UN declares 11 July Srebrenica massacre remembrance day

Even in Serbia, however, some wonder why their government had been so strongly opposed to the resolution. After all, the proposal explicitly stated that only individuals had been convicted of genocide, and that guilt “cannot be attributed to any ethnic, religious or other group or community as a whole”.

In 2007, the International Court of Justice ruled that genocide was committed at Srebrenica, but found that Serbia was not directly responsible or complicit. Judges did, however, rule that Serbia had failed to prevent the massacre. Three years later, Serbia’s National Assembly passed a resolution condemning the massacre and apologising that more had not been done to prevent it.

In 2015, Mr Vucic – at that point prime minister – paid his respects in Srebrenica on the 20th anniversary of the massacre. Some protesters threw bottles and stones at him, but he promised he would “continue with [his] policy of reconciliation”.

Serbia – and its president – have shown consistency in some ways. Mr Vucic has called the massacre “a horrible crime”. Neither he nor his country have ever conceded that it was genocide – but nor have they contested the genocide convictions of Bosnian-Serb leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic at The Hague.

The president of Bosnia’s majority-Serb Republika Srpska region, Milorad Dodik, is a different matter. He has repeatedly denied that genocide took place at Srebrenica, even though Bosnia has a law criminalising genocide denial. Other Serb nationalists have been delighted to take the same approach – and even glorify Mladic as a Serb hero.

Mr Dodik’s offensive antics may have prompted the UN resolution, as a way of reasserting that the massacre was indeed genocide – and that the anguish of the victims’ families should not be used for ethno-nationalist grandstanding.

The Republika Srpska president tried anyway. He threatened “the end of Bosnia and Herzegovina” if the resolution passed, with the “peaceful separation” of Republika Srpska. Those familiar with Mr Dodik’s regular secessionist outbursts rolled their eyes.

Following the vote, the Bosnian-Serb leader claimed victory. It was “not even an absolute majority,” he said. “Their plan to accuse the Serbs of being a genocidal nation failed”.

There never had been any such plan. But for politicians relying on nationalist support, pretending there had been was a convenient fiction.