On April 18, the Parliament of the Autonomous Republika Srpska (part of Bosnia and Herzegovina) approved a report that states that the killing of 8,000 Muslims by Serbian forces in Srebrenica during the Bosnian War was not genocide. This was reported by Reuters, according to UNN.
Details
It is noted that this step of the parliament was taken against the background of the campaign of Serbia and the Autonomous Republika Srpska in Bosnia and Herzegovina against the resolution on commemorating the victims of the genocide in Srebrenica, which is being discussed at the UN and is to be put to a vote by the General Assembly in early May.
Following the vote in the Republika Srpska parliament, thousands of people from across the region joined a protest against the resolution organized by the ruling coalition in the de facto capital of Banja Luka.
Republika Srpska President Milorad Dodik said that the Bosnian Serb army's operation in Srebrenica was a "big mistake.
"It was a crime, but it was not genocide," Dodik told his supporters, who applauded and waved Serbian flags. He called on Muslim Bosnians to withdraw their support for the resolution, saying that otherwise Serbs would not be able to live with them in the same state.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said last week that Belgrade will fight against a UN resolution that puts the blame on the Serbs. The government fears that it could become a basis for Bosnia to demand war reparations from Serbia, a wartime ally of Bosnian Serbs.
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The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, based in The Hague, has found in a series of verdicts over the past two decades that the massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica constituted genocide.
In 2007, the International Court of Justice confirmed this statement, noting that Serbia failed to prevent the genocide.
The draft UN resolution, initiated by Germany and Rwanda and supported by the United States, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and other countries, calls for July 11 to be made the official International Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the Srebrenica Genocide. It also calls for condemnation of any denial of the genocide in the town.
For reference
The July 11, 1995 massacre occurred a week after the UN safe zone in Srebrenica was attacked by Bosnian Serb forces. The event was recognized as the worst atrocity in Europe since World War II, and international courts declared it genocide.
The men, most of whom were unarmed, were executed while trying to escape from the eastern enclave after it fell into the hands of Bosnian Serb forces. They were killed en masse, and their remains were unearthed years later from primary and secondary mass graves.
The Serbian forces were commanded by General Ratko Mladic, who was sentenced to life in prison in 2017 after the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia found him guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity for organizing mass killings and ethnic cleansing during the war in Bosnia.