The truth about the crimes committed in Bosnia during the war can not be denied and recent statements by Serbia’s Defence Minister, Aleksandar Vulin, about Sarajevo only show his hatred toward the Bosnian capital, the main Bosniak Party in the country said in Thursday statement.
Vulin commented on a decision by Canton Sarajevo to declare Nobel Prize winner Peter Handke, a vocal supporter of late Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic, persona non grata. Handke has been accused of, among other things, denying that a genocide took place in Srebrenica in 1995.
“Handke will not lose anything by not getting a chance to see what a Jamahiriya (a term used as an insult in the region to describe an Islamic society) looks like in the Balkans, but Sarajevo will lose out on a lot because it will not meet a courageous and wise man,” Vulin said on Wednesday.
“The statements by Serbia’s Defence Minister Aleksandar Vulin on Sarajevo are an expression of his powerlessness,” Bosnia’s Party for Democratic Action (SDA) said its statement the next day, adding that the facts established by international courts – in this case, the war crimes committed in Bosnia during the war – can not be denied.
“Vulin, who was a servant to Slobodan Milosevic and Mira Markovic, obviously regrets that the aggressors did not manage to conquer Sarajevo. Karadzic’s and Mladic’s army has, with support from Serbia, committed systematic terror against Sarajevo’s citizens, killing children and civilians for years,” the party said.
“Vulin’s wish for terror to be committed again against this city is obviously hiding behind his hatred toward Sarajevo, but he must know he will never have the chance for that again. They will never catch Bosnia and Herzegovina and Sarajevo unprepared again,” the SDA statement concluded.