BELGRADE — As the U.N. General Assembly prepares to vote on a resolution recognizing the victims of the 1995 Srebrenica genocide on Thursday, Serbia has launched a full-blown diplomatic offensive to block the initiative.
“This will be the most difficult day since I became president and [was] prime minister,” said Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić in an Instagram video Wednesday, with the Manhattan skyline in the background. “Tomorrow we will see who our real friends are.”
The resolution, sponsored by Germany and Rwanda, bestows U.N. recognition on what is regarded by many as the worst crime to happen in Europe since World War II: the slaughter by Bosnian Serb forces of over 8,000 Bosniaks in eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina, on and around July 11, 1995, during the brutal Yugoslav wars.
Given the number of contemporary conflicts already being juggled, the resolution on the historic event could have slipped under the radar. But in Serbia, the Srebrenica issue is still taken as an opportunity not to honor the victims, but to flex the country’s nationalist and diplomatic muscle.
On Wednesday, the Bosnian Serb government urged the country’s citizens to “display the flags of Serbia and symbolically express their opposition to that [U.N.] document.” The tallest tower on Belgrade’s waterfront, a glass-covered phallus on the Sava River, displayed a rotating message: “We are not a genocidal nation.”
Over the past month, Serbia’s leaders have staged multiple press conferences and paid several visits to U.N. headquarters to meet with key stakeholders in an attempt to sway the vote.
“It’s not that hard to deconstruct the narrative coming from the Serbian government — [that] there is no single part of the document or any other document which would be permitted at the U.N. which would stigmatize an entire nation,” explained Sofija Todorović, program manager at the Youth Initiative for Human Rights.
Todorović’s group, along with other civil society organizations in Serbia and the wider region, back the U.N. resolution because they claim it supports memorialization — such as declaring July 11 the International Day of Remembrance for the 1995 Srebrenica genocide — rather than collectively blaming any nation or ethnic group.
Co-sponsors of the U.N. resolution include several EU member countries, as well as the U.S.
According to Todorović, however, the vehemence of Serbia’s opposition to the resolution has more complex roots than mere nationalist pique. Belgrade, she explained, wants to increase its international influence by appearing to argue with its neighbors and then swiftly defuse the disputes, thereby winning a reputation as a force for stability and a major regional player.
“This is the foreign policy Serbia has chosen for itself, especially after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine was launched,” Todorović continued. “It wants to be relevant in the world by causing tensions and then accepting praise from the international community once they are resolved.”
Genocide on trial
The 1992-1995 Bosnian War was the bloody fallout of the dissolution of socialist Yugoslavia, and included the four-year siege of its capital, Sarajevo, considered the longest in modern warfare.
The conflict occurred during a time of relative stability and euphoria in the rest of Europe, in which former communist states were rejoicing at their newfound democratic rights and independence.
As such, the starkness of the Yugoslav conflict brought it sharp attention, and the crimes that accompanied it saw the formation of a special court, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, or ICTY.
The court aimed to show that a newly reunited Europe and a more collaborative post-Cold War world could address war crimes in a manner consistent with Western legal traditions and the highest standards of proof.
It was this court, as well as the International Court of Justice in The Hague, that deemed the slaughter at Srebrenica a genocide. The current U.N. resolution, which the General Assembly will vote on Thursday, merely confirms the singular nature of the crimes committed.
The ICTY trials, which lasted from the late 1990s until 2017, along with the pending U.N. resolution, are expected to set the standard for how future genocide trials and the perpetrators of atrocities are dealt with.
“Sadly in Serbia it is still difficult to talk about any subject relating to the war because the country never officially distanced itself from the crimes and it never took a clear stance on the conflict,” Todorović concluded.
Bosnia and Herzegovina’s ambassador to the U.N., Zlatko Lagumdžija, called on Serbia during a recent speech at the U.N. not to “fan the flames of nationalism and willfully sow the seeds of hate,” saying it was obvious the country had missed the main point of the resolution.
“The resolution on the genocide in Srebrenica is not a threat to the Serbian people but to individuals with names, in particular eight judgments of the ICTY that contain guilty verdicts for the crime of genocide,” Lagumdžija explained.
“There are no genocidal nations. There are only criminals responsible for genocide.”
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