West and Russia row over Bosnia ‘genocide’

Western nations and Russia are duelling over whether the UN Security Council should call the Srebrenica massacre during the Bosnian war a genocide in a resolution commemorating the 20th anniversary of Europe’s worst mass killing since the Second World War.

Britain has circulated a draft UN Security Council resolution that “condemns in the strongest terms the genocide in Srebrenica”. It recalls that the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in 2004 and the International Court of Justice in 2007 both determined that the killing of more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslims in July 1995 were acts of genocide.

Bosnian Serb leaders have been charged with ordering the mass killings of the Muslim men and boys taken from a UN-protected enclave in the eastern Bosnian town.

Serbian prime minister Aleksandar Vucic, a former extreme nationalist who now declares himself a pro-EU reformer, has said he is ready to attend memorial ceremonies marking the Srebrenica anniversary — but he refused to call it a genocide.

Instead, he said a “big horrific crime” took place in Srebrenica.

Russia, which has close religious ties to Serbia, has circulated a rival draft resolution which doesn’t mention either Srebrenica or genocide. It “condemns in the strongest terms the most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole committed during the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia against persons of various ethnic and religious backgrounds”.

The UN General Assembly commemorated the Srebrenica anniversary yesterday.

Whether the Security Council will adopt a resolution remains to be seen since Russia as a permanent member has veto power. The council is set to discuss the commemoration on July 7, and Serbia has been pressing for a Russian veto of the Western-backed resolution.

Britain’s UN ambassador, Matthew Rycroft, said “the 20th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide is a moment to pause and reflect on the lessons learned of the darkest moments in UN history and commit to making ‘never again’ a reality”.

Russia’s deputy UN ambassador, Petr Iliichev, called the British draft “divisive”, saying it focuses on “only one part of the conflict”.

The Russian draft, he said, is “more general, more reconciling.”