The Bosnian community organisations in Sydney represent the largest majority of Bosnians in Australia. Two cities, Melbourne and Sydney, represent 85% of 75.000 Bosnian- Australians across the nation. The Bosnian Sydney Association Inc. is a non-for-profit organisation with affiliation in educational, cultural, intercultural dialog, professional and business community. We attract Bosnians, Australians and friends of the Bosnian Community across the state of New South Wales.
Bosnians have been migrating to Australian from 1960’s till now. The largest migration happened in 1993, during the war in Bosnia, on the soil of the former Yugloslavian territory. Majority have been victims of Serbian political regime, former Yugoslavian National Army and Bosnian-Serbian paramilitary. Experiencing genocide, atrocity, culturocide, violence, rape of women and girls, torture of all age civilians, imprisoning of men, women and seniors in concentration camps. Bosnian Muslims and Catholics have experienced one of the most brutal ethnic cleansing in the modern era on the European soil after WWII.
It was the International Court for Justice in Haag, which has prosecuted several hundreds of Serbian political, military leaders and generals for the war crime and organised crime against humanity. It was the Australian Parliament that has passed a Resolution on Bosnian Genocide, after the US Congress and EU Parliament has done the same, accusing Serbian political regime in Bosnia and Serbia for committing war crimes, organised support to paramilitary and executing plans designed by Serbian President Slobodan Milošević, Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić and General Ratko Mladić.
Serbian political and military leaders have received more than 1000 years of jail sentence for those crimes committed in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo.
The Bosnian Sydney Association advocated for independent universities, free from political, media and other social pressure to influence academic findings, research results and studies. It is not expected from a university to apologise for New York Times article, narrative ‘how Serbs in Bosnia, during the war, were callingBosnians’, from a paper by Richard Rorty, Human Rights, Rationality and Sentimentality, cited by another report.
It was a convicted war criminal general Ratko Mladić, who pronounced all ‘inhuman names’ for Bosnians, hoping for less Bosnian Muslims and Catholics in occupied Bosnian and Croatian territory’, video reportage by CNN Christiane Amanpour.
We are disappointed with the Victoria University ‘subscribing’ to a right-wing Youtuber Charles Cather, who claims that ‘Serbs are innocent of ALL war crimes and calling the International court a CONSPIRACY against Serbs’.
Removing a ‘Bosnian example’ from VU ASA1024 Applied Human Rights subject resources is a step towards denying the Bosnian Genocide. We do not accept and expect this from an independent university in Australia.