Will the UN's Srebrenica vote thrust the Balkans into war once again? - opinion

With wars raging in the Middle East and Ukraine, it is not surprising that simmering tensions in the Balkans would largely go unnoticed. However, inattentiveness to a region that has in the past erupted into broad conflict carries its own peril, and this may soon be put to the test.

As of this writing, the UN General Assembly was set to vote this week on a draft resolution co-sponsored by the US, Germany, and others that would formally recognize the July 1995 massacre of more than 8,000 Muslims in Srebrenica in Bosnia and Herzegovina as an act of genocide. The proposed text also would designate July 11 as an annual International Day of Reflection and Remembrance in respect to the killings.

While the war crimes committed in Srebrenica were by all accounts ghastly, they do not constitute genocide, as famed Nazi hunter Efraim Zuroff of the Simon Wiesenthal Center has pointed out.

Moreover, this resolution could not possibly come at a worse time for the Balkans. Those behind this initiative might have the best of intentions, but they are needlessly antagonizing Serbia and risk destabilizing the entire region.

In addition, passage of the resolution in its current form could prove extremely detrimental to Israel and other Western countries.

The Balkans are already on edge, thanks largely to provocative efforts by Kosovo to gain international recognition as an independent state. Kosovo, a province of Serbia and the cradle of its civilization, illegally and unilaterally declared independence in February 2008, something that the authorities in Belgrade refuse to recognize.

That has not stopped Kosovo from waging an international campaign to solidify its position. Just a few weeks ago, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe voted to recommend that Kosovo be invited to become a member, a move that angered Serbs, who see such gestures as an attempt by outsiders to impose a solution on them without their consent.

Biden's role in the current crisis

AGAINST THIS backdrop, the Biden administration’s decision to move forward now with a UN resolution regarding events that took place in the Bosnian war nearly 30 years ago is odd, to say the least. It would constitute a Balkan blunder of epic proportions. During the war in Bosnia, from 1992 to 1995, acts of cruelty and brutality were committed by all sides: Serbs, Bosnian Muslims, and Croats.

While Srebrenica is most well known, it is hardly the only instance of man’s capacity for inhumanity. After the outbreak of the war, the UN established an International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, which later convicted Bosnian Serb officials for their actions in Srebrenica.

Subsequently, it also found six senior Croatian officials guilty of war crimes and concluded that the Croatian government had pursued a criminal policy of ethnic cleansing.

Hence, by singling out what happened in Srebrenica while ignoring other horrors of the Bosnian conflict, the UN is implicitly suggesting that Serbs alone were perpetrators, and everyone else were victims.

This is not only historically wrong, but it effectively whitewashes many of the atrocities committed by Bosnian Muslim and Croatian authorities.

That is hardly a winning recipe for building greater understanding in the region.

Over the years, there have been important steps toward reconciliation. In 2015, for example, Serbia’s president, Aleksandar Vucic, visited the village of Potocari in Bosnia, where the Srebrenica memorial is situated, to pay respects to the victims. He also announced that Serbia would donate $5 million for development programs of the Srebrenica Municipality.

Concrete measures such as these, rather than UN resolutions passed in some far-away chamber, are the only way to truly bring about a sincere historical reckoning. Instead of rushing to vote on a one-sided resolution, the General Assembly should have aimed for the formulation of a more comprehensive text based on consensus among all the parties involved.

Any resolution that seeks to commemorate the atrocities of the Bosnian war in the 1990s requires careful consideration of the complexities of the conflict. Failure to do so could provoke an outbreak of hostilities that are in no one’s interest. 

In advance of the upcoming vote, Milorad Dodik, president of Republika Srpska, one of the three constituent states in the Bosnian federation, warned that “Bosnia and Herzegovina may not survive” passage of the UN resolution.

In response, the American embassy in Sarajevo said any attempt to break apart Bosnia “will not be tolerated.” This only serves to underline how high the stakes are.

Furthermore, it is obvious that adoption of the resolution labeling Srebrenica a genocide will set a precedent and pave the way for Israel’s foes to push similar diplomatic attacks against the Jewish state regardless of the facts.

And what’s to stop resolutions from also targeting the US bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki or the leveling of Dresden by the Allies during World War II?

Hence, the Srebenica resolution opens a Pandora’s box that is not in Israel’s interest nor that of the West’s.

By all means, the barbarities of the past should be memorialized so they are not forgotten. But no less important is to do so in a manner that reflects the past rather than distorts it, and which sets the stage for a better future and not a more bitter one.  

The writer served as deputy director of communications and policy planning under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.