a day ago
In Srebrenica, 30 years after the genocide, the 'vicious circle' of denial continues
"Welcome to the Las Vegas of Bosnia, we attract at least as much attention [as the American city]." On Wednesday, July 9, the mayor of Srebrenica, Milos Vucic, displayed this peculiar sense of humor, two days before the July 11 commemorations marking the 30 th anniversary of the 1995 genocide in his city. This Bosnian Serb, who is also a cousin of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, said he would not participate in the ceremonies meant to honor the more than 8,000 Muslim Bosniaks killed in a matter of days by the forces of Serb General Ratko Mladic, in what is considered the worst massacre of civilians in Europe since the end of World War II.
"I was not invited, and I do not see why I should go when my deputy [a Bosniak] isn't coming here," said the 37-year-old official during a small counter-ceremony he organized in a predominantly Serb neighborhood of his municipality. Decorated with Serbian flags and set to the Serbian national anthem, the event was dedicated solely to Serb victims of the war, which claimed around 100,000 lives overall between 1992 and 1995. "Serbs were killed in much more horrific ways than the Bosniaks, for example by decapitation, as seen in certain Muslim countries, but have you ever read anything about them in the international press?" Vucic exclaimed, criticizing what he described as a "double standard" from the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), which convicted Mladic of genocide in 2021.
It mattered little that the Serb victims commemorated on Wednesday by a few dozen Serbs gathered around the mayor of Srebrenica did not die on that precise date, or that the local commander of the Bosniak forces, whom they accuse of being responsible for their deaths, has been systematically acquitted by international and Bosnian courts. The main objective was to stage a counter-event ahead of July 11, which is expected to draw tens of thousands of people this year. Several senior European officials, such as European Council President Antonio Costa and French Minister for European Affairs Benjamin Haddad, are expected to attend in this eastern Balkan town.
