In Bratunac, a commemoration was held for 3,267 Serbs from central Podrinje and Birač who died between 1992 and 1995. And what gave this year's event its weight was an unexpected presence - Mark Burns, President Trump's adviser on spiritual matters, who came to pay his respects.

What he said is rarely heard from someone close to Washington. „We must never ignore or justify the mass killings carried out against Bosniaks and others during the war,“ Burns said. „But at the same time, we must not ignore, minimise or forget the innocent Serbian lives that were also lost.“ A symmetry that the West's official narratives usually avoid.

Burns was careful to stress that he had come as a religious representative, not as a representative of the American government. He even mentioned that it pained him to miss the 250th anniversary of American independence in order to attend a commemoration in Bosnia. The distinction matters - one pastor's personal message is not the official position of a state, and it should not be read as such.

And here is our Balkan caution. In these lands every victim grows into a political tool, and every commemoration carries the risk of becoming a stage for messages that have nothing to do with the dead. Burns spoke of interfaith dialogue, of truth and of reconciliation - fine words we have heard for decades, while the wounds stay open. The question is not whether every innocent victim deserves to be remembered - of course they do. The question is why memory in the Balkans so rarely leads to reconciliation, and so often to a new division.