Thursday, April 15, 2010

URGI Minutes 4/5/10

Theme this month: Genocides in History – Today: Holocaust

Upcoming Events:
* Potluck and Bracelet Making: April 12th (Mon) at the meeting
* Refugee Campus: April 22nd 3pm

MINUTES

* Orientation Volunteering Application
o Due May 14th
o Old and New E-board meet
o Refugee CAMPus
+ Committee: Adrienne, Bridget, Suresh, Robert, Julia, Brinda – head: Bridget
+ Meeting today after meeting
+ Awareness Discussion: Danielle
+ JOKE

URGI will be participating in the bookstore buy-back competition.

Awareness-Danielle on Bosnian Genocide

Josip Tito was Bosnia’s authoritarian dictator for many years. His death in 1980 sparked strong nationalist sentiments. Also, the existing system of checks and balances between conflicting groups was abolished. At the same time, Serbia and Croatia were becoming militarized. Also, an election in 1990 polarized the groups even further as nationalist parties gained power. The combination of these events caused a 3-sided civil war between t! he Bosnian-Serbs, Bosnian-Croats, and Bosnian-Muslims. In 1992, Bosnia declared itself independent. During the war, the Serbs tried to ethnically cleanse certain parts of Bosnia of the Muslim populations to create a “Greater Serbia” led by Slobodan Milosevic and a “Greater Croatia” in neighboring states.

Between 1992 and 1995 (only 3 years), over 200,000 Muslims were starved, tortured, raped, and murdered in concentration camps. The bodies were buried in mass graves.

Srebrenica Massacre: July 1995, Serb troops entered the town of Srebrenica, which was supposed to be a UN safe area. They held the town under siege while depriving the 400,000 Muslim inhabitants of food, water, and supplies. They also shelled homes and buildings. The UN soldiers did little because they were ill-prepared and had no back-up. Between 8,000 and 9,000 men and boys were killed, and the remaining 25-30,000 inhabitants were forced to leave the area. Another s! ource (ICRC—International Committee of the Red Cross) said that up to 200,000 people were killed, 12,000 of them children, up to 50,000 women were raped, and 2.2 million were forced to flee their homes. This was the largest massacre in Europe since WWII.

Although most consider the ethnic cleansing to be genocide, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) have ruled that, in order for actions to be deemed genocide, there must be physical or biological destruction of a protected group and a specific intent to commit such destruction. By this definition, only the Srebrenica massacre has been found to be a genocide by the ICTY. Even the Massacre was not considered to be genocide by some because supposedly only the men really seemed to be targeted. It was not established that those accused of ethnic cleansing (former Bosnian Serb leader Momcilo Krajisnik) had genocidal intent. Only one of the 30 pe! ople indicted for genocide was found guilty in an international court (Radislav Krstic).

What happened to stop this? NATO.

*Update: UN voted on DRC and they are going to continue with supervised intervention in DR Congo.


Ongoing projects:

* Banaa.org – Bridget, Joe, and Luke
* Saturday Volunteering:
o *Meet at ITS at 9:40* About 2 hours

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