Activists of the Citizens' Association "Eastern Alternative of Republika Srpska" put up a banner with a birthday message to the President of Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik and convicted war criminal Ratko Mladic, the former commander of the Republika Srpska Army, at the main intersection in Bratunac, a town near Srebrenica where the 1995 genocide took place.

In addition to photos of Dodik and Mladic, the banner reads “Happy birthday, live long and be healthy!”

The head of the “Eastern Alternative” Vojin Pavlovic told the Srna news agency that they put up the banner to meet the birthdays of Dodik and Mladic, which they both celebrate on March 12, in order to wish them happiness and health.

Čestitka zločincu u Bratuncu. pic.twitter.com/y9jaXhT6Jy

— Самра Халиловић ⚜ (@halilovic_sa) March 10, 2023

“It’s our sense of debt and respect and attitude towards these leaders and their merits that we express publicly, in a democratic way,” Pavlovic pointed out.

The chief imam of the Bratunac Muslim congregation, Elvir Hodzic, also spoke about the incident.

“There is a group of people, gathered around an Eastern Alternative Association, which tries in every possible way to draw attention to what they are doing. And the easiest way to disrupt inter-ethnic relations is by revitalizing the committed and judged genocide against Bosniaks in the UN-protected zone. They’re closely monitoring what the leader tells them and accordingly they measure their scope in denying the crime of genocide,” the imam said. “Given that the so-called international community isn’t reacting at all to the statements of the President of this entity, who goes further and further every time, we, the returnees, don’t expect any [legal] prosecution, neither regarding the statements of the ‘great leader’ [Milorad Dodik] nor regarding the occasional messages from the crime scene by this informal-formal group of people. Despite, nowadays, having the law against the denial of genocide, despite knowing who the perpetrators of this act are, if we give them a lot of media attention, I believe that they will have succeeded in their intentions,” said imam Hodzic said.