Written by: Boban Batrićević
1. Let’s begin with a definition. The Croatian Encyclopedia defines genocide as follows:
"Genocide (geno- + -cide) is a crime aimed at the destruction, in whole or in part, of a national, ethnic, religious, or racial group. This can involve killing members of the group, inflicting serious bodily or mental harm, imposing living conditions designed to lead to the group’s destruction, measures intended to prevent births within the group, or forcibly transferring children to another group".
This definition was established by the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 9, 1948.
The term “genocide” was not coined overnight. For a long time, the word “barbarism” was used, though it failed to fully capture the scale and systematic nature of genocide. The term we use today was introduced by the Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin.
2. The only genocide in Europe after the Holocaust occurred in Bosnia and Herzegovina, against Bosniaks in Srebrenica in July 1995.
One of the most often cited reflections on genocide and extermination camps comes from Theodor W. Adorno, who, in his Minima Moralia, described life after Auschwitz as “damaged.”
That work was translated into our languages during the Yugoslav era by philosopher Aleksa Buha, a man who, just a few years later, would serve as foreign minister of the genocidal entity known as Republika Srpska and become one of the leading deniers of the Srebrenica genocide. How do you even label something like that? Maxima paradoxalia, perhaps?
3. In Montenegro, the genocide in Srebrenica has often been exploited for political manipulation. One case stands out, Dritan.
In 2020, Dritan Abazović, at the height of his anti-Montenegrin and betrayal-driven politics, was hailed as a hero by promoters of Greater Serbian ideology and open genocide deniers, for helping to oust Montenegrin parties from power. Around that time, he revived a vile and dangerous conspiracy theory dating back to the Milošević era: that Milo Đukanović had sent fuel for Ratko Mladić’s tanks in Srebrenica in that horrific July of 1995.
Fortunately, the world, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, has Emir Suljagić, the brilliant director of the Srebrenica Memorial Center in Potočari. He quickly responded, stating the accusation was false. He had reviewed nearly all documents available in global archives related to the genocide and found no evidence implicating Đukanović.
Abazović’s reckless and offensive attempt to exploit the victims of Srebrenica for cheap political gain wasn’t just disgraceful, it revealed his transformation into a caricature of Milorad Dodik.
Let’s not forget: in 2012, a younger, more idealistic Dritan, then part of Positive Montenegro, refused to form a coalition in Nikšić with any party that denied the Srebrenica genocide. Fast forward eight years, and he was forming a national government with genocide deniers.
In 2021, he stood silently as his minister, Vladimir Leposavić, openly denied the genocide, despite being his formal superior. It didn’t trouble him in 2022 either, when he again formed a government with genocide deniers. Nor did it stop him from transferring ownership of all Montenegrin church property to the Serbian Orthodox Church, the spiritual backbone of Srebrenica genocide denial.
Worse yet, on July 11, 2022, standing in Potočari, he made an inhuman attempt to relativize the genocide by stating:
“The genocide wasn’t committed against Bosniaks, but against people. It wasn’t carried out by armies, but by politics”.
Any resemblance to Dodik-style rhetoric is entirely intentional.
4. Still, there are people worse than Dritan, and even more clueless ones. His former “21st-century partner.” A man with a master’s degree but no original thesis; a dishonorable character whose slogan was “honor, I swear”; a rhetorical failure but a doctrinal relativizer of the Srebrenica genocide, Aleksa Bečić, Deputy Prime Minister, who participated in the campaign to prevent Montenegro from ever becoming independent and who, on paper, leads the political party called the Democrats.
That very same Aleksa, yesterday, on the 30th anniversary of the genocide in Srebrenica, said the following, according to Antena M:
“Bečić, alongside a message that Srebrenica, like other places of suffering, must never be repeated, and that peace, unity, and goodwill among people must always prevail, also emphasized the issue of guilt for the crime committed. ‘Recalling the Resolution on the Genocide in Srebrenica adopted by the Parliament of Montenegro in 2021, which strongly condemned the genocide in Srebrenica, but also condemned any attempt to assign responsibility or guilt to the Serbian, Bosniak, Croatian, or any other nation for genocide, crimes against humanity, or other crimes, since responsibility can only be individual, and no nation can be labeled as genocidal or criminal, on this 30th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide, we once again express our reverence for the innocent victims…’”
First, only a relativizer is more repulsive than a genocide denier.
Second, no one has ever claimed that Serbs are a genocidal people.
Third, what are Bosniaks and Croats doing in a statement about the perpetrators of the genocide in Srebrenica? Ah, right, they’re included because Bečić quoted his party’s amendments to the Resolution, which are completely unnecessary, both in the Resolution itself and in this warped statement.
Fourth, this kind of approach equates victims and executioners. Worst of all, Bečić recycles the same message for Srebrenica year after year. Check his statements from 2021 onward, the man keeps repeating the same parts of the Resolution that were added by his party. Apparently, for Bečić and those like him, that’s the extent of respect that over 8,000 murdered people deserve.
Fifth, Aleksa Bečić would have been a hundred times more honest, and a better politician, if he had simply said he doesn’t recognize the genocide. This kind of half-hearted “recognition,” followed by the casual inclusion of “other places of suffering,” is nothing less than a blatant insult to the victims of Srebrenica.
Is there really no one in the authoritarian Democratic party, someone who is Bosniak and Muslim, who will speak up and tell these people to stop insulting the public’s intelligence?
5. What makes Bečić and the Democrats especially dangerous is that they made the 2021 Srebrenica genocide resolution conditional on another resolution, this one about the so-called “genocide in Velika,” a fabricated event portrayed as a crime by Muslims against Orthodox Serbs.
But the context of that horrific wartime atrocity is entirely different.
This cynical move was aimed at downplaying the true gravity of the Srebrenica genocide, where over 8,000 Bosniaks were systematically murdered to erase an entire population from that region.
It was an attempt to portray genocide as just another “tragic but common” wartime occurrence.
And that’s exactly why people like Bečić aren’t just deniers – they’re dangerous.
6. May it never happen again!
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