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Mirsad Mesic, one of the MPs who proposed the resolution that was sent to parliament on Thursday, said that lawmakers from Bosnia’s Serb-led Republika Srpska had in previous years blocked the adoption of a declaration on genocide in Srebrenica and were expected to do so again.
However he urged his fellow MPs to heed the verdicts of the Hague Tribunal and International Court of Justice, which defined the 1995 massacres of more than 7,000 Bosniaks as genocide, and support the resolution this year.
“I believe this is a basic civilised responsibility of all people in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the world, to support this resolution which condemns genocide and the killings of innocent people in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and this is the minimum we can do to create preconditions for reconciliation in this country,” Mesic said.
The European parliament adopted a resolution on Srebrenica in 2009, as did the Serbian legislature, but without using the term genocide.
The proposed resolution condemns the genocide committed by Bosnian Serb forces and calls on judicial institutions to punish those who deny genocide as well as those responsible for it. It also urges people to honour the victims, regardless of their religious or ethnic background.
But Dusica Majkic, a lawmaker from the leading Bosnian Serb party, the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats, said that the resolution only focuses on Bosniak victims so it will not get the support of the Bosnian Serb MPs.
“We won’t even be inside at the moment of the vote, because parliament is headed by Sefik Dzaferovic who is suspected of war crimes against Serbs. If we were there, we would vote against, because this country needs to sit down and agree politically what the truth is. Where are the other victims?” Majkic asked.
Munira Subasic from the Association of Mothers of the Srebrenica and Zepa Enclaves said that the country should be ashamed that on the 20th anniversary of the worst crime in Europe since World War II, parliament has yet to adopt a resolution distancing itself from the crime.
“Each year we are offended by those who deny the crime. If they are against this resolution then they are proud of the genocide and the criminals,” said Subasic.
