Serbia invests billions of dollars in military buildup, surpassing even Croatia, a NATO member. The ‘Serbian world’ creation is a long-standing goal of the Serbian government being fully supported by the Serbian Orthodox Church. As of now propaganda as the tool to change the truth is still one of Serbia’s strongest weapons, backed by the SOC and its ally Russia.
Misinformation offensives take place mainly in Russia’s allies, such as Serbia and Republika Srpska in BaH. Attempts to cover up the Srebrenica genocide caused death of more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslims between the ages of 12 and 77, and to turn the occupier into a victim, are being made through Russian state-controlled media. Another strategy to change the history in the Balkans is conferences that issue voluminous reports presenting the Serbian people as war victims caused by Serbia itself.
‘Serbian victims in the civil war in Sarajevo (1991-1995) and victims of peoples in the Srebrenica region (1991-1995)’ conference was recently organized for the second time at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MGIMO). The conference organized by the Department of Comparative Political Science, the International Institute for the Development of Scientific Cooperation with the support of the Balkan Club and the Serbian community of MGIMO, the Republican Center for the Study of War, War Crimes and Search for Missing Persons in Banja Luka and the Russian House in Belgrade, aims to distort the truth on the genocide in Srebrenica.
The conference announcement says about Islamic radicalism in BaH and the demonization of Serbs by the media. According to the announcement, ‘Scientific research’ started two years ago. While talking about a possible partition of Republika Srpska in BaH, Russian propaganda has been put entirely at the service of Serbs, trying to portray the criminal as a victim.
A similar conference, ‘25 Years of fighting for truth’, ostensibly to shed light on history and truth, was hosted by Gorchakov Foundation on September 14,2021. During the panel discussion ‘Findings of the commissions of Independent International: Serbian victims of the civil war in Sarajevo 1991-1995 and victims of all nations in the Srebrenica region 1991-1995’, the experts concluded that the perpetrators of this horrible crime should not be searched for the Serbian side. The genocide against the Bosnian population is not mentioned anywhere, while the participants considered it necessary to publish findings from the conference as much as possible, presenting the Serb side as victims, and the crimes committed by Serbs are considered alleged, regardless that in 2017 the International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled that the Srebrenica massacre constituted genocide.
Such rhetoric that denies genocide in Srebrenica and tries to provoke a new conflict has been often heard from the member of the Serbian presidency in BaH, Milorad Dodik. Dodik has recently gone even further stating that “if necessary, we will also defend our forces (RS). If they come to say that NATO will intervene, we will seek the help of our friends who told us clearly and loudly that they never leave their friends in the sludge’, Dodik said in a interview for RS Television, referring to Russia and Serbia.
Threatening rhetoric against NATO has recently been used by Vucic, in case of Kosovo Special Forces intervention to implement the measure of reciprocity at the border crossings with Serbia. Vucic deployed heavy military equipment such military airplanes and helicopters on alert, near Kosovo border, calling on NATO to intervene within 24 hours, otherwise the Serbian army would intervene.
The conference organized by the International Institute for the Development of Scientific Cooperation together with the Gorchakov Foundation with the support of the Council on Russian International Relations, is an attempt to rewrite the history of Balkans. In March 2021, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova issued a disinformation statement on Kosovo, ‘Acting under the cover of NATO aggression, militants from the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army are committing horrific crimes, including the abduction of Serbs, their organs and to which they were then removed and sold’. With the aim to misinform the public opinion such misinformation statements have been regularly used against WB countries that are not EU or NATO-members yet.
The Serb-Russian campaign to change the history in the Balkans has not gone without consequences for Kosovo. It is known that the report of Swiss politician Dick Marty has been initiated in the UN Security Council by Konstantin Kosachev and Mikhail Margelov, Russian MEPs together with Milos Aligrudic, MEPs from Serbia, Yevhen Marmazov from the Ukrainian communist party (banned) and MEPs. The initiative to establish the Special Court for Kosovo was based on this report, the fourth attempt to change the history of Kosovo by judging the crimes alleged by the Kosovo Liberation Army.
Serbia continues making attempts to rewrite history by demanding that Kosovo should open non-existent archives of the KLA, in exchange to return mortal remains of victims killed by Serbian military during the Kosovo war. The mortal remains were transported to Serbia during the war, another unsuccessful attempt to hide crimes committed by Serbian army in Kosovo.
Read also: Can Kosovo sue Serbia for genocide?
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