United Nations (United States) (AFP) – The UN General Assembly will vote Thursday on establishing an annual day of remembrance for the 1995 Srebrenica genocide, despite furious opposition from Bosnian Serbs and Serbia.
The resolution written by Germany and Rwanda — countries synonymous with mass killings in the 20th century — would make July 11 “International Day of Remembrance of the Srebrenica Genocide”.
Serbia’s government said an attempt was being made to blame all Serbs and President Aleksandar Vucic said he would be at the United Nations to “fight with all my strength and heart” against the initiative.
Church bells rang out across Serbia on Thursday in protest.
The Serbian Orthodox Church said it hoped the gesture would unite Serbs in “prayers, serenity, mutual solidarity and firmness in doing good, despite untrue and unjust accusations it faces at the UN”.
Ahead of the vote, Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik defiantly denied a genocide had taken place in the Bosnian city and that his administration would not recognize the UN resolution if passed. “There was no genocide in Srebrenica,” Dodik told a press conference in Srebrenica, in response to a reporter’s question.
Bosnian Serb forces captured Srebrenica — a UN-protected enclave at the time — on July 11, 1995, a few months before the end of Bosnia’s civil war, which saw approximately 100,000 people killed.
In the following days, Bosnian Serb forces killed around 8,000 Muslim men and teenagers — a crime described as a genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Court of Justice.
The incident is considered the worst single atrocity in Europe since World War II.
In addition to establishing the memorial day, the draft resolution condemns “any denial” of the genocide and urges UN member countries to “preserve the established facts.”
In a letter to other UN members, Germany and Rwanda described the vote as a “crucial opportunity to unite in honoring the victims and acknowledging the pivotal role played by international courts.”
– Threat to peace, security –
However, there has been a furious response from Serbia and the Bosnian Serb leadership.
In an attempt to defuse tensions, the authors of the draft resolution added — at Montenegro’s request — that culpability for the genocide is “individualized and cannot be attributed to any ethnic, religious or other group or community as a whole.”
That has not been enough for Belgrade.
In a letter sent Sunday to all UN delegations, Serbian charge d’affaires Sasa Mart warned that raising “historically sensitive topics serves only to deepen division and may bring additional instability to the Balkans.”
Russia’s UN ambassador, Vasily Nebenzia, called the draft “provocative” and a “threat to peace and security.”
According to Nebenzia, the resolution seeks to “erase” what he called the “shameful evidence” of NATO bombing of the former Yugoslavia in 1995 and 1999 by “pinning all the blame on the Serbs.”
Milorad Dodik, political leader in the Bosnian Serb entity — where thousands of people demonstrated this April against the draft resolution — said the Srebrenica genocide had been a “sham.”
The European Union has responded strongly, with foreign affairs spokesman Peter Stano saying “there cannot be any denial” and “anyone trying to put it in doubt has no place in Europe.”
For relatives of the victims of the massacre, the UN debate is an important moment in their quest for peace.
“Those who led their people into this position (of genocide denial) must accept the truth, so that we can all find peace and move on with our lives,” said Kada Hotic, 79-year-old co-director of an association of Srebrenica mothers, who lost her son, husband and two brothers.
The resolution is “of the highest importance for spreading the truth,” said Denis Becirovic, the Bosnian member of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s tripartite presidency.
© 2024 AFP
