.

The message should not be lost on those who challenge international justice and international order, from Rwanda, Srebrenica, East Timor, Guatemala, Tibet. It is my hope that during and after this debate here at the Oxford Union you will perform serious soul-searching as to where the global community has gone wrong.

As future leaders of your profession you should call for action beyond the endless analyses and prescriptions that the human rights community periodically produces. One of the most shocking aspects of these genocides is that they occurred under the glare of the information age and against a background of warnings and intelligence updates.