Trio Seeks OHR Protection for Srebrenica Memorial Center

Three lawmakers from the Trio bloc in the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Denis Zvizdic, deputy speaker of the House of Representatives, Sasa Magazinovic and Predrag Kojovic, sent an initiative on August 7 to the Steering Board of the Peace Implementation Council (PIC) and the Office of the High Representative (OHR), calling for an international process that would give the Srebrenica Memorial Center in Potocari a special legal and administrative status. The choice of address was deliberate: the request went not to domestic institutions but to international ones, in the same week that entity level prosecutors from Bijeljina and Zvornik are questioning people who worked at the institution. That move shifts the dispute over Potocari from the local level to the level where Bosnia’s Dayton framework itself gets decided, a matter that concerns Belgrade and the wider region as well.

What the initiative to the OHR actually asks for

The sponsors argue in the text of the initiative that the existing institutional framework does not provide sufficient guarantees for the independence and unhindered work of an institution that preserves judicially established facts about the genocide and the dignity of more than eight thousand people killed. The proposed model, they stress, would not interfere with the constitutional order of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but should ensure that the status of the memorial complex no longer depends on day to day political relations.

Specifically, the initiative seeks:

• permanent autonomy for the Memorial Center’s memorial, research and educational mission
• security guarantees for staff, researchers, witnesses, survivors and visitors
• international mechanisms to protect the complex in Potocari itself
• long term preservation of the archive, evidence and cultural and historical heritage

The timeline behind the request

The trigger is an action that has been running since late July. On July 30, the Memorial Center presented its annual Report on Genocide Denial. The very next day, July 31, a summons to the Srebrenica Police Station, part of the Zvornik Police Administration, went out to 26 current and former associates of the institution. By August 7 that number had risen to 28.

Memorial Center director Emir Suljagic said the scale and timing of the action rule out anything routine.

“Simultaneously bringing in and questioning more than half of the people from Srebrenica who at various times were engaged in the Memorial Center’s work cannot be treated as routine procedure.”

Suljagic added that the consequences fall on more than just staff: “Human rights defenders, researchers, returnees, witnesses and members of the Bosniak community in Srebrenica who through their work help preserve the culture of remembrance are also under pressure.” He announced that the institution would use every legal avenue available to protect its employees and associates.

Why the case sits with the Bijeljina prosecution

The District Public Prosecutor’s Office in Bijeljina has opened a pre investigative case, filed under the KTA designation, into the Memorial Center’s operations during 2022, under Article 264 of the Criminal Code of Republika Srpska, which covers tax and contribution evasion. The prosecution’s office said that “within the case, under the supervision of the prosecutor in charge, measures and actions are being taken to verify the information submitted,” that no order to open a formal investigation has yet been issued, and that everyone summoned is being questioned solely as a witness. A final decision will follow once the documentation has been gathered.

That is also where the case’s international dimension comes from. Suljagic said the Memorial Center operates through the state treasury of Bosnia and Herzegovina, while the case into its finances is being handled by an entity level prosecution under an entity level criminal code. That clash of jurisdictions is precisely what the Trio’s initiative is trying to bypass.

The response from Brussels and the OSCE mission

The OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina and the European Union Delegation to Bosnia and Herzegovina issued a joint statement on August 3.

“The OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina and the European Union in Bosnia and Herzegovina are closely following developments regarding the questioning of individuals currently or previously professionally engaged by the Srebrenica Memorial Center.”

The two bodies called on the judicial authorities to inform the public in a timely and accurate manner, citing the Communication Strategy of the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council of Bosnia and Herzegovina for the 2026 to 2029 period.

Earlier, on July 31, associations of genocide victims had requested an urgent review of the proceedings from the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council, from the president and chief prosecutor of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals, and from the High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Their statement said that “carrying out this action raises serious concern over possible institutional pressure.” The associations also pointed to UN General Assembly Resolution A/RES/78/282, adopted on May 23, 2024, which designated July 11 as the International Day of Reflection and Commemoration of the 1995 Genocide in Srebrenica.

A call to former employees

The same day the initiative was sent, the Memorial Center issued a call to current and former employees and associates to get in touch if they receive a summons from the Srebrenica Police Station. The institution is offering to arrange legal representation and other forms of legal assistance, and is asking people to reach out without delay so support can be coordinated throughout the proceedings.

Two clocks are now running side by side, and neither has a fixed deadline. The prosecutor in Bijeljina will decide only once the full documentation has been gathered, while the PIC Steering Board will take up the Trio’s initiative at a session that has not yet been scheduled.