Biserko: Political elites in Serbia should give up the idea of uniting with the Republika Srpska

The European Union should focus on getting Serbia and its political elites to treat the wars of the nineties in a truthful manner, instead of relativizing and discounting them, said Sonja Biserko, the president of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia.

'It is disastrous particularly for the younger generations that will be the bearers of the politics here, and they have already adopted the narrative which, I would say, has become official, said Biserko explaining that any turn from the first instance verdict for Radovan Karadzic would be a fiasco.

'I expect at least a confirmation of the first instance verdict and it would be encouraging if the genocide charges would also be confirmed for other municipalities. That war was genocidal. The international community did not muster courage to bring the story to the end and it is absurd that the Army of the RS is deemed responsible for the genocide without being linked to any other institution, said Biserko.

She thinks that holding Serbia responsible for not preventing genocide was not enough as its involvement was far deeper than that. Biserko emphasized the importance of understanding the context of the war, its causes and consequences, while the Dayton Peace Accord had merely marked the end of the war.

Biserko says that the EU should exert a certain amount of pressure on Belgrade as it is difficult to join a community such as EU without having settled problems among the countries of the region.

'A big task is before the Serbian elites and it also includes facing reality instead of referring to the RS as 'western Serbia', or naming their schools after indicted war criminals and falsifying history of the nineties. Some radical ideologies from the WWII are also being promoted which distorts history not only of Serbia but also of the WWII.'

On the Serb side, there are those who negate and falsify, and there is sufficient materials evidence about what was happening in Bosnia. A strong will of the political elites is required and all we have right now is negating, explained Biserko for N1.

She also said that Serbia's ambition to 'finish its project' still lives and that 'the international community should focus on defeating that ideology that is still active regarding uniting of the Republika Srpska and Republic of Serbia', concluded Biserko.