Gudzic on the Eve of the Srebrenica Anniversary: The Balkans is Still a Powder Keg

Historian from Gracanica, Aleksandar Gudzic, believes that after the adoption of the Srebrenica resolution at the UN, the commemoration of this event in Potocari on July 11 will be more extreme than in previous years, with possible calls for the abolition of the Republic of Srpska, as a result of the fact that the Balkans is still a “powder keg”.

"The commemoration of the anniversary of the crime in Srebrenica will probably be more extreme than in previous years. We will likely hear demands and proposals from Bosniak politicians to abolish the Republic of Srpska, claiming it is a genocidal creation. However, the ideologists of Bosniak nationalism, as well as representatives of the international community, the western part of it, forget one fact: the Serbs did not get their state from the international community or the great powers, the Serbs fought for that state, and no one can take it away from them. Any change in the structure and balance of power in Bosnia and Herzegovina can lead to conflicts and wars and reignite this area, which I believe is in no one's interest. And I hope that will not happen," Gudzic says.

According to him, the key problem is that the Western Balkans is still a powder keg.

"The Western Balkans region, this post-Yugoslav space, is a place where nothing has been resolved, where the wars from the Yugoslav legacy did not answer all the questions, did not satisfy all the warring sides. This is a powder keg, and at any moment, this area can be ignited by representatives of the international community and great powers, as well as local political elites. This is a powder keg," Gudzic emphasizes.

He assesses that one of the consequences of adopting the Srebrenica Resolution will be the punishment of those who deny it, and that it is a return to the time of communism and the "delict of opinion" when people were arrested for disagreeing with the then system.

He points out that a similar document was adopted by the Government of Kosovo.

"We are returning to the time we thought had passed, only now it is not called verbal delict but genocide denial. We will find ourselves in a situation where we cannot discuss what happened in the 1990s and the wars for the Yugoslav legacy in a scientific and valid way. The Kosovo Albanians, political elites, have adopted something similar, a law on the inviolability of the virtues of the KLA, where anyone who denies the KLA struggle or talks about KLA crimes can face consequences, be arrested, or pay a fine," Gudzic says.