MILORAD DODIK DENIES SREBRENICA GENOCIDE, AGAIN

Bosnian Serbs have long downplayed the Srebrenica massacre, often publicly denying it. Here is what the Bosnian Serb Prime Minister, Milorad Dodik, said in his latest interview:

PHOTO: Prime Minister of Bosnian Serb entity, Republika Srpska, in Bosnia-Herzegovina is one of the most outspoken Srebrenica genocide deniers in the Balkans.

"Bosnian Serbs will never accept that the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of some 8,000 Muslims was genocide," Bosnian Serb Prime Minister Milorad Dodik told a Belgrade daily 'Vecernje Novosti' in an interview published on Tuesday. "We cannot and will never accept qualifying that event as a genocide," Dodik said.

“Unfortunately, from what is written in the Serbian parliament’s declaration, it can be interpreted (as genocide). On the other hand, we do not agree with Serbia isolating one event in Srebrenica. There is no reason for it to be taken out of the context of all of the events of the war. Should the coming generations in this region only mark one event as the scene of a crime - Srebrenica? That cannot be, and no one, not even Serbia, can convince us otherwise,” Dodik said.

The Srebrenica massacre has been ruled as genocide by two international courts -- the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia at the Hague (ICTY).

In a 2nd "Report About Case Srebrenica" (2004), the Republika Srpska government acknowledged the scale of the killing and expressed its regret to the relatives of Bosniaks killed in Srebrenica. Dodik dismissed the 2004 report in his 'Vecernje Novosti' interview, saying it was adopted "under pressure" from the international community's powerful high representative to Bosnia, and that it contained "inexact numbers".

It lists "7,000 victims and not 3,500," which Dodik described as a more likely number of dead. "We have information that 500 people listed among the victims are alive and that over 250 people buried in the Potocari memorial (near Srebrenica) were not killed in Srebrenica," Dodik told the newspaper misquoting Mirsad Tokaca, director of the Research and Documentation Centre in Sarajevo.

Facts: 500 Srebrenica victims NOT alive

On 21 April 2010, the Research and Documentation Centre in Sarajevo (IDC) denied the latest allegations in the Serbian media related to the statement of Mirsad Tokaca on the number of victims that perished in the 1995 Srebrenica Genocide:

"We emphasize that the statement about 'the 500 missing persons who were found alive' is taken out of context and presented to the public in a way that creates the impression that the list of those killed or missing in Srebrenica includes people who are still alive. This allegation was first published by SRNA [ultranationalist Serbian news agency], and then the same information appeared in other media located mainly in the Republic of Srpska [Serb entity in Bosnia]... We hope that the public will realize that this was a classic media abuse [manipulation]."

Facts: DNA evidence supports 8,100 killed

As of 26 March 2010, the number of DNA-identified Srebrenica genocide victims has increased from 6,186 to 6,414, according to the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP):

"Of the 13,000 persons DNA identified in the context of BiH, 6,414 were DNA identifications of persons missing from the 1995 fall of Srebrenica. To make these DNA-based identifications, ICMP has collected almost 87,931 blood samples from relatives of the victims, which represent almost 28,964 missing individuals. ICMP has also received 43,729 bone samples from mortal remains of persons recovered from mass graves in the region."

The ICMP DNA analysis supports the figure of 8,100 Srebrenica genocide victims killed in July 1995:

"The overall high matching rate between DNA extracted from these bone and blood samples leads ICMP to support an estimate of close to 8,100 individuals missing from the fall of Srebrenica."

Facts: Only 50 Burial Exceptions

According to the latest press release from the Office of the High Representative (OHR) - the international authority monitoring the implementation of the Dayton Peace Agreement - there were only 50 burial exceptions approved by the Srebrenica Genocide Memorial in Potocari, not 250 as Milorad Dodik alleges:

"Although there have always been recidivist extremists who would try to deny genocide, nothing can change the facts of what happened in Srebrenica in July 1995... By claiming that the number of victims was inflated by burying family members at the Srebrenica-Potocari is propagating disinformation, as the facts clearly indicate otherwise. The board of the Memorial made some 50 exceptions to the rule that only genocide victims are buried in Potocari, citing compelling humanitarian reasons such as allowing children and parents to be buried with each other."