The UN General Assembly has scheduled a debate on a UN resolution to establish an annual day to commemorate the 1995 genocide of more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslims by Bosnian Serbs on May 23 to be followed by a vote.
The resolution would designate July 11 as the International Day of Reflection and Commemoration of the 1995 Genocide in Srebrenica.
The resolution has sparked protests and a lobbying campaign by Serbia’s president and the Bosnian Serb leadership to block its adoption by the 193-member General Assembly. Approval requires a majority of those countries that take part in the vote.
The draft resolution condemns “without reservation any denial of the Srebrenica genocide as a historical event.” It also “condemns without reservation actions that glorify those convicted of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide by international courts, including those responsible for the Srebrenica genocide.”
Sponsored by Germany and Rwanda, the resolution also asks the United Nations to prepare an outreach program and invites countries, organizations, civil society organizations, and others to observe July 11 with “appropriate education and public awareness-raising activities" in memory and honor of the victims.
The killings began near the end of the 1992-95 Bosnian War, which broke out after the breakup of Yugoslavia and pitted Bosnian Serbs against the country’s two other main ethnic populations, Croats and Muslim Bosniaks.
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On July 11, 1995, Bosnian Serbs overran a UN-protected safe area in Srebrenica and began targeting Bosniak men and boys. Those who tried to escape were chased through the woods and over the mountains around the town.
The International Court of Justice, the UN’s highest tribunal, determined in 2007 that the acts committed in Srebrenica constituted genocide, and the court’s determination is included in the draft resolution.
Germany’s UN Ambassador Antje Leendertse said the resolution “has the support of a large cross-regional group. She noted in a statement to the Associated Press last week that there is an official UN commemoration of the 1994 Rwanda genocide every year on April 7, and the Srebrenica resolution aims to do the same for Bosnia before the 30th anniversary of the start of the genocide in 2025.
Serbia’s nationalist president, Aleksandar Vucic, and the leadership of the Bosnian Serb entity, Republika Srpska, have vehemently opposed the adoption of the resolution, saying it brands Serbia as a “genocidal nation.”
Serbian Foreign Minister Marko Duric told the UN Security Council on April 30 that Serbia has consistently condemned the “horrific” Srebrenica massacre and other crimes committed during the Bosnian War. Duric called for the resolution to be withdrawn and replaced by one that honors all victims of the war.
Vucic said the resolution should be subjected to a vote in the UN Security Council, not the General Assembly. Those put to a vote in the Security Council can be vetoed by any of its five members, therefore allowing Russia and China to sink it.
Russia’s envoy to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, dismissed the resolution as “one-sided” and “politically charged” in his comments to the Security Council on April 30. Nebenzya said the move would not promote reconciliation among the peoples of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Milorad Dodik, Republika Srpska's Russia-friendly leader, has repeatedly threatened that if the resolution is adopted, the entity "will withdraw from the decision-making process in Bosnia."
Dodik, who has regularly reiterated his denial of the Srebrenica genocide, told supporters at a rally in Banja Luka last month that the actions of the Republika Srpska Army in Srebrenica in 1995 were "a mistake that left the crime," but he denied it was genocide.