guardian.co.uk,
Reuters in Sarajevo, Saturday 2 June 2012
Tomislav Nikolic has said Serbs did not commit genocide in Srebrenica and he sees no need to make a memorial visit. Photograph: Andrej Isakovic/AFP/Getty |
Serbia's
new president has denied genocide took place in Srebrencia, contradicting the
international criminal prosecution of Serbian leaders from the Yugoslav wars
and angering the Muslim co-president of Bosnia.
Tomislav
Nikolic, the rightwinger elected as Serbian president last month, said on
Montenegrin television: "There was no genocide in Srebrenica. In
Srebrenica, grave war crimes were committed by some Serbs who should be found,
prosecuted and punished.
"It is
very difficult to indict someone and prove before a court that an event
qualifies as genocide."
The former
Serbian general Ratko Mladic is on trial in The Hague accused of genocide in
Srebrenica. Bosnian Serb forces under his command slaughtered around 8,000
Muslim men and boys after capturing the town, which had been declared a safe
haven by the United Nations, towards the end of Bosnia's 1992-95 war. It was
Europe's worst atrocity since the second world war.
The Bosnian
Serbs' wartime political leader, Radovan Karadzic, is also on trial in The
Hague accused of genocide.
Bakir
Izetbegovic, who shares Bosnia's presidency with a Croat and a Serb, said
Nikolic's comments were insulting to the survivors. "The denial of
genocide in Srebrenica ... will not pave the way for co-operation and
reconciliation in the region, but on the contrary may cause fresh
misunderstandings and tensions.
"By
giving such statements Nikolic has clearly demonstrated that he is still not
ready to face the truth about the events that took place in our recent
past."
Nikolic
said he would not attend the annual commemoration of the Srebrenica massacre in
July. "Don't always ask the Serbian president if he is going to
Srebrenica," he said. "My predecessor was there and paid tribute. Why
should every president do the same?"
Both the
international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the
international court of justice (ICJ) have ruled that the Srebrenica massacre
amounted to genocide.
Serbia
wants to join the European Union. A spokeswoman for the EU's foreign policy
chief, Catherine Ashton, said her office would seek clarification of Nikolic's
statement but "would like to remind everyone that Srebrenica has been
confirmed as genocide by both the ICTY and the ICJ. Srebrenica was the largest
massacre in Europe since world war two, a crime against all of humankind. We
should never forget and it should never be allowed to happen again."
Nikolic's
win over the incumbent president, Boris Tadic, sent a chill through a region
that still recalls his last spell in government – as deputy prime minister in a
coalition with Serbia's late strongman Slobodan Milosevic when Nato bombed
Serbia to drive its forces out of Kosovo during a 1998-99 war.
Nikolic has
split from ultra-nationalists, recasting himself as a pro-European conservative
and saying he will pursue Serbia's drive for EU membership.
Tadic
oversaw the arrest and extradition of Karadzic and Mladic. He pushed an apology
for the massacre through parliament and travelled to Srebrenica as part of a
drive to foster reconciliation.
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