Genocide Denial Re: Turkey and Bosnia

Russia recently vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution declaring the slaughter by Bosnian Serbs, who had coined the phrase “ethnic cleansing” to describe their policy, of thousands of Muslims in Srebrenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1995 “genocide.”  The Serbs had been stirred by the Communist Serb leader of Yugoslavia who was using extreme nationalism to maintain his dictatorship.  The Russian Communists sided with their fellow Slavs of the Government of Serbia, who had opposed the measure, which was timed for the twentieth anniversary of the massacre.  The United States had supported the resolution.

Alas, earlier this year, the U.S. failed to join much of the international community, led by the Holy See, in declaring Turkey’s genocide against Armenians as such at its centennial, despite the promise by Barack Obama during the presidential election campaign that the U.S. would.  Instead, bowing to pressure from Turkey’s Islamist Government, American statements fell short of using the word. 

It is imperative to be able to identify genocide in order to prevent it ever from happening again.