Thirty years after the genocide in Srebrenica and the repeated vow of “never again,” a genocide is happening in Gaza. And today, not even a Yasushi Akashi remains—a symbol of the UN’s powerlessness. Now, there is only silence.
By Veton Surroi
1.
The airplane was Ukrainian, painted white with a UN sign on it, its seats bore the uncomfortable comfort of Soviet design, and the pilot was barely comprehensible as he explained how we would fly from Pristina to Vienna. Everything felt entirely surreal that summer of 1995 as I traveled to a conference in Vienna organized by Yasushi Akashi, the UN’s special envoy for the former Yugoslavia.
Dr. Akashi carried the typical Japanese politeness, a smile that extended to his eyes, the Buddhist benevolence of peace—and a profound lack of understanding about the time and place in which he was serving. That time and place were the disintegrating former Yugoslavia: Croatia was reclaiming its territory, Bosnia and Herzegovina was unraveling the entire fabric of its social life in blood, and the rest of us watched as the war unfolded, with a quiet hope that it would not reach our doorstep.
We landed in Vienna, unaccustomed to the fact that the city was less than two hours away from us. We met with friends from civil society and democratic politics from various states of the former Yugoslavia, spoke with experts and diplomats, said what we had to say at the conference, and returned with the special plane, still in awe at the normalcy of leaving Vienna in the afternoon and arriving home before nightfall.
We agreed in Vienna to meet again soon. Perhaps not because we expected some great added value, but because all the other benefits were enticing: the special flight, a luxurious hotel stay, high-level intellectual discussion, the scent and view of Vienna, its civilization, and its people untouched by immediate existential worry.
When the next invitation arrived, Iso Rusi—one of the most prominent journalists and respected public intellectuals in North Macedonia—agreed with me that we should not go. We wrote a letter to Yasushi Akashi explaining that it was morally unacceptable for us to travel to Vienna to once again discuss reconciliation while, in Srebrenica, thousands of Muslim men were missing. Although we didn’t write it so directly, we both agreed that words are superfluous in the face of genocide, and trying to pick up the conversation where we left off was meaningless.
2.
It’s been thirty years since that letter. We didn’t change history—two journalists writing to a senior UN official who believed a conference in Vienna about the reconciliation of peoples was worth holding, even as one of those peoples was being biologically erased, didn’t stop the conference. It went ahead as planned.
But as authors of that letter (and I believe I can speak for Iso as well), we believed that principles must be defended for their own sake. At the same time, we tried to turn principle into a form of self-interest. Srebrenica was an act of genocide, and if you don’t raise your voice against genocide, you’re paving the way for it to come to you. This wasn’t just about the former Yugoslavia. As President Clinton understood—genocide had occurred during his term in Rwanda, and he couldn’t allow it to happen again in Bosnia and Herzegovina. When we visited the White House as a Kosovar delegation in May 1998, he promised us he would not allow another Bosnia to happen in Kosovo.
Defending principle is always more valuable when you begin by defending it for others—not just for yourself.
3.
I remembered Yasushi Akashi because I feel we are living through a politically similar moment—but in a very different world. Back then, Akashi became a symbol of the UN’s weakness, embodying the incapacity to act on what was happening in the former Yugoslavia. Today, the UN’s special rapporteur for Palestine is Francesca Albanese, a courageous academic who describes the situation in unambiguous terms: genocide.
And yet, there is only silence—or statements like “we strongly condemn the drone attack on Kyiv” or “we strongly condemn the violence that caused the death of civilians in Gaza.” These formulations are the same as silence; they carry no weight. Any leader, anywhere in the world, can live with a “strong condemnation.” Leaders like Putin or Netanyahu, especially. Both live under indictments by the International Court of Justice without any apparent difficulty. More than that, they seem to thrive on each other’s presence. Netanyahu is fundamentally supportive of Putin’s Russia, which seeks to expand its borders wherever it believes Russian people exist. Putin, in turn, is quite pleased with Netanyahu’s presence in this historical moment: what are a few drones sent to Kyiv against Ukrainians, when Netanyahu is allowed to carry out open genocide in Gaza? After all, he is building Greater Israel—Biblical Israel, the Jewish nation-state.
Thirty years ago, within a few days, several thousand Bosniak Muslims were executed. There may have been hatred in the hearts of the executioners, because ultimately they knew they were taking human lives. But that hatred was attached to a calculated reasoning, a form of rationality: that territory had to become part of an expanded Serbian state (whether as Greater Serbia or as Republika Srpska), and in that territory, there was no room for Bosniaks.
Mass murder—or in this case, genocide—is not the collective expression of vented rage. It is a rational project that seeks a mechanical solution: in Srebrenica, it was automatic rifles from armored vehicles and personal weapons; in Auschwitz, it was gas chambers; in Gaza, it is bombardment from the sky to the point where no Palestinians remain—neither living nor dead.
4.
In Europe, before Srebrenica, genocide had occurred under Nazism. The original idea was to expel Jews from the “pure” German state. When that proved too slow, the methodology of mass extermination was developed.
Three things followed. First was the motto “never again”—the establishment of moral and legal standards to prevent genocide from ever happening again. Second was the process of confronting the German people’s past—a nation that, while not individually guilty, held collective responsibility for genocide. Third was the founding of the state of Israel, as a form of compensation for the guilt felt by European nations and the U.S. for allowing the Holocaust to unfold before their eyes.
When Srebrenica happened, “never again” was repeated.
Now it is happening in Gaza. And from European leaders, one essential question is missing: Why is this happening thirty years after we said “never again,” and what can we and our states do to stop it? After all, they hold much more power than the ability to write a letter to the Yasushi Akashi of this era.
They also hold in their hands the moment when they will again say “never again”—but to do that, they must accept a reality that every genocide scholar now understands: what is happening in Gaza has a name.