Vote in the UN: Srebrenica should receive a memorial day – News

The UN General Assembly will decide on May 6 whether to dedicate a day to the Srebrenica genocide. That doesn’t suit everyone.

It would be a kind of satisfaction for the victims, their relatives and the survivors of the genocide if the resolution were adopted by the General Assembly, says Almasa Salihovic: “People around the world will remember the genocide and the victims in Srebrenica.” This is a big deal for the survivors.

Almasa Salihovic is one of them herself. She lost her brother Abdulah when she was eight years old. He was murdered in July 1995. As a spokesperson for the Srebrenica Memorial Center, she campaigns against the forgetting of her brother and the more than 8,000 other victims of Srebrenica.

Historical facts for enlightenment

In her work she all too often has to fight against genocide denial. Salihovic hopes that the resolution will provide new impetus: the better young people in particular are informed about the historical facts – she hopes – the less they will believe those who deny the genocide.

In addition to the creation of the memorial day, the resolution, which came about at the instigation of Germany and Rwanda, condemns any denial or glorification of the events of that time. The chances are good that the two-thirds majority required for adoption will be achieved.

Representatives of the Bosnian Serbs and the Serbian government are fighting against this. The resolution brands the Serbian people as genocidal, this site says. However, such statements are missing from the excerpts that are currently known from the text of the resolution. Almasa Salihovic also emphasizes that the resolution is not directed against the Serbian nation. Rather, it is directed against those who committed the genocide.

Protest against resolution

Nevertheless, high-ranking politicians in Serbia and Bosnia are mobilizing against the resolution. This also applies to Milorad Dodik – President of the Republika Srpska – the Serb-dominated state of Bosnia-Herzegovina. At a protest rally with several thousand people in mid-April, he openly threatened to secede from the Serbian state if the resolution was adopted. Dodik repeats this threat again and again, so far without following his words with action. And yet you have to take them seriously.

In the same speech, Dodik also denied the genocide in Srebrenica. He spoke of a terrible mistake and a crime that was committed there, but it was not a genocide. As a signal of support, high-ranking politicians from Serbia were also on stage for these statements.

This increasingly aggressive rhetoric and increased denial of genocide are frightening.

Dodik described the massacre as genocide as recently as 2007. And Serbia also previously officially condemned the crimes of Srebrenica. Both are no longer conceivable today. Serbia’s foreign policy has changed since then: from a clear rapprochement towards the EU to the self-confident claim to be a regional power that questions the existing political order.

This increasingly aggressive rhetoric and the increased denial of the genocide – as was also heard at the protest rally – are frightening, says Almasa Salihovic. It is all the more important to recognize the historical facts. This is the only way to move in a better direction, into a future that we have to shape together. The UN resolution should also help with this.