Original article (in Serbian) was published on 11/07/2022
On the day marking 27 years since the genocide in Srebrenica, Serbian tabloids traditionally deny that this crime, in which between seven and eight thousand Bosnian Muslims were killed, can be called genocide. Informer and Alo deny the genocide, stating that “the Court in The Hague and the international expert Gideon Greif have established this”. However, contrary to the claims, the court in The Hague brought guilty verdicts for the individuals responsible for the genocide. The report led by Gideon Greif, which Serbian tabloids also refer to, is not an internationally recognized document and its statements are questionable.
In today’s print edition, on the occasion of marking the 27th anniversary of the genocide in Srebrenica, Informer already denied in the headline that the genocide took place at all. It published an extensive text stating its “arguments” under the title – “You are lying! Genocide was not committed in Srebrenica”.
Tabloid web portal Alo took over Informer’s text, changing only the title in which it claims, “THERE WAS NO GENOCIDE, THE PROOF IS THERE. Everyone is silent about the thousands of Serbian civilians who were killed by Muslims from Srebrenica!” The West does not stop lying and blackmailing”.
“Both the court in The Hague and international experts led by Gideon Greif determined that there is no question of genocide in Srebrenica, but that does not prevent the Western sycophants from lying and blackmailing the Serbs”, write Informer and Alo.
However, the court in The Hague did not “determine that there is no question of genocide in Srebrenica”, as the tabloids write in the first paragraphs of the text. This court found exactly the opposite – that genocide was committed in Srebrenica, and several individuals were convicted because of it.
According to the website of the Hague Tribunal, “The trial panel reached the following irrefutable conclusions that Bosnian Serb forces executed between seven and eight thousand Bosnian Muslim men and boys in July 1995; that the victims were civilians or prisoners of war; that the massacre and the subsequent cover-up operation were planned and well organized; and that it was an act of genocide”.
The tabloids cited as an argument the opinion of judge Prisca Matimba Nyambe, who was a member of the appeal panel that in June of last year upheld the verdict by which former general Ratko Mladic was sentenced to life imprisonment.
In an extensive separate opinion, which is part of the final verdict against Mladic, Nyambe presented arguments in which she disputed most of the accusations, also claiming that the trial panel made certain mistakes.
Her opinion, however, is not the official position of the Hague Tribunal, and it is wrong to claim that this court found that genocide did not happen.
Last year, the tabloids also glorified this judge, stating that she demanded the release of Ratko Mladic, which is not true. As Raskrikavanje wrote at the time, she asked for a retrial for him.
As an argument that there was no genocide, the tabloids also use the Report of the independent international commission on Srebrenica, led by Israeli Gideon Greif.
This report does not deny that Bosnian Muslims suffered but claims that there was no genocide.
The independent international commission, which published this disputed report, was hired by the Republic of Srpska in February 2019 to “once again investigate the suffering of all people in the Srebrenica region”.
In addition to the fact that the mentioned report is not an internationally recognized document, at the end of July last year, BIRN pointed out several conclusions of this report that contradict the conclusions reached by the Hague Tribunal in several judgments.
Thus, for example, the report claims that many Bosniaks killed were soldiers, although the courts found that most of the victims were civilians.
The report also states that the maximum number of victims does not exceed 3,715, while the Hague Tribunal found that between seven and eight thousand Bosnian Muslims were executed.
In January of this year, as reported by BIRN, Greif announced that he would correct the number of victims in Srebrenica and confirmed that there were eight thousand of them.
He stated, however, that “there will be no revision of the part of the report in which it is said that the killings of Bosniaks by Bosnian Serb forces did not constitute genocide”.
Namely, as stated on the website of the Hague Tribunal, in the period between July 11 and 19, 1995, Bosnian Serbs and other forces executed between seven and eight thousand Bosnian men and boys from Srebrenica.
The Hague Tribunal brought indictments against 19 people for crimes committed in Srebrenica, and among the accused are the then president of the Republic of Srpska, Radovan Karadzic, and the then commander of the Republic of Srpska Army, Ratko Mladic. Both were sentenced to life imprisonment.
In 2007, the Hague Tribunal acquitted Serbia of charges of genocide, stating that there is individual responsibility for it. However, the court pointed out that “the authorities in Belgrade did nothing to prevent the genocide or to punish those responsible afterwards”.
In 2010, the National Assembly of Serbia adopted a Declaration on the Condemnation of the Crime in Srebrenica.
In this document, the Assembly “strongly condemned the crime committed against the Bosniak population in Srebrenica in July 1995 in the manner determined by the judgment of the International Court of Justice (…) while expressing condolences and apologies to the families of the victims for the fact that everything was not done to prevent this tragedy”.
Although the Assembly expressed its support for the court in The Hague and its adherence to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the adopted declaration defined the events as “crimes” and not as genocide.
Updated on July 25, 2022. After we published the text, the web portal Srbija danas corrected the title and parts of the text, such as the claim that the court in The Hague found that there was no genocide in Srebrenica. The amended text now states that “The Hague Court found exactly the opposite, namely that there was genocide in Srebrenica and that individuals were convicted of that crime”.