By Swanee Hunt July 06, 2015
As US ambassador to Austria, I
took part in a ceremony in May 1995 marking the half-century anniversary of
the liberation of a Nazi concentration camp by American forces. One after
another, envoys stood at the wreath-laying and declared: “Never again.”
Yet within a few
hundred miles, in a genocidal land grab, Serbian nationalists were
conducting a campaign of terror that cost more than 200,000 Yugoslav lives,
left 60 percent of Bosnian homes destroyed, and planted millions of
landmines in fields. With no international resistance, the horrors peaked
in the worst atrocity in Europe since 1945: On July 11, Serb forces began
to slaughter 8,000 unarmed Muslim men and boys in the town of Srebrenica.
That carnage became a tripwire for US-led intervention to end the
atrocities.
On the 20th
anniversary of the massacre, the women of the Balkans are finding strength
in their calls for justice and their work for reconciliation. Some have
defied trauma and moved back to Serb-dominated Srebrenica, managing to put
aside memories of rape and torture to breathe life into a place of death.
Even as they’ve planted crops in soil where their husbands and sons lie in
mass graves, their sisters have built organizations bridging ethnic
divides. Together, they have catalyzed a global movement to change the way
we halt and heal the wounds of war.
I’ve seen this
work up close. In spring 1994, I hosted negotiations to bring together two
factions that were fighting each other and battling the Serbs. Months
later, we got urgent calls at the embassy in Vienna warning of the imminent
fall of Srebrenica. We saw intelligence reports saying the UN-designated
“safe haven” was encircled by Serb fighters. I remember thinking, “This is
‘again.’ ” But this time, I was one of those policy makers doing too little
too late to stop the genocide.
A year later, I
helped organize a Srebrenica commemoration of 4,000 survivors. US military
commanders insisted we invite the mothers of the perpetrators as well.
Without hesitation, the Muslim women accepted the almost unthinkable
demand. One widow said four simple words that could shape history: “We are
all mothers.”
This was my
introduction to Kada Hodic, who lost her husband, son, two brothers and
brother-in-law. She retells her story so others will understand ”evil can
happen everywhere, and to everyone.”
Common wisdom
would warn these women to be afraid and join the waves of refugees. But
Kada helped some say no – they were going to return home, bury their boys
and men, and rebuild their lives “across the road from the city of the
dead,” one of them told me a few weeks ago.
In April, a dozen
women who lived through the bloodshed gave up a precious spring planting
day to reflect with me on all they have lost and all they have reclaimed. I
told them the name “Srebrenica” is known around the world, and that their
bravery has inspired powerful women’s movements that have incalculable
impact.
The widows gave
me a crocheted flower with 11 petals, representing July 11. One told me
that because we had all assembled after that first year, “we could get back
on our own two feet, to fight for those of us who survived, to return to
our prewar homes and start our lives again.”
Personal and
policy are iterative. Five years after Srebrenica, in October 2000, the UN
Security Council adopted resolution 1325, declaring that women are not only
victims — they must be key actors in creating peace and stability. Out of
that landmark call has emerged a doctrine of inclusive security by which
women bring their wisdom and skills to intractable conflicts. Inspired by
this model, more than 50 countries have designed strategic action plans to
translate the UN resolution into reality.
One example:
Bosnia and Serbia have now separately committed to integrating women into
their armed forces, adding the voices and values of mothers to decisions
about when, or whether, to kill. These two former enemies are stitching
together a Balkan strategy built on principles of inclusive security.
Policy makers
everywhere must follow their example.
Swanee Hunt
served as US ambassador to Austria from 1993 to 1997. She is founder and
chair of the Institute for Inclusive Security in Washington.
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