A Serbian lawmaker from the ruling Progressive Party has called the 1995 Srebrenica massacre "liberation" and thanked Bosnian Serb military chief General Ratko Mladic for what he called a "brilliantly conducted military operation."
Vladimir Djukanovic's Twitter statement came on July 10, a day before the more than 8,000 victims of Srebrenica massacre were remembered in Bosnia-Herzegovina on the 24th anniversary of the worst mass killing in Europe since World War II, which international courts have recognized as genocide.
"I want to congratulate the Serbian people on the day of the liberation of Srebrenica. Thanks to General Ratko Mladic on the brilliantly conducted military operation," Djukanovic wrote on Twitter.
Serbian and Bosnian Serb officials have refused to accept that the mass killings of Muslim men and boys was genocide.
Srebrenica fell to Bosnian Serb forces on July 11, 1995. Its Muslim population fled the town, which had been declared a UN "safe haven" for civilians. They rushed to the UN compound in hopes that the peacekeepers would protect them.
When Serbian forces led by Mladic arrived at the UN compound, the Dutch peacekeepers quickly handed over the base. The Bosnian Serb forces then separated out men and boys for execution and sent the women and girls elsewhere in territory under their control.
Thousands were executed. Those who tried to flee through the woods were hunted down and killed by Bosnian Serb forces.
Former Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic was convicted in March 2016 of war crimes for his role, while Mladic was sentenced in 2017 to life in prison after he was found guilty of genocide and war crimes.
