Survey: Weak support among Serbs for Srebrenica declaration

Belgrade- Only one out of three Serbs supports a recent legislative declaration condemning a wartime massacre in Srebrenica in which Bosnian Serb forces massacred the Muslim population, the daily Press reported Monday.

Quoting a survey by the Politikum agency, it said that 32.7 per cent of the population in Serbia supports the Srebrenica declaration, while 37.5 opposes it. Around 30 per cent were undecided.

The Serbian parliament in March narrowly passed the condemnation of the atrocity - in which 8,000 Muslim boys and men were rounded up and executed.

The declaration condemned the killings in July and August 1995 and apologized to the victims' relatives because Serbia did not do enough to stop them. However, it stopped short of condemning the deaths.

Bosnian Serb forces were backed by Belgrade and under the command of Ratko Mladic, who is believed to be hiding in Serbia despite being wanted for a genocide trial at the United Nations tribunal for former Yugoslavia.

In the West, the resolution was described as a sign that Serbia wants to part with its past. But Bosnian Muslims scoffed at it because it did not fully condemn the Srebrenica killings or take full responsibility.

An apparent side effect of the controversial declaration is a rise in support for Mladic, for whom an international arrest warrant is outstanding. In January, 30 per cent of Serbs supported his arrest; in April it was only 25.7 per cent, the Press reported.

Many Serbs believe Mladic is a hero who protected the nation in the bloody 1992-95 Bosnian war, despite his genocide indictment for Srebrenica and a deadly siege of Sarajevo.

He remains at large. His arrest is presently the largest single obstacle to Serbia's progress toward European Union membership.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/320531,survey-weak-support-among-serbs-for-srebrenica-declaration.html.