Thousands of Bosnians lined the streets of their capital Sarajevo yesterday to honour 136 victims of the Srebrenica massacre who will buried during tomorrow’s events to mark the 20th anniversary of Europe’s worst atrocity since the second World War.
Coffins containing the remains of the recently identified victims were carried on a truck covered by the Bosnian flag and ringed by white flowers, as onlookers expressed sorrow and anger over the July 1995 murder of 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys by Bosnian Serb forces. Amid rising tension in the Balkans, Russia this week blocked a United Nations draft resolution that would have condemned the massacre as genocide, in support of Serb leaders who said the declaration unfairly stigmatised their people.
‘Stigmatisation’
Serbian president Tomislav Nikolic hailed Russia’s move as a “great day for Serbia” that prevented the “stigmatisation of the entire Serbian people as genocidal” while ignoring crimes committed against Serbs by Bosnian Muslims and Croats.
Russia said that the draft resolution, proposed by Britain, would have inflamed the Balkans by heaping the blame onto Serbs for atrocities committed during a 1992-1995 Bosnian war that claimed 100,000 lives.
According to Serbian newspaper Politika, Mr Nikolic wrote to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to warn him that the resolution would bring the Balkans "to the brink of a new war."
Bosnian Muslims – known as Bosniaks – and western powers were furious, however.
Samantha Power, the Irish-born US envoy to the UN who worked as a journalist in Bosnia during its 1992-1995 war, condemned Moscow’s defence of its closest traditional ally in the Balkans.
“If the mothers of the boys executed in Srebrenica – executed just because they were Bosnian Muslims – were here today, they would ask how anybody would abstain on their reality,” she said.
Munira Subasic, the head of the Mothers of Srebrenica organisation, said that Russia’s veto “left the door open for a new war.”
‘Supporting criminals’
“Russia is actually supporting criminals, those who killed our children,” she said.
Bosnian Muslim leader Bakir Izetbegovic said denial that genocide was committed at Srebrenica was “disrespectful to the victims”.
Camil Durakovic, the mayor of Srebrenica, said: “The hardest thing to be is a Bosniak in Srebrenica. We have to live with denial and keep living like that every day.”
Thousands of people are expected to attend tomorrow’s memorial events at Srebrenica, and the US delegation will be led by former US president Bill Clinton.