Bosnia and Herzegovina's Ambassador to the United Nations, Zlatko Lagumdzija, spoke to N1 about the final preparations for marking July 11 as the International Day of Remembrance of the Genocide in Srebrenica and the events concerning the UN Resolution on the Srebrenica genocide.
“What I get from official Belgrade circles is entirely expected. I must admit, I didn't expect I would hear some talks from our own people. Although, when you think about it, it's not so strange because you have some people functioning as useful idiots for Belgrade. In the latter case, it hurts the most when someone from your own people attacks you, even though you think you're on the same side, but I'm used to that after all these years in Bosnia and Herzegovina. I thought that this project would achieve complete unity when it comes to pro-BiH forces but it turned out otherwise,” Lagumdzija said.
Lagumdžija revealed that the commemoration of July 11 at the international level has already been planned for this year.
“I had several meetings today (Wednesday). On July 11, this year, we plan to mark the UN Remembrance Day, for the first time. It will be a confirmation to everyone whether the Resolution worked or not. The Remembrance Day will be marked this year. From the next year, the the UN Secretary-General must organize it every year, however, this year we took on that obligation because it was not planned in this year's UN budget,” he pointed out.
An ambassador apologised for not voting in favour of UN Resolution
Lagumdzija said that the plan is to build a monument on the occasion of the Remembrance Day of the genocide in Srebrenica, which will be located in front of the UN building. He also revealed that after the vote on the Resolution, he received several personal acknowledgements that some ambassadors were ordered to “join the Russians”.
“It was planned that the monument would be erected for the 30th anniversary of the genocide, but I expect that this year it will be made official and public by the Secretary-General where the monument will be located, what it will look like and how we will bring all this to the end. We expect this year to lay the foundation stone,” the BiH Ambassador to the UN said.
“Changing the name of Srebrenica is an anti-civilization act and shows how much they [Republika Srpska entity authorities] have lost their compass. They can change the name, but Srebrenica will remain Srebrenica”, he said about the announcements by the RS authorities about changing the name of the east Bosnian town.
“Every July 11th will be marked more and more around the world. The first marking [after the adoption of the UN Resolution] will show that the number of those who will mark the genocide anniversary is much higher than 87 and that many more people support the Resolution”, he added.
Lagumdžija said that a fellow ambassador apologized to him for not coming to the vote.
“Yesterday, I met a colleague who came to apologize for not coming to the vote. Of the 20 ambassadors who did not come to the vote, one told me that half an hour before the vote he received an order to join the Russians,” the Ambassador told N1.
Some countries didn't dare against Russia, others were paid
When asked why Azerbaijan voted against the Resolution, he said:
“Because they have very serious connections with [Serbian President Aleksandar] Vucic, [RS President Milorad] Dodik, [BiH Presidency member Zeljka] Cvijanovic. It's not enough that someone knows someone, there must be serious state interests. Cvijanovic was on an official visit to Azerbaijan,” he said and added:
“It was impossible to do much more in all countries. We had limited capacity. We don't have all state capacities at our disposal. This has come down to several people who can't cover as much as Serbia or China can cover with their diplomacy. You can't compare the capacities that [BiH Presidency Chair Denis] Becirovic has with his team, compared to Serbia”.
Did Serbia and China pay countries to vote against the Resolution?
“There were all sorts of things. These are all the countries that, if there had been a secret ballot, would have voted in favour of the Resolution. Several countries didn't dare go against Russia, several African countries. Vucic had several special emissaries who spent months wandering around some countries, they came to help [Serbia] and they had deep pockets and they walked all over the world. I had a small number of people at my disposal for lobbying, I had a lot of help from Becirovic, who was here at the UN three times a month and talked to many ambassadors. [BiH Presidency member] Komsic was with Becirovcć twice,” Lagumdzija noted.
“Let me be very clear so that there are no misunderstandings. I organized a large number of meetings, hundreds of meetings with ambassadors, and heads of missions, so the expenses we invested as a BiH mission are the total expenses I had for the representation at the UN as an Ambassador. That's roughly enough to take 20 ambassadors out to lunch.
Lagumdzija was then asked why the region learned about the Resolution from Vucic, to which he said:
“He was the first to speak publicly about the Resolution. I came here in July last year, before that I talked about this with Becirovic, who had certain activities with the Mothers of Srebrenica. The Resolution was being prepared for almost a year, but a lot was already done before that.”
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