Srebrenica Memorial Week

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Srebrenica Memorial Week.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Robert. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing us the opportunity to hold this debate in time to mark the commemoration of the Srebrenica genocide. I also thank the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns) and the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford), who are co-sponsors of this debate. Their support is a testament to the fact that this issue transcends all party divides in this House and across the country.

The Srebrenica genocide and the events leading up to it contain important lessons on which we must take this opportunity to reflect. The House is familiar with the story of the appalling atrocity. The Bosnian war from 1992 to 1995 saw the planned, systematic and industrialised murder of just under 100,000 Muslims, the displacement of 2 million people and the genocidal rape of about 50,000 women simply because of their Muslim identity.

In July 1995, the Bosnian Serb General Mladić and his forces seized the Bosnian town of Srebrenica, which had been declared a UN safe area. Over just a few days, more than 8,000 people, mainly Bosnian Muslim men and boys, were systematically murdered by the Bosnian Serb forces. The bodies were dumped in mass graves and later moved to secondary and even tertiary mass graves as the Bosnian Serb soldiers sought to cover up what they had done. There are still some people missing.

I am sure that, like me, colleagues here today remember the harrowing scenes of the war in Bosnia on our television screens. We watched neighbours turn against neighbours, friends against friends, ethnicity against ethnicity. I will not forget seeing the images of the emaciated prisoners held in the concentration camp while looking on in disbelief that ethnic cleansing, systematic mass rape and genocide were all happening not in a faraway place, but in Europe.

I commend the hon. Lady for securing this debate. I apologise to you, Sir Robert, and to the hon. Lady for not being able to make a speech. I wish to do so, but I have to attend the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee—I have permission to leave it for a short time and then return.

The genocide convention places obligations on the UK Government not only to punish the perpetrators of such crimes, but to predict and prevent those atrocities from happening. Unfortunately, as Srebrenica showed, we keep forgetting that duty. The International Development Committee’s report, “From Srebrenica to a safer tomorrow”, challenged the UK Government to incorporate prevention at all stages of the policy cycle, including trade, education, supply chains and asylum policy. Does the hon. Member agree that that work needs to be done at pace to prevent an escalation because of not just what happened in Srebrenica, but what is happening now in Sudan and Nigeria?

I entirely agree and thank the hon. Member for his intervention. We need to continue to work on this and take action across the board, so that these things do not happen again.

Bosnia was a horrific reminder of the vulnerability of ordinary people. It made me question how that could happen on our doorstep when the world had pledged “Never again” after the second world war. I also questioned what chance ethnic minority communities have in Europe if the xenophobic claims of ethnic superiority could prevail among white indigenous people who have been assimilated, integrated and lived together for hundreds of years. For me, Srebrenica demonstrates where the hatred and the dehumanisation of others can lead. Only when we reflect on those lessons can we truly strengthen our resolve to stand up to hatred in our own society.

I welcome the debate and commend all those who called for it. I worked in Bosnia during and after the war, and visited the site of the Srebrenica memorial to the genocide of more than 8,000 people in July 1995.

My hon. Friend refers to saying, “Never again”. Does she agree that when we say “Never again”, we must demonstrate the commitment to keeping peace in the region, opposing genocide denial and opposing the Serb separatism of Milorad Dodik and other politicians, and take pride in the work our embassy has done to support the Srebrenica memorial and to support local organisations working for peace in the region?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that we need to be vigilant. Especially in the western Balkans, as she has rightly said, issues of ethnic nationalism are arising, and the Serbians are trying to hide the fact that this event ever happened. I am grateful for the fact that the United Kingdom is the only European country to commemorate the Srebrenica genocide, although I will come later to the lack of resources and the funding cuts that have been made. I thank our Government and our country for recognising the event and for being the world leader in commemorating the Srebrenica genocide.

While much has been achieved in building a cohesive society in the UK, there is more work to be done. According to Home Office figures released last year, police recorded hate crime in England and Wales has risen consistently over the past several years. I know the Minister will agree that standing up to hatred and intolerance in the UK remains extremely necessary and should be a priority for Departments.

The Minister will be aware of the vital work done by the charity Remembering Srebrenica, which was set up 10 years ago with the support of the then Prime Minister, David Cameron. The charity has established 11 regions, as well as other bodies across the UK, and has gone from holding one memorial event at Lancaster House in 2013 to holding nearly 2,000 annual community actions in schools, town halls, mosques, synagogues, churches, community centres and police stations to bring communities together in a collective act of remembrance. Remembering Srebrenica has educated nearly 150,000 young people through its educational resource and teacher training programmes about Srebrenica, and has appointed community champions who work together to unite communities in order to work against hate and to build a safer, stronger community.

As part of the charity’s work to commemorate the genocide each year, it selects a theme that speaks to communities here in the UK. For 2023, the theme is “Together We Are One”, which is particularly potent when we remind ourselves that Bosnia and Herzegovina is well known for being a melting pot of cultures and identities in which Muslims, Christians and Jews have lived side by side for centuries. Many colleagues will know that the capital, Sarajevo, is known to have been the Jerusalem of Europe, and it is the only European city with a mosque, a Catholic church, an Orthodox church and a synagogue in the same neighbourhood.

I thank the hon. Lady for securing this debate. It is less a debate and more a commemoration and recognition of the unity that we have in this Parliament never to forget what happened in Bosnia and Srebrenica. She makes the excellent point that there is a real danger of history repeating itself. Right now, our position towards the Balkans is not alert enough to the problems faced by Bosnian citizens.

Does the hon. Lady agree that we need to take three steps? First, we need to upgrade our resources in Bosnia, with more British troops available and on the ground, and through NATO. Secondly, we need to use Magnitsky sanctions on those perpetrating crimes in the area. Thirdly, we need to ensure that we do not cut funding to the Remembering Srebrenica group, which we have by 50%. After all, is an ounce of prevention not worth a pound of cure?

I entirely agree. I know that the Minister does listen, so I hope she will take back to others in the Foreign Office the point about more spending and more resources in the western Balkans to ensure that we do not have any further eruptions there. I say gently that both the first world war and second world war started in that part of the world. That is important.

Remembering Srebrenica is the charity doing the most work on this matter, but, year on year, it has had funding cuts. I wrote to the Foreign Office and to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to ask for funding, but that was sadly rejected. They—especially DLUHC—have responded by saying they are not going to make any change, which is a shame because this is an important cause. The only way in which so many people are finding out about this is because of the work done by Remembering Srebrenica on the memorial, through volunteers and others across the United Kingdom. It is very much volunteer-led, but it needs resources. After this debate, I hope that the Foreign Office will consider putting in some money and that, hopefully, it will talk to DLUHC to ask it to consider funding as well.

We know that polarisation and propaganda drive groups further apart, through deepening division. We saw that played out in the years leading up to the Srebrenica genocide in 1995. Non-Serbs had to mark their houses with white flags or wear an armband. There was a systematic and careful process of dehumanising Bosnian Muslims. Anti-Muslim propaganda was instrumental in Bosnian Serbs turning against their Bosnian Muslim neighbours, who were constantly referred to as “Islamic fundamentalists”.

That is why commemorating Srebrenica is so important, so that we can stop to reflect on our own society as well and help people in our country better understand the behaviours and influences around them, which can either build or damage the cohesion of communities. We need to help equip them with skills and confidence to challenge such behaviours, and dismantle the foundations that allow intolerance to survive. We must do more to encourage people to reflect on how we can create an environment that helps find common ground with people from different backgrounds, instead of focusing on a single facet of their identity.

Every year when we reflect on the horrors of the Srebrenica genocide, we all reiterate our commitment to stamping out the Islamophobia, prejudice and intolerance that led to the murder of the 8,000 Muslim men and boys in 1995, yet we are witnessing the ethnic cleansing of Uyghur Muslims at the hands of the Chinese Government in Xinjiang, and the persecution of Muslims in Kashmir by the Indian Government. Does my hon. Friend agree that to avoid another Srebrenica happening in Xinjiang, Myanmar, Kashmir or elsewhere, the very real threat of Islamophobia must be taken seriously and tackled on a global scale?

I thank my hon. Friend and I entirely agree. I do not normally criticise colleagues, but comments were made recently by a certain Home Secretary and she needs to reflect on what she says. Those kinds of things do not help in the situation we are facing.

The events in Srebrenica have stayed with me. Indeed, they have shaped me. A few years after the genocide, I worked for the United Nations mission in Kosovo to help to rebuild the justice system and department after the war. That region of the world is personal to me. I saw the after-effects 23 years ago, when I worked in Kosovo. That is part of the reason why I have dedicated so much of my work to challenge hate and division, and that is why I set up the all-party parliamentary group on Srebrenica, with the help of Baroness Sayeeda Warsi.

After the holocaust, we said “Never again”, yet what happened in Srebrenica proved that words are not enough—they must be met with action. As we approach the 28th anniversary of this harrowing tragedy, we must all come together to unite and reaffirm our commitment to challenging hate, wherever and whenever it arises, and to take actions so that things like Srebrenica never happen again.

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Robert. I thank the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) and the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) for sponsoring and securing this important debate with me. It is particularly fitting that we are having this debate as the President of Bosnia is here in the UK today. I very much hope that the Prime Minister will meet him later this afternoon to show the UK’s steadfast commitment to Bosnia.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall) said, we are here to commemorate; this is not a debate, but an occasion for us all to share our words of continued support for our friends. We remember the Srebrenica genocide and we pay our respects to the 8,000 men and boys who were murdered in cold blood by Bosnian Serb forces in 1995. They were massacred because of the ruthless ambition of Milošević and his cronies, men’s dreams of a greater Serbia and the hatred that lived in their hearts.

The memory of those who were stolen will never be forgotten, but the trauma of what women and those who survived went through remains today. That trauma reminds us why the region matters to us. It is not a region where people have forgotten and moved on. It is a region where people live, on a daily basis, waking up and knowing that they are not saying good morning to 27 or 28 members of their family.

The United Kingdom is the only country outside Bosnia and Herzegovina that commemorates this and has an official remembrance service, and I am so proud of that. This is the second year running that we have held this debate. That demonstrates our eternal commitment to remembering the victims, but I share the concerns of my hon. Friend’s concerns about the lack of funding for Remembering Srebrenica. We would never consider cutting funding to the organisations that commemorate the holocaust. Srebrenica is a genocide that took place in Europe, and people still live with it and remember it. It is a shame that a DLUHC Minister is not here to hear those comments, because that decision is absolutely wrong.

It is worth putting on the record the fact that funding has been cut from £200,000 to £100,000, so we are not asking for a great deal to ensure we debate this issue. It should come as a bit of a surprise that the funding cut has come at the same time as the Secretary of State’s office is being done up at the cost of £1 million.

My hon. Friend’s point stands for itself. He has my wholehearted support.

I am delighted that so many people across the House are making the case for appropriately funding Remembering Srebrenica, but it is slightly worse than has been indicated: the funding was not just cut but did not materialise for a long time. I want to thank the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), who, in the brief period in which he was a Secretary of State, intervened to make the payment this time last year. The charity was relying on its reserves at that point. On a cross-party basis, we need to keep this story alive, support the charity and make sure its funding is not cut again. We need to be able to tell the stories, so the funding has to be increased to the previous level, and it needs to be provided in a timely manner.

I agree entirely. Remembering Srebrenica does not just commemorate; as the right hon. Gentleman said, it tells stories to educate, and there has never been a more important time to educate people about what happened to the Balkans. I will come on to that point shortly.

We cannot discuss Srebrenica without discussing the Mothers of Srebrenica, who went through the most unimaginable loss. Their dignity and humanity are frankly astonishing, and their bravery and forgiveness are an example to us all, although when I meet them I struggle to understand the forgiveness they embrace in their daily lives. I wish I could take with me some of the power that they have in the way they express themselves.

After the Srebrenica genocide, two words were spoken around the world: never again. That was a sacred promise never again to allow innocent civilians to be displaced, raped, tortured and murdered, yet that is what we see in Xinjiang and Ukraine, and that is what I fear for the Balkans again. We secured international peace through the Dayton agreement, which was not easy or perfect—it locked in many of the ethnic divisions that we wish we could have eradicated—but it was preferable to war. For the past 28 years, it has represented peace.

Now Dayton and, by extension, peace are once again at risk in the Balkans. We once again see the cynical ambitions of Milošević’s cronies, dreams of greater Serbia and hatred in the hearts of leaders in that region. If we allow Dayton to be broken, we risk breaking that sacred promise. When we say, “Never again”, we mean it. That is what we need to see, but I fear the Government are repeating some of the mistakes of the 1990s, when our foreign policy was centred on Belgrade. A Belgrade-centric foreign policy will not work in the Balkans. An obsession with keeping Serbia on side, no matter what it does and regardless of its actions, intentions and words, does not work.

Regardless of our failure, we must stand strong. Not only did Serbia recently not stand with us on Ukraine, but it signed a foreign policy agreement with Putin in September. Why are we desperately running around behind somebody who embraces autocracy day after day? It is our democratic partners living up to the commitments we set that are vulnerable. We asked Bosnia and Kosovo to be democratic, follow EU accession and move towards NATO accession. They are doing that, yet we punish them with no punishment for Serbia. I will come on to that shortly, but we are currently being found wanting in deterrence diplomacy.

I apologise for intervening, because my hon. Friend is making an excellent speech, using her expertise as the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee. We must be absolutely unequivocal in Parliament and within the UK Government that we will not tolerate the undermining of Dayton or the redrawing of any part of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s borders. Can she make sure that, in her role as Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, she makes that point to the Government and, indeed, to the Prime Minister when she is in the Liaison Committee this afternoon?