During the 3-1/2 year Bosnian war in the 1990s, Foca was one of the darkest stains on the map of atrocities. Serb Orthodox nationalists who set up a rape camp for Muslim women in the town’s sports hall, tortured Muslim men and destroyed its ancient mosques renamed it ”Srbinje,” which means ”the place of the Serbs.”

Now this semi-modern city, with its socialist-era high rises on the Drina River, is back under its old name, led by a dynamic Serb mayor who has a vision of knitting divided Bosnia and its 3.5 million people together again. Standing in the way, however, are the Serb nationalist leaders in Banja Luka, in northwest Bosnia, and the United States, Bosnia’s main protector since the war ended in 1995.

Zdravko Krsmanovic, 51, has reached out to Muslims, who once were a plurality in Foca, by establishing close ties to Gorazde, a mainly Muslim town just downstream that Serbs bombarded mercilessly but never conquered. Today, sports teams from the two towns compete, and there are constant exchanges and visits. With encouragement from Gorazde mayor Muhamed Ramovic, Krsmanovic is trying to win back the thousands of Bosniaks who were expelled in the Serbs’ ethnic cleansing.

”When I see a Gorazde man fall in love with a Foca woman, I see that all things are possible,” Krsmanovic told McClatchy.

Now in his second term, the Foca mayor wants the two cities to merge, erasing the demarcation between the Serb-dominated ”Republika Srpska” entity and the Bosniak-dominated Federation.. Krsmanovic also wants the state to grant new powers to the municipalities.

”Bosnia-Herzegovina is my own country . . . it has wonderful, resources, potential and people,” Krsmanovic said, but its real strength is at the municipality level. ”As Europe is a continent of regions, we should be a country of municipalities.”

Krsmanovic has thrown his hat in the ring for parliamentary elections in October and hopes he can lead the opposition parties into a coalition to oust Prime Minister Milorad Dodik.

Once a darling of the international community, Dodik has called with Russian encouragement for dissolving Bosnia-Herzegovina.. The U.S. seems to cower in the face of Dodik and the Serb nationalists, said Krsmanovic. The mayor, whom Vice President Joe Biden singled out during a visit to Sarajevo last May, said the U.S. hasn’t followed through on the expectations that Biden raised.

”The United States should take up its responsibility. Bosnia is like a baby (re)born at Dayton,” he said, referring to the peace accord that ended the war in 1995. ”You have no right to kill the baby. It should be allowed to grow strong..” The U.S. ”should make their attitude crystal clear — that they are on the side of those Bosnians who want to keep this country whole,” he said.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, he said, should realize that a successful Bosnia would be a message to the Islamic world ”that the U.S. is not against Islam.”

”If I say that as a Serb and get my votes here, what is Mrs. Clinton afraid of?”

A day before he met an American reporter, Krsmanovic opened an office in Laktasi, Prime Minister Dodik’s hometown, across the street from Dodik’s home.

”Dodik started his career there. I call it the seat of the dictator,” Krsmanovic said. ”I put up a flag right opposite his home, so that he’ll know when he wakes up that he is going to jail. ”

”We have a prison in Foca,” Krsmanovic said. ”I am preparing a big cell for top politicians, a VIP cell.”

Krsmanovic said he was proud of a newspaper headline that said he’d ”stuck a finger in Dodik’s eye” and accused Dodik of misappropriating public funds and fear mongering.

”If you show you are not afraid of someone, people will not be afraid,” he said. ”People are used to being afraid.”

Dodik has denounced Krsmanovic as a ”traitor” to the Serbs, tried and failed to get him ousted as mayor, but was able to engineer Krsmanovic’s ouster from the Serb Socialist party.

Krsmanovic responded by setting up a New Socialist party.

”I have courage . . . I have charisma . . . I’ve never lost an election.. I am not a classic politician. I believe it is possible to make spectacular changes in a short period of time.”

Does he fear for his life?

”If you kill one Krsmanovic, there will be another,” he responded. ”All dictators like Dodik, who rob the people, will wind up” disgraced and behind bars.

/ Roy Gutman

– Vi kan inte och kommer inte att acceptera en beskrivning av händelsen som ett folkmord, sade han i en intervju som den serbiska Belgradtidningen Vecernje Novosti publicerade på tisdagen.

Massakern, då den serbiska ockupationsmakten dödade 8 000 muslimska pojkar och män, är än så länge den enda händelse under kriget i Bosnien 1992-1995 som av internationella domstolar erkänts som folkmord.

Regeringen i den serbdominerade entiteten erkände 2004 omfattningen på massakern och bad de anhöriga om ursäkt. Men Dodik avfärdar nu ursäkten och säger att den pressats fram av omvärlden. I Serbien röstade parlamentet i mars i år för en resolution som fördömer Srebrenicamassakern. Ordet folkmord användes emellertid inte.

Serbiens president Boris Tadic sade inför mötet att det är kontraproduktivt för länderna, som båda söker medlemskap i EU, att uppehålla sig vid frågor från kriget 1992-95. De båda presidenterna skrev vid mötet under en deklaration där de åtar sig att lösa tvister angående gränsdragningar, egendomar och skulder och att mötas i Serbiens huvudstad Belgrad för att diskutera en gemensam strategi för att locka internationella investerare.

I mars antog det serbiska parlamentet med knapp majoritet en officiell ursäkt för massakern i Srebrenica där 8 000 muslimska män mördades och den serbiske presidenten Boris Tadic har nu sagt att han ska resa till ceremonin för 15-årsminnet av massakern i juli.

Presidenterna i de två forna Jugoslavienrepublikerna möttes i Istanbul där Turkiets president Abdullah Gül stod som värd. I sina strävanden att spela en allt viktigare regional politisk roll har Turkiet sökt medla mellan forna fiender på Balkan.

TT-Reuters

En handlingsplan för medlemskap är en process av politisk dialog och militära reformer i flera steg. Avsikten är ansökarlandet ska anpassa sig till Nato-standard och till ett eventuellt medlemskap. Bosnien ansökte om medlemskap i militäralliansen i oktober.

Enligt Nato-talesmannen James Appathurai ansåg ministrarna, som var samlade till möte i Estlands huvudstad Tallinn, att Bosnien sedan december hade gjort märkbara framsteg. De välkomnade Bosniens beslut att förstöra överskottsammunition och -vapen samt att bidra med soldater till Nato-uppdraget i Afghanistan. Afghanistan-styrkan var ett av de villkor Nato ställde på Bosnien för att säga ja till medlemskapsprocessen.

TT-Reuters

At Tadic’s initiative, the Serbian parliament last month passed a resolution condemning the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of 8,000 Bosnian Muslims but stopped short of a direct apology and did not call the killings genocide.

”By denial of genocide and ridiculing the victims of genocide, they are preparing for a second genocide. My message to the European Union is: don’t allow again that tears of humanity from Belgrade deceive you,” he said. Serbia had not changed at all, he contended, and ”what Belgrade is doing with Tadic is just deception”.

However, he said Belgrade must meet two conditions: a clear and unequivocal condemnation of genocide, apologising to the victims ”with no buts”; and a public promise to the world ”that they will not repeat genocide against anyone in the Balkans”.

The mufti, widely respected for promoting a moderate brand of Islam in Europe and for his commitment to interfaith dialogue with Christians and Jews, said he had visited Tadic in Belgrade to discuss launching a civil society dialogue on reconciliation. But he said Belgrade had only begun to move because it was politically isolated after Croatia agreed to make July 11, the date of the Srebrenica massacre, a day of remembrance, and fellow former Yugoslav republics Montenegro and Macedonia had followed suit. Without a European Parliament resolution last year overwhelmingly condemning the massacre as an act of genocide and naming the Bosnian Serb leaders as responsible, the Belgrade parliament would not have put it on the agenda, he argued.

Reuters

Under sin pågående resa i grannlandet besöker Josipovic på torsdagen byn Ahmici där bosnienkroatiska styrkor i april 1993 dödade 116 bosnienmuslimer, däribland många kvinnor och barn, och brände ner husen och de två moskéerna.
– En ny tid är här, som kräver en ny politik, sade Josipovic på onsdagen.

– I stället för gamla konflikter och konfrontationer så är Kroatien redo att ge helhjärtat stöd och hjälp till Bosnien på dess väg mot medlemskap i EU och Nato.

TT-Reuters

It might be thought that a country which spent much of the 1990s making war against its neighbours, and committing numerous crimes in the course of it including that of genocide, a country that has harboured many indicted and yet-to-be indicted war criminals including ones sought for genocide, would be the last country on earth to be so moved by the plight of soldiers belonging to an invading army which it did not legitimately command, and which was operating outside Serbia’s own borders, that it would be willing to give the lie to its own proclaimed commitment to improved regional relations, in order to bring the alleged perpetrators – who are not its own citizens – to justice.

So why is Serbia seeking extradition of the Bosnian wartime leader Ejup Ganic from an unaccountably pliant Britain? Why does the Serbian government feel impelled to override both ICTY, which has found no case against Ganic, and its recently signed treaty with Bosnia-Herzegovina which precluded any such actions on its part? Why is its government so ready – at the very moment it has been trying to polish up its image in preparation for being formally invited to begin the process of joining the European Union – to jeopardise its still fragile relations with its neighbours, all of whom at different times fell victim to its aggression? What is it that makes this Serbian government so willing to face the charge that it is – yet again – trying to throw this part of Europe, only now beginning to stabilize itself, into fresh turmoil, with unforeseeable consequences for European peace? Why is Belgrade so keen to get hold of man who teaches engineering to Bosnian and British university students, and plays no role in Bosnian national politics? In sum, why do Ejup Ganic and others responsible for Bosnia’s defence in 1991-5 remain such a threat to Serbia, fifteen years after the end of the war and ten years after the fall of Slobodan Miloševic who started it in the first place?

The simple answer is that Serbia is doing it out of fear. The nationalists who seized power in Serbia on the eve of the fall of Communism, and who remain in control of the Serbian state, have sought to build their case in the eyes of the Serbian population by erecting a bi-polar image of its national history, in which one pole stands for a saintly Serb nation living under a permanent threat of extinction, the other pole its numerous enemies including Serbia’s neighbours, faiths other than Orthodox Christianity, and the West in general. This image is now under mortal threat. For Serbia initiated genocidal wars at a time when the European continent was at peace, and then found that the crimes these entailed cannot easily be swept under the carpet. Ever since the ICTY and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found that Serb forces had committed genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Serbian government has been living in constant dread that this preferred national image would be tarnished for good if Serbia itself were to be found guilty by the ICTY of having committed genocide. As the national guru Dobrica Cosic has recently declared in connection with the pressure on Serbia to pass the European parliament’s resolution condemning the genocide in Srebrenica, Serbia should never accept the ‘lies about Serbs committing genocide in Bosnia’, because this would make the Serbs a ‘genocidal nation on a par with Nazi Germany’. (Pecat, 12 February 2010.)

..as Sonja Biserko of the Helsinki Committee in Serbia points out, several trials are currently taking place before the Hague Tribunal – against Radovan Karadžic, Momcilo Perišic, Jovan Stanišic and Franko Simatovic – include charges pertaining to genocide in Bosnia. Karadžic’s own charge for genocide has been extended beyond Srebrenica to include dozens of other municipalities across Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Belgrade has devised a complex strategy to fight the Tribunal, which involves hindering its work through lengthy delays (a tactic adopted by Slobodan Miloševic, Radovan Karadžic, Vojislav Šešelj), opting for an overwhelmingly political defence, intimidating witnesses, withholding documents (see its agreement with the Tribunal’s former prosecutor, Carla del Ponte, to prevent publication of sensitive documents testifying to Serbia’s direct involvement in the Bosnian war), etc. And from the very start of the Tribunal’s work Belgrade has relied on a policy of equalisation: on the claim that all parties to the war were equally guilty of starting it and equally criminal in its prosecution. Karadžic’s defence before the Tribunal contains all these elements, including also the claim that it was the Bosniaks who started the war, and that they even habitually killed other Bosniaks in order to throw the blame unjustly on the Serbs.

Thrown into disarray by the ICJ verdict in 2007, Belgrade has tried to establish the ‘all are equally guilty’ thesis by focussing on the alleged plight of the JNA in places like Tuzla during its withdrawal from Bosnia, when a number of troops were killed and wounded after coming under attack on 15 May 1992. A high-ranking local police officer, Ilija Jurišic, was arrested on Belgrade airport in May 2007, charged with having ordered the attack, and in 2009 sentenced to 12 years in prison – even though the B-H war-crimes court, which has jurisdiction in the case, had dismissed the case against him. Having met no dissent from the EU, the same recipe has now been applied to Ejup Ganic in connection with similar events on Dobrovoljacka Street in Sarajevo..

Belgrade’s concern with the suffering of JNA soldiers (rather than their civilian victims) relates only to Bosnia. This preoccupation with Bosnia reflects the fact that two international courts have ruled that soldiers under Belgrade’s influence and command have committed genocide there. The earlier arrest of Ilija Jurišic and now that of Ejup Ganic should be seen as an integral part of the effort to re-interpret the causes and nature of the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina in such a way that, by criminalising its resistance, Serbia’s aggression against it might appear justified and the crimes committed during it more intelligible, however unfortunate. And Bosnia is a country in which Serbia holds an important stake in the form of Republika Srpska. The already shaky legitimacy of this entity founded on heinous crimes committed against unarmed civilians would suffer a grave blow if Karadžic were to be found guilty of genocide and if Serbia’s own role in it were legally established. The current debate in Serbia over the adoption of a parliamentary resolution on genocide in Srebrenica testifies to a very real fear of the nationalist establishment that, in the words of its favourite historian Cedomir Antic, by having the Serbian parliament finally accept that what happened in Srebrenica was indeed genocide, Belgrade will accept also ‘collective responsibility on the part of Serbia and Republika Srpska’ for the crimes their armies committed in Bosnia-Herzegovina (Vreme, 4.2.2010).

As Biserko argues, Belgrade’s warrants serve a wider political purpose, a purpose that runs counter to regional and European interests. Western governments would do well, therefore, to halt Belgrade’s destructive policy. They should also put pressure on ICTY to release all protected documents, in order to present a true picture of what actually happened during the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Back in the 1990s, the West failed miserably in its basic duty to uphold collective security in Europe, when it chose not to halt Slobodan Miloševic’s murderous adventure. British complicity with Serbia in carving up Bosnia-Herzegovina is well attested. Ganic’s arrest shows London determined not to learn from past mistakes.

What lies behind the arrest of Ejup Ganic

Flera tiotal poliser från en särskild antiterrorstyrka omringade huset i huvudstaden Belgrads utkanter. Hela kvarteret spärrades av. Enligt en källa var syftet att komma åt Mladićs finansiella tillgångar och att hitta dokument som kunde avslöja var han gömmer sig.
- Nästan 80.000 euro (785.000 kronor) i kontanter har hittats hittills, säger källan med insyn i polisinsatsen till AFP.

Enligt serbiska medier var Mladićs son Darko hemma när polisen slog till.

Ratko Mladić åtalades 1995 av FN:s krigsförbrytartribunal för det forna Jugoslavien. Han är misstänkt bland annat för att ha beordrat belägringen av Sarajevo, som krävde omkring 10.000 människors liv, samt för folkmordet i Srebrenica 1995, då 8.000 muslimska pojkar och män mördades.

Enligt Der Spiegel disponerade Mladić fram till år 2006 sju lägenheter bara i Belgrad. Och så sent som 2002 höll den serbiska regeringen honom med 50 livvakter. En tidigare livvakt uppger att det aldrig fanns någon rädsla för att Mladić skulle gripas. Det man fruktade var ”huvudjägare” med intresse av att inkassera en av USA utfäst belöning på fem miljoner dollar.

Der Spiegel ger exempel på hur fritt Mladić kunnat röra sig:
När Mladić tröttnade på Belgrad, kunde han åka till Pricevic sydost om staden för att andas lantluft. Tre gånger ska Mladić ha fått behandling på militärsjukhus i Belgrad. Sjukhusdirektören Zoran Stanković, som beskrivs som nära vän till Mladić, blev försvarsminister 2005. Vojislav Koštunica var regeringschef till valet 2008. Under hans tid som premiärminister träffade militära rådgivare Mladić flera gånger.