On July 11, the 1995 genocide in Srebrenica is commemorated worldwide. The United Nations General Assembly voted in favor of a draft resolution on a “day of reflection and remembrance” in New York on Thursday, despite a number of votes against and abstentions.
The resolution is intended to help commemorate the genocide of more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslims. It condemns “without reservation any denial of the genocide in Srebrenica as a historical event” and actions that glorify those “convicted by international courts of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.” The intention is for the day to be officially celebrated for the first time in 2025. According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 84 UN members voted in favor of the text, including Austria.
19 votes against and many abstentions
There were 19 votes against in the vote – unusual for what are essentially unanimous resolutions on Remembrance Days. In addition to Serbia, China and Russia, Hungary also voted against the text. 68 countries abstained from voting. The Serbian government had previously protested against the text of the resolution, saying it would collectively condemn the Serbian people and create a hierarchy among the victims of the war.
After the vote, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić wrapped himself in the Serbian national flag and posted a photo of himself on the online service Instagram with the words “I am proud of my Serbia”. Before the vote, Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik again denied that the Srebrenica massacre was a genocide.
With the exception of Serbia, all states that emerged from the former Yugoslavia voted in favor of the resolution. Some EU countries, including Greece, Cyprus and Slovakia, abstained.
Moscow scoffs at the decision
Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vasily Nebenzia said that if the authors’ goal was to divide the General Assembly, “they succeeded brilliantly.” Moscow had already vetoed a UN Security Council resolution in 2015 that included “crimes of genocide in Srebrenica.”
In response to opposition to the plan and at Montenegro’s request, the authors added to the draft resolution that guilt for the genocide in Srebrenica “is individual and cannot be attributed to any ethnic, religious or other group or community as a whole.”
Source: Krone
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