Srebrenica’s Lesson Is Prevention. Why Isn’t the World Applying It to Kashmir?

By Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai

Chairman

World Forum for Peace & Justice

Every year the international community gathers to remember the victims of genocide. The ceremonies are solemn, the speeches heartfelt, and the promise familiar: “Never Again.”

On 9 July 2026, the United Nations commemorated the International Day of Reflection and Commemoration of the 1995 Genocide in Srebrenica. More than a remembrance of one of Europe’s darkest crimes since the Second World War, the event became a powerful reminder that genocide is preventable—if the world has the courage to recognize the warning signs before catastrophe unfolds.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres delivered the central message of the day: “International law is equally clear: States have an obligation to prevent genocide.”

He warned that hate speech, denial, glorification of war criminals, and growing extremism are not isolated developments but warning signs demanding immediate action. “We cannot turn away from these warning signs. We must act early—for prevention is our shared duty.”

Those words should not remain confined to Srebrenica. They should guide the world’s response wherever credible risks of mass atrocities are raised.

One survivor of Srebrenica captured this responsibility more powerfully than any diplomat: “I’m not asking the world to carry my pain. I’m asking it to carry its responsibility.”

That responsibility is precisely what the United Nations has embraced through the Genocide Convention and the Responsibility to Protect doctrine. Both rest on a simple principle: prevention is far better than mourning.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk reinforced this point: “Genocide doesn’t happen overnight.”

History proves him right. Rwanda, Bosnia, Cambodia, and the Holocaust all followed years of discrimination, dehumanization, exclusion, persecution, and incitement. By the time mass killings began, countless warning signs had already been ignored.

This raises an uncomfortable question. If the United Nations believes prevention requires acting on early warning signs, why is the same urgency absent when concerns are raised about Kashmir?

For years, human rights organizations, independent experts, journalists, and scholars have documented developments that many believe warrant serious international scrutiny.

In 2022, Dr. Gregory Stanton, Chairman of Genocide Watch and one of the world’s leading genocide prevention scholars, warned that India was displaying several of the processes identified in his organization’s “Ten Stages of Genocide” framework. Referring specifically to Kashmir and Assam, he cautioned that while genocide had not occurred, the warning signs were becoming increasingly serious.

His conclusion deserves careful attention: “It would be hard to say there is a genocide in Kashmir… but what is happening there are the early signs and processes of genocide.”

His concern was echoed by references to dehumanizing rhetoric, restrictions affecting minorities, the revocation of Jammu and Kashmir’s constitutional autonomy, and the region’s extensive military presence.

The Committee to Protect Journalists has repeatedly expressed concern about press freedom in Kashmir. Indian author Arundhati Roy has long described Kashmir as among the world’s most heavily militarized regions.

None of these observations alone establishes genocide. Nor should such a grave determination be made lightly. But that is precisely the point. Prevention is not supposed to begin after genocide has been legally established. It begins when credible warning signs emerge.

At the Srebrenica commemoration, the Secretary-General’s Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Mr. Beyani, stated: “Early warning must lead to early action.”

Mô Bleeker, the Secretary-General’s Special Adviser on the Responsibility to Protect, delivered an equally compelling message: “The Responsibility to Protect was never meant to be remembered—it was meant to be realized.”

These are not merely inspiring quotations. They are tests of international credibility. If prevention applies only after political consensus exists, it is no longer prevention. If it is invoked selectively, it ceases to be a universal principle.

The tragedy of Srebrenica was not that the world lacked information. It was that the world failed to act on the information it had.

Every commemoration of genocide asks humanity to learn from history. Learning, however, requires consistency. It requires asking difficult questions even when they concern powerful states or politically sensitive conflicts.

The international community should not wait for history to decide whether today’s warning signs were significant enough. It should examine them now—with impartiality, transparency, and urgency. Otherwise, the annual promise of “Never Again” risks becoming less a commitment than a ritual.

The people of Kashmir, like vulnerable communities everywhere, deserve more than speeches. They deserve the vigilance that international law demands and the preventive engagement that world leaders repeatedly proclaim.

“History will not judge the international community by the eloquence of its commemorations. It will judge it by whether it recognized the warning signs in time—and whether it had the courage to act before ‘Never Again’ became ‘Too Late’ once more.”