Why did Vučić ignore police warnings

While awaiting the police report on the attack on Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić, analysts advise: "it is important to keep a cool head". Comments on the events in Potočari vary, reports the Patria News Agency.

Numerous officials in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) and around the world have condemned the attack on Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić in Potočari on Saturday (July 11). All are calling for an urgent investigation into the unfortunate event to shed light on the case as soon as possible.

Most officials and analysts, both in BiH and the region, assess that the greatest damage has been done to the surviving victims of Srebrenica. This was confirmed by Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić in his first public address after the incident in Potočari. "Those people (attackers) are not aware that they have insulted the mothers and families of the victims, because on this day, more is being said about these fools who wanted to organize someone's lynching, than about paying tribute to the victims," said Vučić.

Interpretations of this unfortunate event vary. Various experts have been engaged to link the attack on Vučić to "fanatics" who "received signals from Sarajevo and the West". The attack on Vučić is also being presented in some places as "a reflection of the general state of mind and hatred in the Bosniak people".

With inappropriate Bosniak-Serbian comments, the atmosphere on social media networks has been brought to a boil. Some news crews based in the Federation of BiH, who covered the commemoration, received police escorts on their way from Potočari "just in case".

Zijad Bećirović, Director of the International Institute for Middle-East and Balkan Studies (IFIMES) from Ljubljana, says that, first and foremost, it was a security lapse by the organizers. "Namely, the scenario for the Commemoration foresaw a corridor about 200 meters long, which goes through the cemetery where the victims are buried, towards the VIP area. There were more than 50,000 people there. A large number of them lost their loved ones and/or are victims of genocide themselves. This is primarily a failure of SIPA (State Investigation and Protection Agency), which is responsible for internal security, but also of other security agencies," Bećirović told Deutsche Welle.

"Why did Vučić, despite warnings from the Serbian police that there was a security risk, come to Potočari? There are several reasons. Recently, Vučić has continuously raised tensions among Bosniaks, especially among the victims of the genocide in Srebrenica, starting with the issuance of an arrest warrant for Naser Orić and the accompanying rhetoric, as well as lobbying Russia to veto in the UN Security Council, which ultimately blocked the British resolution on Srebrenica.

Perhaps the most important reason is that Vučić has not yet acknowledged the genocide in Srebrenica, has not called the crimes by their true name, which he is obligated to do by the verdicts of at least two international courts. Instead of admitting that genocide was committed, Vučić came to Srebrenica for his own promotion. He was expected to kneel before the victims and send a historical message from Srebrenica, as former German Chancellor Willy Brandt did in 1970 to the Jews and the whole world. However, Brandt was an active participant in the fight against Nazism, while Vučić is something else entirely," says Bećirović.