Nationalists to Show Film Praising Serb Forces on Srebrenica Anniversary

Nationalist organisation Eastern Alternative said it will screen a film about the "liberation of Srebrenica" by Bosnian Serb forces in July 1995, a documentary including a speech by war criminal Ratko Mladic, in Srebrenica on July 11, the same day as the 27th anniversary of the genocide of Bosniaks will be commemorated nearby.

Eastern Alternative said that Mladic "played a historical role in these events" - the takeover of the UN-protected enclave of Srebrenica by Bosnian Serb forces, which was followed by the mass killings of some 8,000 Bosniak man and boys.

The screening of the hour-long film will take place at the Holy Despot Stefan Lazarevic Serbian Cultural Centre at the local Orthodox parish house in Srebrenica. Just a few kilometres away at the Srebrenica Memorial Centre, the 27th anniversary of the massacres, which were classified as genocide by international courts, will be commemorated.

Vojin Pavlovic, the president of Eastern Alternative, told BIRN that the film will show the testimonies of soldiers and generals of the Bosnian Serb Army who took part in what he described as the liberation of Serb villages in the area in 1995.

Glorification of war criminals was banned under amendments to the criminal code imposed last year by Bosnia's top international official, the High Representative. But Pavlovic said he believes there will be no glorification of the killings of Bosniaks or of Mladic, who was sentenced to life in prison by the UN court in The Hague last year for the Srebrenica genocide and other wartime crimes.

"No one glorifies the crime, but we are talking about the crime against Serbs committed by the Bosnian Army from the zone protected by the international community, where they killed Serbs," says Pavlovic.

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