Dear friends and colleagues,
In 1999, the pressure of the Western countries organized in the NATO pact resulted in the attack of that military bloc on the former Yugoslavia, which resulted in terrible human casualties, enormous material damage, as well as a permanent disruption of the relations between Serbs and Albanians within the Republic of Serbia. Obviously, the logic of NATO strategists was that it is all the better for them if the situation on the ground, in Serbia and Montenegro, is worse.
The organized military operation of bombing Federal Republic of Yugoslavia for 78 days was undertaken without any legal basis, and it was a joint military action of the strongest Western countries in the world and a form of organized violence against a single, small country that was ready to seek a peaceful, negotiated solution to its internal problems. Given that there was no United Nations decision to justify this attack by the NATO pact, and given that the basic principles of international law were violated, it must be clear to any objective observer of these events that this is a bare demonstration of force, and the introduction of a political precedent that will soon become a rule in international relations.
Everything that subsequently happened in many countries of the world (Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, etc.) only showed that this assessment is completely correct, and that the main culprits for this disruption of international relations are precisely the Western countries that consider themselves the bearers of democracy and legal order. If the principles of international law are violated in this way, it becomes completely uncertain who will be the next victim of such disturbed relations. Such a victim can easily become one of those countries that easily agree to trample on the principles of international law. The existence of legal norms is, without a doubt, the best protection against naked violence for every country, not only for Serbia.
In relation to the Republic of Serbia, new injustices have been carried out or prepared in recent months, based on disruptions of the elementary principles of both the legal system and the norms of human behavior. The admission of Kosovo and Metohija to the Council of Europe is a new example of violation of international legal norms because part of the territory of the Republic of Serbia is admitted to the Council of Europe, a part that is not a state, that does not have the basic conditions to become one, and that manifests forms of extremely problematic behavior based on the absence of democracy, on ethnic violence, and on the persecution of people who are not Albanians and will not agree to the process of assimilation. Today, in 2024, international legal norms are being violated again, and this is done in order to complete the work started in 1999, when the effort to conquer Kosovo and Metohija through the invasion of the ground forces failed.
Another attempt to destabilize Serbian people also comes from Western European countries, which are considered the bearers of democratic principles and jurudical culture, but which very easily betray those basic principles. It is about an attempt to pass a decision through the UN General Assembly that genocide was committed against the Muslim population in Srebrenica in 1995. This attempt has serious problems with elementary human logic and valid thinking, including the process of recognizing the meaning of certain words, legal terms and concepts. In Srebrenica in August 1995, a serious war crime or crime against humanity did indeed occur when members of the Army of Republika Srpska shot captured Bosniak soldiers, but it was by no means genocide. The term genocide implies several important aspects of this undoubtedly sociopathological phenomenon:
1. existence of obvious genocidal intent and decision to destroy an entire nation;
2. killing members of a nation so that the victims are not only male members of that nation, but also women, children, old people, i.e. all members of a population;
3. liquidation applies to all members of a nation in the entire area where they live, so it is impossible to have a genocide phenomenon whose scale is such that it affects only one city or municipality such as Srebrenica, while there is no such thing in a wider area.
The crime against humanity in Srebrenica in August 1995 had only soldiers as victims. There were no genocidal intentions in the Army of Republika Srpska on the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina, so the idea of genocide at the level of one municipality or city like Srebrenica would simply be impossible as a serious interpretation of these events. In addition, in the same municipality and city of Srebrenica, there were many Serb victims, including children and women, such as, for example, the massacre in the village of Kravica, so it is inadmissible and extremely inhumane to count only Bosniak victims, and to exclude Serb or Croat victims.
For all these reasons, it is impossible to use the term genocide to denote the type of crime committed in Srebrenica in 1995. In all of this there is an absolute lack of balance in reasoning, just as the demand that the concept of genocide must not be denied when talking about the crime in Srebrenica is also unsustainable. Given that the demands that describe the crime in Srebrenica with the term genocide are logically unsustainable, it must be concluded that there is a serious violation of elementary logic and knowledge of the concepts in question. That is why it is impossible to maintain the thesis that genocide was committed in Srebrenica in 1995, and the denial of that alleged genocide must even be stated as a valid logical conclusion of elementary human intelligence. Insisting on the proposed resolution of the UN General Assembly would only multiply and intensify the basic problem, so again the principle is at work that it is all the better for the creator of crisis hotspots if the situation on the ground, in Serbia, is worse.
Forgive me for expressing in such detail my great concern for everything that is happening in the European Union, and on European soil in general. When international legal norms are not respected, when elementary logic and the meaning of terms are not respected, then this is an indication of great calamities that can easily follow. It may seem to someone that only Serbs could be the victims of such mental operations, and that everyone else would be spared if they were calm and quiet, and even agreed with the violent actions. Unfortunately, as in previous cases, once violated norms become the source of many new problems in many, very different places around the world. I sincerely hope that Europe and the European way of thinking in the future will not rest on such a serious, elementary violation of the rules of logic. If this is not corrected, it will be a serious blow to the very foundations of our common European destiny. Religious people could easily state that all of this goes directly against God himself, and that only evil and hellish consequences must necessarily follow from such events. Those who are not religious can remain with their observations about the role of principles in the life of individual people, and especially in the life of human communities: a world without principles is not a valid world!
If these efforts are not stopped today, we are threatened with very serious and painful consequences on the common European space. Today, injustices are organized against Serbs, and tomorrow they will be done to some other people who will be determined to become victims of the general order. There is no way out of such games, once they start: only the roles of the victims and the perpetrators will change. We need to talk about making such games just stop!
With respect,
Prof. Dr. Dragan Stanić,
President of Matica Srpska
