30 years after Srebrenica, Serbia refuses to admit that Bosnian Serb forces carried out a mass execution of over 8,000 Muslims in the vicinity of the town of the same name in eastern Bosnia in July 1995. Every time Srebrenica is mentioned, the word "genocide" is absent from the vocabulary of the Serbian political elite, unless it is used as a negation, writes BTA.
ENDLESS DENIAL
For decades, the president, speaker of parliament, prime minister or foreign minister have been sending the message that "Serbia is not a genocidal nation!"
Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić today offered condolences to the relatives of the deceased with the phrase "30 years since the terrible crime", but did not define it as genocide.
The Serbian president used the same words in his speech to the UN on the day when the life sentence was pronounced on the former Bosnian Serb commander Gen. Ratko Mladić, who had been on the run for more than a decade.
In an interview with the private Serbian television "Pink" Last night, however, Vučić stressed that he was proud to have attended the ceremony in memory of the victims in Potocari 10 years ago, noting that in this way he showed his respect despite all the pressure and attacks he was subjected to at the time.
In 2015, as Prime Minister, Aleksandar Vučić went to Potocari, eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina, to the ceremony in memory of more than 8,000 Bosniaks killed by Bosnian Serb forces in July 1995.
After laying flowers at the memorial, on his way to the ceremonial box intended for delegations, Vučić was booed and pelted with plastic bottles and lumps of dirt. Security guards reacted quickly and escorted him out of Potocari.
"It was a well-organized and prepared attack. I was hit in the lip with a stone, nothing serious. "My glasses fell and broke," Vucic said 10 years ago at a press conference after the attack, trying to downplay what had happened.
Serbian Parliament Speaker Ana Brnabić said today that there was "absolutely" no genocide against Bosniaks in Srebrenica in 1995, which, she added, did not mean that a terrible war crime was not committed.
In an interview with the private Serbian television station "Informer," Brnabić said that the crime in Srebrenica in July 1995 "should never have happened."
"This is absolutely not genocide, which does not mean that it is not a terrible war crime. Genocide is what happened to the Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia during World War II,“ said the Speaker of the National Assembly of Serbia.
Meanwhile, Serbian media reported that on July 3, the parliamentary office received proposals from opposition MPs to adopt a resolution on the occasion of today's 30th anniversary of what happened in Srebrenica, but to this day they have not been included in the agenda.
The text of the resolution calls for "an end to the policy of genocide denial, impunity and glorification of crimes and criminals".
EXCEPTION THAT CONFIRMS DENIAL
Former soldiers from the the Bosnian Serb army, although one exception appeared last year.
In April 2004, when Bosnian Serb Gen. Radislav Krstić was sentenced to 35 years in prison for aiding and abetting the genocide in Srebrenica, the president of the tribunal that handed down Krstić's final sentence - Theodore Meron (an American judge of Polish origin who survived the horrors of the Nazi concentration camp Bergen-Belsen), stated that with this verdict "genocide finally received its name and surname"
Six years later, in the English prison "Wakefield" in West Yorkshire, Krstic was injured in a fight with three Muslim prisoners.
For years he denied guilt, then in 2022, he stated in a letter that he was guilty and that he "bears great personal responsibility for the terrible crimes committed during and after the fall of Srebrenica", without mentioning the word “genocide”. In another letter, two years later, Krstic included the term, introduced in the 20th century, which regulates one of the most serious crimes against humanity in international law.
"I emphasize that I accept the tribunal's decisions of 2001 and 2004, which found that the forces of the army to which I belonged committed genocide against Bosniaks in Srebrenica in July 1995, that I aided and abetted the genocide, knowing that some members of the General Staff intended to commit genocide, that I knew that the General Staff did not have sufficient forces to carry out the executions without the Drina Corps, and that I knew that the use of forces under my command would significantly contribute to the execution of Bosniaks", Krstić wrote in his letter to the court in 2024 and asked to be released.
In the letter, he emphasized his desire for young people in the Balkans to read it, "so that there will never be war again" and “never again death because someone is of a different religion, nation or belief, never again genocide“.
Krstic's letter came after the UN General Assembly voted in 2024 to mark July 11 as the International Day of Commemoration of the Srebrenica Genocide.
Gen. Krstic also said, "whenever and if he is released, he wants to pay tribute to the victims at the Potocari Memorial Center."
After spending more than two decades behind bars, he has repeatedly asked for early release, but the court has not granted his request.
THE SHADOW OF NATIONALISM
Unexpectedly, in the year that marks the 3rd anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide, the last poetry collection of the former president of the Bosnian Republika Srpska, Radovan Karadzic, who was sentenced to life in prison for war crimes and genocide, was promoted in the Serbian capital Belgrade.
Karadzic, like Ratko Mladic, was on the run from the international tribunal for crimes in the former Yugoslavia for decades, and even gave lectures in Serbia and practiced under a false name as a psychiatrist, which is what he is by education, in private hospital in Novi Beograd.
Recently, the poems of the 79-year-old Karadzic "Black Fairy Tale" were presented at the Serbian Literary Society by the famous Serbian literary critic Prof. Milo Lompar and caused sharp reactions in intellectual circles.
"On the website of the Serbian Literary Society, the public is informed that promotions of this book will be organized in other cities of Serbia and the region after Belgrade. I suggest that the same team, led by the unofficial presidential candidate Milo Lompar, go to Novi Pazar and organize a literary evening for Karadzic's poems for students. The same students who sang the Serbian national anthem, wrapped themselves in Serbian flags and awarded their Orthodox colleagues at the blockades during the Easter holidays," wrote the analyst of the "Danas" newspaper Dr. Aleksandar Dikic.
Lompar was one of the speakers at the June 28 anti-government protest in Belgrade, which organizers said was attended by 140,000 people.
In his speech on June 28, Prof. Lompar stated that in the Serbian constitution "the region of Kosovo and Metohija is an inalienable part of Serbia", and also mentioned the protection of the sovereignty of Republika Srpska, the Serbian people in Montenegro, and the Serbian national rights in Croatia and North Macedonia.
"A people and a nation will never be genocidal. "Only individuals are genocidal," said Emina Spahic, a student at the University of Novi Pazar, to the regional television channel En 1 three days before the protest in Belgrade.
"I think that early parliamentary elections are necessary to present our position to them. And simply to show that we do not want a government that will support such crimes for years and that will participate in them in some way. We really stand for, above all, living in a peaceful and harmonious country.“, Spahic added then.
"Although they have not announced a common official position on Srebrenica, the government and some pro-government media outlets accuse the protesting students of wanting the Serbian people to be declared "genocidal", the Serbian edition of Radio "Free Europe" commented today.
"This was the main message of the Serbian campaign against the adoption of a UN resolution on Srebrenica, although the document does not mention any people or state", adds Free Europe.
In a statement on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) expressed regret that despite the decisions of international courts and domestic courts in Bosnia and Herzegovina that "what was done in Srebrenica constitutes genocide, there are still people who deny what happened“.
“This is a crude attempt to revise and virtually erase history and seriously hinders any process of reconciliation“, the statement said.
“We remain committed to helping to end all forms of impunity and to promoting accountability for all war crimes committed during the conflicts of the 1990s“, the statement said, underlining the need to combat ethnic and religious discrimination, uphold human dignity and promote a culture of peace, mutual understanding and reconciliation.“,
The OSCE called on political actors to join these efforts, which the organization said were of “critical importance for the entire region”.
The organization stressed that only in this way will society “fully accept the difficult lessons of the past and move forward, towards a future marked by sustainable peace, justice, stability, dignity, cooperation and prosperity for all“.
The mass physical destruction of people in Srebrenica, eastern Bosnia in July 1995 is the only internationally recognized genocide since World War II.
The genocide was committed by members of the Army of Republika Srpska under the command of Radovan Karadžić and Ratko Mladić, who were sentenced to life imprisonment by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, based in The Hague. At least 47 people were convicted of crimes in Srebrenica, receiving a total of more than 700 years in prison.
The Bosnian Civil War (1992-1995) resulted in the deaths of more than 100,000 people and the displacement of millions.