Renewal of the Genocide Lawsuit: Why Justice Does Not Return to the Scene of the Crime

Written by Sead Omeragić

Following the announcement that Bosnia and Herzegovina's lawsuit against Serbia for genocide would be renewed, threats, demands and advice to abandon it are coming from all sides. For those who feel this country is their homeland, the pressure has never ceased. It manifested in its worst form through years of almost daily demands by Milorad Dodik and Dragan Čović to divide this state. The ethnic cleansing for those divisions was completed with crimes that are still being tried. Final justice is expected before international courts in several proceedings. Is it legally untenable to seek divisions of this state before the conclusion of key proceedings before the Tribunal in The Hague?

This state is being strategically weakened and destroyed to prevent the implementation of any justice following the verdicts of international courts. Just as has been the case so far. Because all European countries have adopted resolutions on Srebrenica. The European Parliament also adopted the Resolution almost unanimously and declared July 11 as the Day of Remembrance for the Genocide in Srebrenica. It was adopted by the Parliament of Canada and the Congress of the United States of America.

The Assembly of Serbia treated the Resolution partially, superficially and calculatingly.

The only state parliament that has not adopted the Resolution on Srebrenica is this one in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

When a Resolution on Srebrenica was recently supposed to be adopted before the UN, Russia prevented it with a veto. The truth about the genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina should have been inscribed in all textbooks for the world's children. It did not pass thanks to Russia vetoing justice. Serbian Prime Minister Vučić expressed gratitude for Russia's move and confirmed that he lobbied the Russians for it. What remains as a debt for that veto?

The renewal of the lawsuit was boycotted a few days ago in the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Čović and Ivanić refused to support the renewal of the lawsuit. Nothing unusual, justice for Srebrenica has already been boycotted in the Parliament of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

If the Serbian and Croatian sides deny the verdict of the World Court of Justice, this pushes the third people into a new demand for justice. Bosniak politicians should not have waited ten full years to take action. They have taken on serious responsibility for a casual attitude towards justice for the victims.

All of this could and should have been different.

If it is not possible to have a unified stance on the verdict of the World Court of Justice within Bosnia and Herzegovina's relations, then there is no justice. In fact, it exists everywhere in Europe and across the planet in civilized and democratic states of the world. Only there is neither truth nor justice at the scene of the crime.

The problem is far more serious and concerns the common destiny of us Bosniaks and our neighbors, Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Croats. The decay of this state is happening due to the constant boycott of policies that very obediently work for neighboring regimes. Do our neighbors see that they are completely taking on even someone else's guilt? And that they will fully bear the consequences of international verdicts.

That is why chaos is being orchestrated within Bosnia and Herzegovina, this state is being divided, federalized and decentralized, in order to prevent or mitigate the consequences of international justice in the future. This can only happen if the state-building element, which has the right and ability to seek the most ordinary, most natural human justice for the crime of genocide, is destroyed. All the attacks and demolitions of the state that have been led for decades by the likes of Dodik and Čović are imposed from outside, to prevent final justice for Bosnia and Herzegovina and to begin living its future.

The institutional denial of the genocide in Srebrenica is proof of the tragic essence of the European Parliament's demand for the need to federalize and decentralize this state.

Simply put, the institutional denial of the genocide in Srebrenica is a tragic proof of how supposedly unitary this state is. The greatest evidence of how truly threatened the national rights are of those who can so easily prevent even international justice in the institutions of this state.