Genocide Denial Law Falls Victim to Bosnia’s Ethnic Divide

Bosnian Serbs and Bosniaks’ [Muslims] remain on opposing sides of the fence over plans to push for the adoption at state level of a law penalizing denial of genocide or war crimes.

A proposed “Law on Prohibition of Denial of Genocide and Other Crimes” has been submitted for the fourth time to Bosnia’s State Parliament.

Meanwhile a debate on the text has begun in the parliament of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the larger of Bosnia’s two autonomous entities.

Supporters of the law cite Bosnia’s obligation to harmonize its legislation with the country’s international commitments.

But opponents, mainly in the Bosnian Serb entity, the Republika Srpska, condemn the idea as provocative and inflammatory.

There are several conflicting versions of the truths about the 1992-5 war in Bosnia, and a genocide denial law will only be used to target Serbs and manipulate the memory of past events, they maintain.

Suggesting the Genocide

The International Court of Justice, ICJ, issued a ruling in 2007 that the crime of genocide had occurred in Srebrenica in 1995.

The ICJ ruling referred to the massacre of about 8,000 Bosnians in the town after it was overrun by the Bosnian Serb army under General Ratko Mladic.

Final and binding verdicts of the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia, ICTY, and the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina have also qualified the massacre in Srebrenica as an act of genocide.

The verdicts resulted in the adoption of the Resolution on Srebrenica – which called for all European Union countries to commemorate Srebrenica victims on July 11 – in the European Parliament, adopted in 2009.

But Srebrenica resolutions have not received similar support in Bosnia’s State Parliament.

After Serbia’s parliament adopted a Resolution on Srebrenica in March 2010, the Bosnian Serb leader, Milorad Dodik, now President of the Republika Srpska, reproached Belgrade for implicitly accepting the idea that the events in Srebrenica constituted genocide.

“Five years ago, without asking Serbia, Republika Srpska passed a resolution in which we concluded that a massive crime had happened in this little town,” he noted, referring to a report made by the Committee for investigation of events in and around Srebrenica between the 10th and 19th of July, 1995, which the Republika Srpska parliament adopted in 2004.

After this, Dragan Cavic, then president of Republika Srpska, made a public statement in which he apologized for crimes in Srebrenica.

“Then the International Court of Justice… concluded that it is a local genocide“, Dodik added, emphasizing that he would be willing to recognize the Srebrenica genocide, if he would be offered entrance to the European Union as an incentive.

In the State Parliament, meanwhile, the draft Law on Prohibition of Denial, Minimization, Justification or Approval of the Holocaust, Genocide and Crimes against Humanity has been sent in the parliamentary procedure for the fourth time.

In late October, the Constitutional Commission that confirmed the Law complied with Bosnia’s constitution and legal status.

But the Draft Law will not yet go before the House of Representatives in the State Parliament because it did not get the “green light” from the Joint Committee for Human Rights of both Houses.

Representatives of the Serbian Democratic Party, SDS, and Dodik’s party, the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats, SNSD, have already said that they will not vote for it.

Meanwhile, in late September, the House of Representatives of the parliament of the Federation entity supported amendments to the criminal code to make denial of genocide, the holocaust, war crimes and crimes against humanity a crime.

Proposer Jasmin Duvnjak, from the ethnic Bosniak Party of Democratic Action, SDA, demanded changes to the law mandating prison sentences for those who deny this crime.

But the parliamentary procedure could take some time in the Federation entity.

Members of HDZ 1990, an ethnic Croat party,