Serbia's traditional ally refuses to pass motion referring to massacre as genocide
Russia has vetoed a UN Security Council resolution condemning the 1995 Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia as genocide.
The resolution, proposed by Britain days before the 20th anniversary of the atrocity, noted that "acceptance of the tragic events at Srebrenica as genocide is a prerequisite for reconciliation".
Four members of the council abstained, including China, while the remaining 10 voted in favor of the motion.
Serbian leaders had lobbied Russia, Serbia’s traditional ally, to vote against the resolution.
Smantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the UN, pointed out that two international courts had ruled the killing amounted to genocide.
In a speech after the vote, she said: “The refusal to acknowledge that genocide occurred is not only deeply hurtful to the victims and their families, who have already endured so much, but it is the obstacle to reconciliation.”
Power, who was a reporter in Bosnia when massacre occurred, recalled comments from Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik last month referring to the genocide as "the biggest sham of the 20th century".
She said: “We have heard such statements from Holocaust deniers and even, more recently, from Rwandan genocide deniers.”
In a statement, British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said the failure to adopt the resolution was “a snub to the families of the victims and the survivors of Srebrenica”.
Britain’s UN ambassador Peter Wilson warned that Russia “will have to justify its decision to the families of over 8,000 people murdered in the worst atrocity in Europe since the Second World War.”
He said the denial of genocide was the “final insult to Srebrenica victims.”
Meanwhile, Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic heralded Russia as a “true and loyal friend”.
In a statement, he added: “Today the Serbs were supposed to be punished because they did not agree to blackmail and ultimatums and because they resisted the pressures to introduce sanctions against Russia and refused to compromise their respect for truth and justice."
The president drew attention to atrocities committed by Bosnian Muslim forces who “cold-bloodedly executed thousands of Serb children, women and elderly people” during the 1992-95 conflict.
Munira Subasic, president of the Mothers of Srebrenica, called for Nikolic to accept the truth.
"They showed that they backed the crime instead of justice," she told Anadolu Agency. She also railed against Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic’s scheduled attendance at Saturday’s anniversary commemorations.
"If comes with good intentions and accepts the truth that genocide took place and they are responsible for it, he is welcome," she said.
The massacre in Srebrenica saw more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys murdered by Bosnian Serb paramilitaries while the town was supposedly under the protection of Dutch UN peacekeepers during the bloody conflict.
The troops failed to prevent Serb soldiers from seizing Srebrenica and killing around 2,000 on July 11. Around 6,000 more were slain in the surrounding forests over the following days.
Anadolu Agency