Montenegro Accused of Kowtowing to Serbs on UN Srebrenica Resolution
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The Montenegrin government is playing politics with Srebrenica as it tries to appease its pro-Serbian coalition partners with a reported plan to propose amendments to an upcoming UN General Assembly resolution on the 1995 genocide of Bosniaks by Bosnan Serb forces, said Tea Gorjanc Prelevic, executive director of the Action for Human Rights NGO.
Gorjanc Prelevic believes that the governing Europe Now movement is trying to satisfy coalition partners that she claims are exponents of the policies of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, who is strongly against the resolution on Srebrenica, arguing that it imposes collective guilt on Serbs.
“The president of Serbia is agitating against the UN resolution claiming, completely unfoundedly, that it declares the Serbian people genocidal,” Gorjanc Prelevic said.
“It is not written anywhere in that resolution, but on the contrary, the verdicts of the Hague Tribunal and others on the individual responsibility of members of the [Bosnian Serb] Army of Republika Srpska are emphasised,” she added.
The UN General Assembly resolution on Srebrenica has caused controversy in Serbia, Montenegro and Bonsia’s Republika Srpska entity since it was first mooted.
The resolution will declare July 11 as the International Day of Remembrance for the 1995 Srebrenica genocide, state that the UN unreservedly condemns any denial of the genocide in Srebrenica, and call on member states to ensure the court-established facts are taught in their educational systems.
Montenegrin media reported on Sunday that the country’s government of Montenegro will submit amendments to the final text of the resolution to say that guilt for the crime of genocide is individual and cannot be attributed to any ethnic, religious or other group or community as a whole, as well as insisting on strict compliance with the Dayton Peace Agreement that ended the Bosnian war.
It was initially sponsored by Germany and Rwanda but various countries ijn the region – Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Albania, Croatia, North Macedonia and Slovenia – have since joined as co-sponsors, as has the United States.
Gorjanc Prelevic urged Montenegrin Prime Minister Milojko Spajic to “take responsibility and announce that Montenegro will definitely vote for the resolution”. She said she also hoped that Spajic will agree for Montenegro to co-sponsor it too.
The Montenegrin government has not confirmed it will propose the amendments, although members of the Europe Now Movement led by Prime Minister Spajic have been speaking positively about the idea.
But Serbia’s Foreign Minister Marko Djuric has argued that Montenegro is preparing the amendments for domestic political reasons – to avoid alienating the pro-Serb constituency.
“To me, it looks like a whitewashing of the conscience – what the government of Montenegro is allegedly doing in relation to the submission of amendments, they are doing it for domestic political use, so that it will not appear that they are against Serbia, so they are proposing amendments that are supposed to alleviate this before the domestic public,” Djuric said on Sunday.
Montenegro’s Foreign Minister Filip Ivanovic responded on Monday by saying that the information about the amendments is not official.
“Montenegro, in conducting its foreign policy, is guided exclusively by its own interests, not those of others. Also, Montenegro will treat other countries exactly the way those countries treat Montenegro,” Ivanovic said.
The leading opposition party, the Democratic Party of Socialists, has also criticised the government for its incoherent stance, claiming it is trying to appease Serbian President Vucic and Republika Srpska leader Srpska, Milorad Dodik while simultaneously trying to respect the European position on the resolution.
Meanwhile Milan Knezevic, the leader of the pro-Serbian Democratic People’s Party, which is a member of the ruling coalition, said on Tuesday that he told Prime Minister Spajic that Montenegro’s support for the resolution would be a catastrophic move that he believes will destroy relations with Serbia and Republika Srpska.
In 2007, the International Court of Justice in The Hague characterised the crimes committed against Bosniaks from Srebrenica in 1995 as genocide.
Bosnian Serb wartime political and military leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic have both been sentenced to life imprisonment for genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.
Three others have been sentenced to life terms for the Srebrenica genocide – the wartime chiefs of security of the Bosnian Serb Army’s Main Headquarters, Zdravko Tolimir and Ljubisa Beara, and Vujadin Popovic, who was the assistant commander of security for the Bosnian Serb Army’s Drina Corps.
A total of 49 individuals have also been sentenced to more than 700 years in prison by courts in The Hague, Sarajevo and Belgrade for involvement in crimes related to the Srebrenica massacres.
The Montenegrin parliament adopted a resolution in 2021 outlawing the denial of the Srebrenica genocide.
