Press Release #4 Gendercide Watch

The non-governmental organization Gendercide Watch, dedicated to "confronting gender-selective atrocities worldwide," today issued an appeal for justice to mark the fifth anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre, the worst mass killing in Europe since World War II.

"Five short years ago, at least seven thousand Muslim men and boys were exterminated by Serb killing squads," said Adam Jones, executive director of the organization and a professor of international studies at the Center for Research and Teaching in Economics (CIDE) in Mexico City.

"The masterminds behind this genocidal slaughter are still at large, living comfortable lives. We join with many international organizations – and especially with survivors of the massacre – in demanding that the planners and perpetrators be held to account for their crimes."

The massacre – actually a series of massacres – took place from July 11 to 13, 1995, after Srebrenica fell to Bosnian Serb forces. A small number of the alleged killers, notably Bosnian Serb General Radislav Krstic, have been turned over to the International Criminal Tribunal at The Hague and are currently standing trial. But the key architects – President Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia, Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, and Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladic – are still at large.

"Srebrenica may have been the final act in the Bosnian 'gendercide,'" Jones said, referring to the systematic targeting of men and adolescent boys throughout the Balkans conflict. "But it was also a blueprint for the widespread atrocities against men that constituted the most severe human-rights violations in Kosovo last year."

Gendercide Watch, founded early in 2000, includes a case-study of the Srebrenica killings – along with those elsewhere in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in Kosovo – on its website, .

Jones said that the massacre highlighted the particular vulnerability of non-combatant men and boys in situations of genocide and armed conflict.

"We welcome the recent attention paid by the United Nations and many other national and international actors to the suffering and special needs of women and girls," Jones stated. "But the prevailing framing of gender and international human rights is extraordinarily one-sided.

"Srebrenica is a reminder that when a terrorist government or movement seeks to impose its will on a given population by violence and mass atrocity, it is usually non-combatant men who will be targeted first, and worst," Jones said. Recent outbreaks of genocidal killing in Rwanda and East Timor can also be cited in this regard, he added.

"The U.N. and other bodies urgently need to frame their policies on gender and international conflict in a more inclusive way – one that addresses the male experience without short-changing women and girls."

He pointed out that at Srebrenica, Dutch U.N. forces stood idly by while Bosnian Serb troops and Yugoslav paramilitaries separated males – including elderly men and adolescent boys – from the refugee population and carted them away to their deaths. Thousands of other men and boys were rounded up in the forests surrounding Srebrenica and massacred.

"Anyone who was familiar with the strategies used by the Yugoslav and Bosnian Serb forces throughout the Balkans war could not have failed to understand what would happen to the men once they were separated," Jones contended. "But to its lasting shame, the U.N. did nothing, and the 'safe area' they had declared in Srebrenica was turned into a slaughterhouse."

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For more information, please contact Gendercide Watch at:
Gendercide Watch

Case studies:

Srebrenica
Bosnia-Herzegovina
Kosovo