The West continues to view Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vučić as a key partner in the region despite his long history of denying that acts of genocide were committed throughout the Balkans, and that his ongoing actions threaten regional stability. It is imperative that western governments reconsider their relationship with Serbia’s authoritarian leader.

A recent resolution from the United Nations has exposed long-running tensions concerning genocide and the Bosnian War. While this document laid the blame with individual Serbs and Bosnian Serbs, Belgrade continues to view such language as an attack on the whole Serbian nation.

Debates over the events of the Bosnian War remain a contentious topic in modern Bosnia and Herzegovina. While competing narratives continue to divide society at an everyday level, the international community must take action to promote a shared future for the divided country.

The denial of the Srebrenica genocide is one of the biggest issues facing Bosnia and Herzegovina today. In this sense, the complete annihilation of a nation or an ethnic group requires the destruction of testimonies and memory as well. It is clear that without justice and paying tribute to the victims, peace cannot be achieved. And without peace, Bosnia and Herzegovina will eventually collapse.

In July 1995 in and around the town of Srebrenica the population of Bosnian Muslims was massacred by the military forces of the Bosnian Serbs under the command of General Ratko Mladić. Opinions on how to describe these mass killings differ between those who believe it was “only” a war crime and those who, in line with the verdict of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, recognise it as a genocide. Evidently, Srebrenica’s history did not end with the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement. In the post-war period it has been faced with a new challenge: the denial.