A Serbian human rights activist warned on Wednesday that Serbia was turning its head away from the Srebrenica genocide.

Nemanja Stjepanovic of the Belgrade-based Humanitarian Law Fund told N1 that politicians can’t just go to the memorial centre in Potocari once but have to take certain steps as well.  

He recalled that Serbian Presidents Boris Tadic and Aleksandar Vucic did go to Potocari for commemorations which he believes is significant but has to be accompanied by other steps.  

The word genocide is what people in Serbia are persistently running from and hiding from the truth, he said. “We keep trying to lessen the extent of that crime, as well as the responsibility of the leadership of Serbia and of Serbia,” he said.  

“We know everything about it and we are turning our heads away,” he said, warning of claims that there was no great crime committed in Srebrenica and that the leaders of the Republika Srpska and General Ratko Mladic and Serbia were not responsible.  

Stjepanovic recalled a statement by Serbian Defence Minister Aleksandar Vulin who said that no one would call the Serbs a genocidal people at Srebrenica commemorations. “That makes no sense, no one is calling the Serbs a genocidal nation but his statement shows that there is no readiness among the political leaders to face responsibility for the genocide, abbeting it, paying Ratko Mladic and other officers who perpetrated the Srebrenica genocide and are now retired and getting their pensions from us,” he said.