Press Release of the Institute for Research of Genocide Canada

Institute for the Research of Genocide Canada
Published: February 24, 2011  

February 24, 2022

Press Release of the Institute for Research of Genocide Canada

The Institute for Genocide Research has recently come under attack by an organization called the “Lord Byron Foundation for Balkan Studies” because of our protest letter to the University of British Columbia regarding the invitation of Srdja Trifkovic to speak at an on-campus event organized by the Serbian Student Association. The Institute sent the letter of protest because Mr. Trifkovic is a genocide denier who openly propagates hatred towards all Muslims, including Bosnian Muslims who were the victims of the Srebrenica genocide. We believe that such hate speech should not be tolerated or permitted at a university.

It is important to note that the “Lord Byron Foundation for Balkan Studies” is a propaganda front for Serbian ultra-nationalists, utilizing the practice of revisionist history, along with anti-Muslim propaganda and fear mongering, to openly deny war crimes against Bosniaks, including the Srebrenica genocide, and defend the Serb aggression on Bosnia and Herzegovina. They even go so far to say that the real victims are Serbs and that they were the “good guys” in the Bosnian war. Not surprisingly, the Chief Executive of the foundation is Mr. Trifkovic himself, an expatriate Serb and islamophobe, who hates Muslims to such an extent that he was more than willing to act as the media relations adviser for the Bosnian Serb government and an unofficial spokesperson for Radovan Karadzic, while he was orchestrating mass murder, ethnic cleansing, and genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The president of the foundation is none other than the former Canadian ambassador to Yugoslavia, James Bissett, the long time supporter and defender of Slobodan Milosevic. It was Mr. Bissett who wrote an article on the Foundation’s website attacking the Institute and calling us a “Bosnian Muslim” propaganda front and comparing us to David Duke.

The facts are that The Institute for Genocide Research in Canada exists to establish the truth and raise awareness of the reality of genocide. We are actively working to make sure that the promise of “Never Again” is fulfilled by proactively speaking out and condemning the promoters of all racial, ethnic, or religious hatred responsible for the bloodshed and destruction of the past two decades in places like Bosnia, Rwanda and Darfur. The goal is to educate and raise awareness of the implications of genocide and to prevent genocide from happening elsewhere in the world. We speak out not just on behalf the victims of genocide in Bosnia but on behalf of all victims of genocide, wherever and whoever they are. The Institute brings together a wide variety of individuals of different cultures, faiths and nationalities - Canadians, Americans, Bosnians, Serbians and others, including Holocaust survivors. We are proud to have an extremely diverse group of people on the international panel of experts, including the Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor Sir Elie Wiesel, Dr. Marko Attila Hoare, Dr. Gregory Weeks. You may view the list here: http://www.instituteforgenocide.ca/board-of-directors/.

To meet the objectives of prevention of genocide, one must combat the hate filled rhetoric that often leads to the conditions “ripe” for oppression and event murder of groups that are labeled as undesirable. We saw this happen in Nazi Germany and Europe that led to the murder of more than six million Jews. We saw it happen in the Balkans where the anti-Muslim propaganda enabled Milosevic and Karadzic to execute an agenda of ethnic cleansing and genocide for the benefit of “greater Serbia” resulting more than 100,000 lives lost, Mr. Trifkovic admitted to the International Criminal Tribunal at The Hague that he was closeted with the inner circle of the Bosnian Serb president Radovan Karadzic while atrocities were being organized and carried out by the Bosnian Serb army commanded by General Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic. He has spent two decades challenging the findings of international courts that the criminal conspiracy with which he was associated committed “a terrible crime – the worst on European soil since the Second World War”, as the United Nations Secretary General described it, the genocidal murder of more than 8000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica.

It is for these reasons that we protested against the lecture of Mr. Trifkovic for his role during the war, and for open denial of the crimes and genocide in Bosnia. We are extremely concerned that he would be provided with a platform at the University of British Columbia for his hate filled speech and views aimed at encouraging ethnic and religious intolerance. Now, not content with denying genocide in Bosnia, Trifkovic has brought his campaign against Muslims across the Atlantic as he tours the college circuits in the United States and Canada encouraging hate, prejudice and ethnic intolerance. Mr. Trifkovic is in the business of equating all Muslims with terrorism, openly calling all Muslims as “the enemy”, and calling for “an absolute moratorium on the immigration of Muslims into both Western Europe and North America, coupled with the denial of citizenship to all practicing Muslims, the denial of security clearances, and the policy of systematic deportation of all jihadist activists”. From Providence, Rhode Island, to UBC in Vancouver Trifkovic seeks out venues where student groups like Youth for Western Civilization and the Serbian Students Club are prepared to tolerate his extremist views, stereotyping, and hatred of entire communities of Muslims. His extremist views against Muslims coupled with his known history of representing those who committed genocide are cause for an alarm for any serious institution. Mr. Trifkovic’s agenda is inciting hatred and violence against all Muslims as a group.

The Canadian Institute for the Research of Genocide unequivocally condemns Trifkovic’s efforts for hatred and division, and calls for all academic institutions to deny him the right to utilize their venues as platforms for hate speech under the guise of academic thought and free speech.

Board of Directors of the Institute for Genocide Canada