Responding to criticism he is facing following his request to the parliament of Bosnia’s Republika Srpska (RS) entity to annul honours it awarded to convicted war criminals, Bosnia’s international administrator said that it was not him who “imposed collective responsibility” for war crimes on Serbs, but that the RS National Assembly did it.
Bosnia’s High Representative who is tasked with overseeing the civilian implementation of the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement, Valentin Inzko, sent a letter with the request to the parliament of the Serb-majority semi-autonomous RS entity on Wednesday.
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It said that in 2016, the organizing committee which was established to mark the 25th anniversary of the existence and work of the RS National Assembly awarded “special charters and recognitions to numerous institutions, organizations and individuals.”
“Among those who received them were all former speakers of the National Assembly and members of the First Presidency of the RS, including Radovan Karadzic, Momcilo Krajisnik and Biljana Plavsic, whose actions shocked the world during the armed conflict [in Bosnia] and caused unimaginable human suffering. As you know, Karadzic, Krajisnik and Plavsic were convicted of war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia,” reads Inzko’s letter.
The Austrian diplomat stressed that “the glorification of war criminals, including glorification in the form in which we witnessed on October 24, 2016, directly hurts and provokes those who suffered the consequences of the war and damages the memory of the victims” and that it “destabilizes the region and threatens the prospects for reconciliation in BiH.”
He urged the RS Assembly to “show political maturity, moral responsibility and moderation towards the future, by revoking the charters with decorations awarded to convicted war criminals Karadzic, Krajisnik and Plavsic.”
“I am giving you and the RS National Assembly a period of three months, until the end of April 2021 [to do so],” Inzko stated in a letter addressed to RS National Assembly Speaker, Nedjeljko Cubrilovic.
The letter was widely condemned by Bosnian Serb politician in the RS, who said Inzko’s request will not be fulfilled.
Among them was RS Assembly MP from the ruling Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD), Snjezana Novakovic Bursac, who argued that the High Representative “wrote one of perhaps the gravest qualifications after the war, where he qualified the entire Serb people as responsible for events in the past war.”
Inzko responded to the allegations in an interview he gave Deutsche Welle.
“It was not me, but on October 24, 2016, the National Assembly of the Republika Srpska imposed a heavy burden of guilt on the Serb people, when it decorated three people convicted of war crimes on behalf of the Serb people,” he said.
“Out of respect for the victims and their dignity, but also to relieve the Serbs of that burden, I sent a letter to the President of the RS Assembly to take that step,” he explained, stressing that the discussion should focus on condemning the glorification of convicted war criminals.
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