Original article (in Montenegrin) was published on 19/07/2023
Year after year, the commemoration of the anniversary of the genocide in Srebrenica is a generator of disinformation promoted with a clear goal – to deny that on July 11, 1995, genocide was committed against civilians in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The same case was this year. The actors are mostly the same.
What happened in Srebrenica
As Raskrinkavanje explained in its earlier analysis “What are the facts about the genocide in Srebrenica”, in July 1995 more than 8,000 people of Bosniak nationality, mostly men and boys, were killed in the vicinity of Srebrenica after the Army of the Republic of Srpska took control of the city.
In the “Chronology of Genocide”, a publication of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Courts of the UN, it is clearly stated that the Army of the Republic of Srpska took control of Srebrenica on July 11, 1995, in the operation codenamed “Krivaja 95”. “Thousands of residents sought refuge in the UN base in nearby Potocari. The RS army took control of Potocari on July 12 and began separating men and boys and forcibly transferring women and children to Kladanj, which was under the control of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ARBiH). After the fall of Srebrenica, between 10 and 15,000 men of military age, among whom were civilians and members of the ARBiH, fearing that they would be killed if they went to Potocari, formed a column about ten kilometres long and began to move on foot through the forest in the direction of Tuzla, which was under the control of the ARBiH. Thousands of these men were captured and, together with the men and boys who were separated in Potocari, killed. The mass executions began on July 13 and lasted until the beginning of August. In the following months, the Army of the Republic of Srpska, in cooperation with local authorities, began exhuming bodies from the original mass graves and moving them to secondary mass graves in an attempt to cover up evidence of mass executions. Operation “Krivaja 95” was carried out on the orders of Radovan Karadzic, the President of the Republic of Srpska and Supreme Commander of the VRS, and was part of a wider plan to eliminate the Bosniak population from the enclaves of Srebrenica and Zepa, recorded in the document “Directive 7”. Karadzic planned the attack on Srebrenica in agreement with the President of the National Assembly of the Republic of Srpska Momcilo Krajisnik and the Chief of Staff of the Drina Corps of the VRS Radislav Krstic, according to the publication “Chronology of Genocide”.
Genocide was ruled by the relevant courts
That genocide took place in Srebrenica is not an arbitrary claim or opinion. Judgments qualifying the crime in Srebrenica as genocide were issued by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the International Court of Justice and the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina. So far, according to official data, more than 50 people have been sentenced for crimes in Srebrenica, and of the 20 verdicts of the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia for crimes in Srebrenica, seven include verdicts for genocide.
The “most famous” name among those convicted is certainly General Ratko Mladic, who commanded the execution of the genocide and who was sentenced to life imprisonment for genocide, crimes against humanity, violations of laws or customs of war during the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The narrative that condemnation of genocide declares Serbs a genocidal nation
Everything starts from politicians, or rather “from top to bottom”. And everything starts long before the commemoration in Potocari occurs, that is, the narrative of denial is promoted in advance.
Therefore, in February, we had an example of the President of the Republic of Srpska, Milorad Dodik, denying that genocide was committed in Srebrenica. Dodik, who assumed the role of the main denier of the genocide, also spoke out in April, when he accused the newly elected President of Montenegro, Jakov Milatovic, of insulting the Serbs by stating that genocide took place in Srebrenica.
And during May, regional political officials “raised” the issue of genocide in Srebrenica, when the vice-president of the National Assembly of Serbia and member of the Serbian Progressive Party, Sandra Bozic, accused the vice-president of the Party of Freedom and Justice of Serbia, Marinika Tepic, of wanting “the Serbian people to be declared genocidal” because in 2016 she signed a proposal for a resolution on the genocide in Srebrenica and submitted it to the Assembly in Serbia. This proposal was not adopted and, as Raskrinkavanje.me explained in an earlier analysis, it does not declare the Serbs a genocidal nation but condemns the genocide in Srebrenica.
The media in Montenegro often use the narrative that the condemnation of genocide attaches the label of genocidal to the Serbian people. Thus, the pro-Russian and pro-Serbian tabloid Borba accuses President Jakov Milatovic, whose video message was broadcast at this year’s commemoration in Potocari, “of joining the chase against Serbs”. The pro-Serbian tabloids in Montenegro have wholehearted help in this narrative from their “older brothers and sisters” in Serbia. The tabloid Republika used the same narrative stating that “Milatovic stabbed Vucic in the back”.
Vecernje novosti also accused Milatovic in the same way, stating that he “denied everything he said in Belgrade”, even though during his visit to Serbia, the Montenegrin president never mentioned anything that he could deny with a statement about genocide.
Borba used a similar narrative in their attack on Democrat President Aleksa Becic, even though he clearly quoted the Montenegrin Resolution on the Srebrenica genocide, which states that responsibility can be exclusively individual, and no nation can be labelled as genocidal or criminal.
Certainly, there is no declaration, resolution or similar document that declares the Serbs to be a genocidal nation, nor has any official verdict or condemnation issued by regional officials emphasized this, which means that it is a false narrative that is being spread by centres that want to deny what happened in Srebrenica – genocide.