Brussels, 04/06/2012 (Agence Europe) - Peter Stano, the spokesman for Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Füle, said on Monday 4 June in response to the comments of new Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic, who denied that there had been genocide in Srebrenica, in the east of Bosnia, in 1995, that “the atrocities in Srebrenica in July 1995 were a crime against all of humankind. We should never forget and it should never be allowed to happen again”. “Political leaders in the Western Balkans need to continuously demonstrate their adherence to the spirit of cooperation and reconciliation in the region. As everywhere else in Europe, responsible politicians are expected to use responsible, clear and univocal rhetoric”, he added.
Commission spokesperson Pia Ahrenkilde Hansen said, too, that the EU strongly rejected any attempt to rewrite history: “The Srebrenica massacre was genocide”. She added that the matter of reconciliation in the region would be raised, and action in support of this reconciliation discussed, when Commission President José Manuel Barroso meets the new Serbian president in Brussels on 14 June.
In an interview with Montenegrin television, Nikolic said that “there was no genocide at Srebrenica”, stating, however, that “in Srebrenica, grave war crimes were committed by some Serbs who should be found, prosecuted and punished”.
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia ruled that the Srebrenica massacre amounted to an act of genocide during which 8,000 Muslims were slaughtered by Bosnian Serb forces. (CG/transl.rt)