UN approves resolution to annually commemorate 1995 Srebrenica genocide despite Serbian opposition

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United Nations approved a resolution Thursday establishing an annual day to commemorate the genocide of more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslims by Bosnian Serbs in 1995, a move vehemently opposed by Serbs who fear that this will label them all supporters of “genocide”. of the massacre.

The vote in the 193-member General Assembly was 84 to 19, with 68 abstentions, reflecting many countries’ concerns about the vote’s impact on reconciliation efforts in deeply divided Bosnia.

Supporters were hoping to get 100 yes votes. Russian Ambassador to the UN Vassily Nebenzia, who voted against the resolution, told the assembly that the total abstentions and “no” votes – 87 – were higher than the 84 votes in favour. It is also worth noting that 22 countries skipped the meeting and did not vote, some apparently due to the dispute over the commemoration.

The resolution designates July 11 as the “International Day of Reflection and Remembrance of the 1995 Srebrenica Genocide”, which will be observed every year from two months onwards.

The resolution, sponsored by Germany and Rwanda, does not mention Serbs as culprits, but that did not stop the intense lobbying campaign for “no” led by Bosnian Serb President Milorad Dodik, and the populist president of neighboring Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic. , who carried a Serbian flag on his shoulders while sitting in the Assembly Hall during the vote.

Vukic told U.N. members after the vote that everyone involved in the Srebrenica massacre had already been convicted and sentenced to prison and said the sole purpose of the resolution was to “put aside guilt moral and political”: the peoples of Serbia and the Republic. Srpska, the Bosnian Serb half of Bosnia.

“These people who wanted to stigmatize the Serbian people did not succeed and they will never succeed,” he said. “Nothing could ever have united the Serbian people better than what is happening here today. »

Russian lawmaker Nebenzia called the resolution’s adoption a “Pyrrhic victory for its sponsors,” saying that if their goal “was to divide the General Assembly… then they succeeded brilliantly.”

But the adoption of the resolution was welcomed by Zeljko Komsic, a Croatian member of Bosnia’s tripartite presidency, by family members of the Srebrenica victims and by many Western and Muslim countries.

“We actually expected more countries to be supportive, but we are satisfied,” Sehida Abdurahmanovic, who lost several family members during the genocide, told the AP. “Those who abstained and voted against, we will place them on a pillar of shame that we are building at the memorial center.”

On July 11, 1995, Bosnian Serbs invaded a UN-protected safe zone in Srebrenica. They separated at least 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys from their wives, mothers and sisters and massacred them. Those who tried to escape were chased through the woods and mountains around the city.

The Srebrenica killings were the bloody climax of the 1992-95 Bosnian War, which came after the breakup of then-Yugoslavia unleashed nationalist passions and territorial ambitions that pitted Serbs against each other. Bosnia to the country’s two other main ethnic populations, Croats and Muslim Bosniaks.

Serbia and the Bosnian Serbs having denied that the genocide took place in Srebrenica, although this has been established by two UN tribunals.

Before the vote, Vucic urged UN members to vote “no,” calling the resolution “highly politicized.” He warned it would open “Pandora’s box” and said it was not about reconciliation. He said it would only “reopen old wounds” and create “total political chaos” in the region and at the UN. He also sharply attacked Germany for trying to give “moral lessons” to the international community and Serbia.

The 2007 ruling by the International Court of Justice, the UN’s highest court, that the acts committed in Srebrenica constituted genocide is included in the draft resolution. It was the first genocide in Europe since the Nazi Holocaust during World War II, which killed an estimated 6 million Jews and people from other minorities.

German Ambassador to the UN Antje Leendertse introduced the resolution, saying her country wanted to build a multilateral system to prevent a repeat of Nazi Germany’s crimes, honor the memory of the victims of Srebrenica and support survivors. The resolution “is not directed against anyone, nor against Serbia,” she said, adding that it is instead aimed at the perpetrators of the genocide.

Leendertse pointed out that an official UN commemoration of the 1994 Rwandan genocide takes place every year on April 7 – the day the Hutu-led government began massacring members of the Tutsi minority and their supporters. The resolution aims to “bridge the gap” by creating a separate United Nations day to commemorate the victims of Srebrenica, she said.

Menachem Rosensaft, the son of Holocaust survivors and an assistant professor at Cornell Law School, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that designating July 11 as the official day of commemoration of the Srebrenica genocide “is a moral and legal imperative.”

The Muslim Bosnians who were killed deserve to have their deaths and the manner in which they died remembered. Srebrenica was supposed to be a safe zone but was abandoned by Dutch UN peacekeepers, leaving Bosniaks seeking refuge there “to be murdered under UN surveillance”. » said Rosensaft.

Richard Gowan, director of the International Crisis Group at the United Nations, called the timing of the vote “unfortunate, given allegations that Israel is pursuing genocide in Gaza.”

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Associated Press writers Eldar Emric in Srebrenica and Jovana Gec and Dusan Stojanovic in Belgrade, Serbia, contributed to this report.