LOCAL PRESS

 

Naser Oric in prison, Tomislav Nikolic in Sarajevo (Politika)

Even though Tomislav Nikolic said some twenty days ago that he would not go to Potocare on 11 July, the first official visit of the Serbian President to Sarajevo will undoubtedly be in the sign of the 20 years since the crime in Srebrenica. The announcement of two resolutions – in the UN Security Council and the European Parliament – and the arrest of the war commander Naser Oric have created an atmosphere that is not at all suitable for further relaxation of relations between Serbia and B&H. What should President Nikolic expect in Sarajevo on 16 June, when he will talk with the members of the B&H Presidency Bakir Izetbegovic, Dragan Covic and Malden Ivanic? Though long prepared, the circumstances in which Nikolic’s visit will occur have changed over the past days – after the Serbian warrant, Naser Oric, former commander of the Muslim army in Srebrenica, was arrested in Bern. This resulted in the change of the atmosphere in Sarajevo, where there will be a huge rally of support to the war commander of Srebrenica. The Bosniaks see Oric’s arrest as an impermissible provocation, while the organizers of the protest announced they will demand the B&H authorities to sever diplomatic relations with Serbia and to withdraw the ambassador from Belgrade. The fact that Nikolic firmly and unambiguously announced some twenty days ago that he was not going to Potocare on 11 July for the commemoration on the occasion of two decades since the Srebrenica massacre and the fact that he offered the member of the B&H Presidency Bakir Izetbegovic to tour together Serb and Bosniak scaffolds is seen in Sarajevo as an attempt at relativizing victims. They do not agree to compare the crimes against the Serb population in the vicinity of sieged Srebrenica and the massacre in Srebrenica, which they consider to be genocide. While the Serbs see Naser Oric as a symbol of crimes against the Serbs, for the Bosniaks he is a symbol of resistance in the sieged town and someone who was declared innocent by the Hague Tribunal. The public in Sarajevo is aware of the fact that Belgrade opines that crimes of the Serb forces against the Bosniaks and Croats are severely punished in The Hague, but that crimes against the Serbs remain unpunished. The Serbian President has given similar statements in several interviews. However, Sarajevo greatly approved Nikolic’s interview for TV B&H in April 2013 when he said that the Serbs in the Republika Srpska are Bosnians for him. Even though this statement was disliked by the people in the RS and few in Serbia liked it, insiders assess that he had thus earned points with the international community that concluded that he provided evidence that he had changed since the times when he was Vojislav Seselj’s deputy. Apart from having refused to attend the marking of 20 years since the crime in Srebrenica, President Nikolic also refused in June last year the invitation by the B&H officials to visit Sarajevo for the marking of the beginning of World War I, with the explanation that he cannot go where someone will accuse his nation. This time Tomislav Nikolic is going to Sarajevo in a rather unstable atmosphere that concerns Serbian-B&H relations in one way or another.

 

Serbian Army members take off for MINUSCA (Tanjug)

The send-off ceremony of the contingent of 68 members of the Serbian army for the UN peacekeeping mission in the Central-African Republic (MINUSCA) was organized today at the Belgrade barracks Banjica 2. The ceremony was attended by the Chief of Staff of the Serbian Army, General Ljubisa Dikovic and Serbian Defense Minister Bratislav Gasic who voiced assurance that this contingent will successfully perform its duties. Gasic told the Serbian peacekeepers that all commanders with whom he had spoken in the past period are very satisfied with the work and sacrifice of Serbian Army members. He told the new contingent to continue the effort to spread the glory of the state and the Serbian Army. “Visiting our peacekeeping missions around the world, I was very proud when Italian, Spanish ... generals said - when it comes to members of the Serbian Army, we greet them with two hands,” said Gasic. He pointed out that this is the merit of members of the Serbian Army, adding that the peacekeeping commanders told him that every member of the Serbian Army deserves to be an instructor to members of other armies. Gasic said he was satisfied that the number of applications of Army members for participation in peacekeeping missions is increasing. Contingent Commander Colonel Goran Radosavljevic stated that the peacekeeping mission in the Central African Republic has 72 members, adding that 68 are engaged in field hospital.

 

Milenkovic: First chapters should be opened by year’s end (RTS)

Acting Director of the EU Integrations Office Ksenija Milenkovic said it was realistic to expect the first chapters in Serbia’s EU accession talks to be opened by the end of the year. She stressed there were arguments confirming progress in the EU integrations process, but that there were some specific features of political nature, namely the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue, she emphasized.

 

Paquet: Serbia achieved a lot in the field of public administration reforms (Tanjug)

Jean-Eric Paquet, the Director of the European Commission (EC) Directorate for Enlargement, said that Serbia had achieved a lot in the field of public administration reforms. He is leading an EU delegation at the second meeting of the Special Group for Public Administration Reforms, which is a joint authority of the EU and Serbia. The state secretary in the Ministry of State Administration and Local Self-Government, Zeljko Ozegovic, said at the meeting that the government aimed to have a state administration that is able to conduct EU accession talks and apply the regulations subsequently.

 

SRS points to the danger from terrorist attacks in Serbia (Beta/RTS)

The Serbian Radical Party (SRS) has warned of the danger from terrorist attacks in Serbia and recalled that the SRS leader Vojislav Seselj informed the public a month ago about the strictly hidden information about the “Eagle” operation. The goal of this operation is pressure on the regime in Belgrade, said the SRS deputy president Nemanja Sarovic at a press conference in Zemun, Beta reports. “We said then that the essence of that operation, behind which the U.S. stands, is pressure on the regime in Belgrade in order to accelerate the implementation of the Brussels agreement and to distance itself from Russia, as well as to harmonize the foreign policy of the Republic of Serbia with that of Brussels,” said Sarovic. He added that during the visit to Washington D.C. Prime Minister Vucic was given the conditions that Serbia needs to fulfill, which will be specified by Angela Merkel during the announced visit to Belgrade. “The first condition is for Serbia to enable Kosovo’s admission in the United Nations, and the other is to distance itself from the RS. Of course, this list of conditions is endless, and as we fulfill one, for 15 years now, three new conditions are added to the list. June 28 is the deadline when our state leadership should perform these tasks or to commit that it will perform them in the shortest period, as otherwise, what they are openly threatened with from the West, are precisely these terrorist operations and destabilization of Serbia,” said Sarovic.

 

REGIONAL PRESS

 

FB&H in an extremely serious crisis, SBB not entering the FB&H government (Srna)

Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) leader Dragan Covic has warned that the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FB&H) finds itself in an extremely serious crisis which would “spill over” to the state level via the principle of communicating vessels. “I hope that the crisis will not spill over from the Federation to the state level in full extent, but you can’t have a serious crisis in one part of the country and pretend there is nothing going on in the other. I’ve been saying for a long time already that the government must be formed in a synchronized manner but it was formed the way it was formed,” Covic told reporters in Sarajevo following a meeting with Fahrudin Radoncic, the leader of the Union for Better Future of B&H (SBB). Covic said that the Democratic Front’s decision to leave the Federation level coalition is a “finished matter” as far as he is concerned, adding that had known for some time that the SBB would not enter the Federation level government. “In the FB&H government we don’t have the people that we had when we formed it and it is well known in what way it was formed and how long it took to form it. I suggested to Prime Minister Fadil Novalic to try and draft an economic social program and everyone who wishes this country well will vote for it at least,” said Covic. The HDZ leader notes that the crisis in the Federation of B&H is “too serious” while on the other hand, huge obligations have been taken on when it comes to some international institutions as friends of B&H. “We have to start working seriously and be credible. There are many challenges ahead of us. We will try to at least maintain the level of the European path by fixing our social and economic relations, if they can be fixed by these agendas at all. Covic also noted that Party of Democratic Action (SDA) leader Bakir Izetbegovic and himself had been discussing the ways of dealing with the crisis for three months already, because the responsibility of the SDA and HDZ, the parties that won the election, cannot be avoided, which is why solutions must be sought.

“We should see where we go from here but I think that this status will now be “frozen” until we see how some other things turn out,” said Covic. He reiterated that the Federation of B&H now has a minority government and that it does not matter what happens with the Democratic Front ministers because “the core of the matter is that they are no longer there.”

 

Zvizdic asking for the release of Oric (Srna)

The Chairman of the B&H Council of Ministers Denis Zvizdic condemned the arrest of the former commander of the Bosnian Army units in the Srebrenica Naser Oric in Switzerland, stating that all the necessary legal assistance and protection it will provide in order for his release. Zvizdic considers that Oric’s arrest was politically motivated and says that Oric is acquitted of all charges for crimes before the court in The Hague and was removed from the Interpol warrant, reads the statement from the office of Chairman of the Council of Ministers. He added that it is symptomatic that Oric’s arrest, by order of Serbia, took place at a time when the United Kingdom is actively working on the preparation of the resolution on Srebrenica and before the marking of 20 years since the events in Srebrenica. “The increase of politically motivated warrants, raised by the Serbian Ministry of Justice, is very worrying. They, in the most violent way damage difficult path of building good-neighborly relations between the two countries. We considered such actions highly inappropriate and a threat of undermining the agreement on the stabilization of relations between B&H and Serbia,” said Zvizdic. He said he would seek information from the Ambassador of B&H in Switzerland and provide all the necessary legal assistance and protection for Oric’s release, and that he expected full engagement and coordinated action of the relevant institutions in the protection of Oric. Lejla Covic, one of Oris’s lawyers, said that Oric was arrested under a warrant issues in 2014 by Serbia.

 

Izetbegovic's protest to the Swiss ambassador because of Oric (Srna/Fena)

The B&H Presidency member Bakir Izetbegovic has asked the Swiss Ambassador in B&H Heinrich Mauer to send Izetbegovic’s strongest protest against the arrest of Naser Oric under a warrant issued by Serbia in February 2014, to the authorities of his country, announced the B&H Presidency. A statement by the B&H Presidency reads that Izetbegovic said to Mauer that the Interpol General Secretariat has deleted from all Interpol’s databases the warrant for Oric’s arrest due to the B&H’s objections on its issuing, and has sent instructions to all its Member States that the information registered on the basis of a warrant be removed from their national base data.

It is evident, states the B&H Presidency that Switzerland did not act in accordance with the Statutes and regulations of Interpol, and the request of the General Secretariat of Interpol, because the cantonal police in Geneva arrested Oric by the order of the Federal Office of Justice of Switzerland. Izetbegovic has sent a strong protest because of the extremely unprofessional and extremely humiliating ways in which the police of the Canton of Geneva conducted a search and the arrest of Oric, Mayor of Srebrenica Camil Durakovic, and the Vice President of the Municipal Assembly of Srebrenica Hamdija Fejzic. Meanwhile, Fena reports that a peaceful protest in support of Naser Oric has begun in front of the B&H Parliamentary Assembly building in Sarajevo, where according to police estimates, about 200 people have gathered.

 

Spiric: The fate of the RS should be discussed in Banja Luka (Srna)

The SNSD delegate in the House of Parliament, Nikola Spiric said that it is especially dangerous that the Alliance for Change, led by the SDS, has moved the center of the RS decision-making to Sarajevo, “by the order of the international community and by the will of the SDA leader, Bakir Izetbegovic”. Noting that his presence in the B&H institutions, since the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement, is the longest then of any Serb, Bosniak or Croat representative, Spiric stressed that he knows how those processes have run since Dayton until now, and that cooperation between the opposition and the government used to be much better. “Banja Luka used to be the center of discussions focused on the fate of the RS,” said Spiric, adding that he is most concerned about the way the SDS leader Mladen Bosic talks about the government and RS institutions because his rhetoric is “riddled with hatred and betrayal”. Noting that he does not divide people according to their party affiliations, Spiric said that there are quality people in the SDS, who complain, because they believe that there should be a close relationship between the government and the opposition at the joint institutions in B&H, and that the place of the discussions should be Banja Luka. “They do not have to love the RS President Milorad Dodik, or affiliate with him, but they need to understand that even when there is a change of government, the same concept should stay the same,” said Spiric. He believes that Bosic is trying to turn Banja Luka into a regional center, not the center of the RS, and that the similar objective is a part of the SDA Declaration, which provides that B&H should be made out of regions. Commenting on Bosic’s statement that the RS government attempts to draw additional funds from B&H, Spiric has asked “From whom else?” and pointed out that the capacity of the government is to provide more money for development projects. He pointed out that without the SNSD there is no blocking processes which are against the interests of the RS, and that other groups have joined the government in order to get the positions, they cannot protect anything. “Bosic is not the same man. A strong change has happened, what has influenced that change, he can explain that better,” said Spiric. According to him, the SNSD has allowed the minority Council of Ministers to be formed in the name of Serbs in the Council of Ministers, although it has more delegates than the Alliance for Change. “The following period will show how much they can help people, and how much of it would be a setback,” said Spiric. He noted that the Council of Ministers adopted the economic reform agenda, which was written by the Office of the European Commission in Sarajevo, at a closed session, without taking into account the remarks made by the RS government, sent to the preliminary draft of this document. “That is why the RS government justifiably reacted. The subsequent reaction of the EU, in which they accepted the objections made by the RS, is evidence that the EU does not want to experience failure in B&H,” said Spiric. He believes that the dialogue within B&H needs to be restored, and that the line of communication should be between the RS government and the FB&H government, because this agenda mainly concerns those levels of government. “Therefore, it should be exactly defined, what under Constitution belongs to the Council of Ministers,” said Spiric. He said that he doesn’t know what the B&H Council of Ministers and the Chairman are going to do about it, because they have already adopted that document as definitive. He believes that B&H is not going to experience progress unless the concept, in which the B&H government is working more with the Office of the European Commission against the RS, is abandoned. According to him, it is illogical that during the adoption of the economic agendas, on behalf Serbs, the Minister of Foreign Trade or the Foreign Minister does not attend, but the minister of Security, who is not competent for the specific issue, does. “If that is how the Serbian national interest gets protected, I am afraid that we are on a bad path. Every failure or absence can lead us into a situation where we would need to object and that is not necessary, so to have the burden of responsibility for the European path, without a reason, transferred to Banja Luka,” said Spiric.

 

Reform agenda has no alternative (Nezavisne)

International officials are disappointed by the fact that the reform agenda was not signed in Sarajevo, because all capacities must be placed in the service of economic reforms.

This was said in Sarajevo by Valentin Inzko, the High Representative in B&H, adding that B&H faces a lot of work. He said that the reform agenda has no alternative, because B&H citizens are interested in the future and a better life and they want to move towards Brussels as quickly as possible. Igor Crnadak, Minister of Foreign Affairs, said that he was sorry that Johannes Hahn, European Commissioner for Enlargement, has not visited B&H and that the reform agenda was not agreed and signed at all levels. He pointed out that this was a unique opportunity given the fact that B&H hasn’t been asking to make changes in regard to the Dayton Peace Agreement, or the Constitution. “I hope that, soon, it will come to the signing of the agenda and that we will have the chance to see Commissioner Hahn in Sarajevo,” said Crnadak, adding that this could happen in the coming days or weeks. When asked to comment on the position of Milorad Dodik, not to adopt the agenda as it is envisaged privatization of Elektroprivreda RS, Crnadak answered that there is a possibility that the word “privatization” can be replaced by the word “restructuring”. “One word cannot be a problem,” said Crnadak. On the other hand, the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) has condemned the act of Ministers from among the Serb people in the Council of Ministers who voted for the acceptance of the “reform agenda”, completely ignoring the position of the RS on rejecting the proposed document. “By this act, on a most direct way they have shown their “pro-Bosnian” commitment and absolute indifference to the interests of the RS and its citizens,” reads the statement by the SNSD. Stasa Kosarac, head of the SNSD in the B&H House of Representatives, said that Hahn, by not coming to B&H, has sent a clear message that the European integration process does not exist if all levels of government are not visible participants in this process. “Such a message can be read by all, except by stubborn Bosniak politicians and their servants from SDS and PDP, who live in the illusion that Sarajevo can command the RS. The SNSD will never allow it,” he said. Senad Sepic, state delegate (SDA), said that is a great pity for B&H as it missed the opportunity to open a new page on its progress towards the EU. “Positive climate should be used, and all of this is at great expense of the citizens and of the B&H progress. I invite everyone in B&H to behave responsibly and urgently complete their activities related to the admission arrangements set of socio-economic reforms, in order to organize a new meeting between the representatives of government and Commissioner Hahn and sign the agenda,” said Sepic. Hahn on Wednesday canceled a planned visit to B&H and Sarajevo, and called on the authorities in B&H to stand behind the commitments to the EU, and especially towards the citizens. “The country is facing serious socio-economic challenges that require quick and important decisions, which should be in the interest of stability and prosperity of the state and its citizens, and outside the party interests,” said Hahn in his letter, and urged authorities in RS to make similar steps like the FB&H and B&H and adopt the reform agenda.

 

RS will express dissatisfaction by way of Russia (Srna)

The RS President Milorad Dodik said that the RS will express its dissatisfaction in the UN Security Council by way of Russia because of an attempt to adopt a resolution on Srebrenica without consultations. Dodik expects the resolution to additionally besmirch the Serb people and the RS. “This is not something that is called reconciliation and trust. B&H is in a chaotic situation, it has not been functioning for years, it is being maintained only by the pressure of international factors, by their lament that this is a good concept, and by the use of force when they are trying to break political resistance that cannot be broken since B&H obviously cannot start functioning,” Dodik told reporters at a reception in Sarajevo organized by the Russian Ambassador to B&H Peter Ivantsov on the occasion of Russia Day. Dodik said that B&H is being maintained by the arrogance and pressure of the IC.

 

Russian Ambassador to B&H: No decision without coordination (Srna)

Russian Ambassador to B&H Petr Ivantsov has told Srna that he is not familiar with the content of the resolution on Srebrenica, which is being prepared by Great Britain before the UN Security Council, emphasizing that such document should exclusively serve the reconciliation in B&H, and be a subject to coordination with local partners and the international community. “As far as I know, the draft resolution has not yet been submitted to the international partners of the Great Britain. I believe that such resolution should serve the reconciliation and attenuate the conflict which is still in the hearts of many people in B&H,” said Ivantsov on Thursday evening in Sarajevo. The Russian Ambassador has stressed that in this case, the decision should not be made without proper coordination with the main local actors and, of course, with the partners of Great Britain in the international community. “The resolution mentions the tragedy which the twentieth anniversary will be marked this year. This commemoration would have to be used to improve the situation in the B&H and to build the trust among the peoples,” said Ivantsov.

He has noted that this issue was one of the topics that were discussed during the two-day session of the Peace Implementation Council in B&H. “On that occasion, the British ambassador said that, when it comes to the resolution, he will definitely consult with all relevant partners,” added Ivantsov.

 

INTERNATIONAL PRESS

 

Never Too Late? NATO Finally Apologizes for Bombing Yugoslavia? (Sputnik, 12 June 2015)

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said he deeply regretted the loss of all lives during NATO's bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which he described as "a tragedy," Serbian media reported on Thursday.

Speaking in Budva, Montenegro, after his meeting with Montenegrin Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic, Stoltenberg said that he was offering condolences to all families and all those who lost their loved ones, Serbian newspaper Blic reported. NATO "made every effort" to prevent the loss of innocent lives, Stoltenberg said, and added: “Unfortunately, in the concrete case we could not avoid the suffering of civilians. I sincerely regret that. The goal of the operation was certainly to establish peace.” “The goal and purpose of NATO's air operation was also to protect civilians — and we succeeded in that," Jens Stoltenberg emphasized. NATO's air strikes against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia,  made up at the time of Serbia and Montenegro, lasted for 78 days and ended on June 10, 1999. According to different estimates, between 1,200 and 2,500 were killed in the attacks. Almost 13,000 were injured. The material damage is estimated at between $30 billion and $100 billion. The western leaders justified the airstrikes by the need to end ethnic cleansings allegedly being conducted by Serbian forces in Kosovo.

It was also the first time that NATO used military force without the approval of the UN Security Council and against a sovereign nation that did not pose any real threat to any member of the alliance.

 

Poland says next NATO summit should invite Macedonia, Montenegro to join (Reuters, by

Wiktor SzaryMark Trevelyan, 12 June 2015)

WARSAW: The former Yugoslav republics of Macedonia and Montenegro should be invited to join NATO when it holds its next summit in Warsaw in 2016, Polish Defense Minister Tomasz Siemoniak said Friday. Such a move could further fan tensions between the western alliance and Russia, already running high over the crisis in Ukraine. "It would be excellent news if the invitations could be sent from [the NATO summit in] Warsaw to Macedonia and Montenegro," Siemoniak told a conference in the Polish city of Wroclaw. "It seems that the NATO summit in Warsaw, if deprived of this element, will not bring full satisfaction to many nations, including Poland." Macedonia and Montenegro want to follow in the footsteps of Albania and ex-Yugoslav Croatia, which joined NATO in 2009. But Russia has opposed any NATO expansion to former communist nations of eastern and southeast Europe, part of a competition for geostrategic influence since the end of the Cold War that lies at the heart of the current conflict in ex-Soviet Ukraine. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said last year that NATO expansion to the former Yugoslav republics of Bosnia, Macedonia and Montenegro could be seen as a provocation. At its last summit in 2014 in Wales, the alliance approved wide-ranging plans to boost its defences in eastern Europe, aiming to reassure allies nervous about Russia's intervention in Ukraine that NATO would shield them from any attack. The Warsaw summit will take place on July 8-9, 2016.

 

Swiss arrest Bosnian Muslim wartime commander on Serbia warrant: Bosnian mayor (Reuters, 11 June 2015)

SARAJEVO - Swiss authorities arrested a Bosnian Muslim wartime commander on Wednesday on a warrant issued by Serbia over the alleged killing of Serbs during Bosnia's 1992-95 war, a Bosnian official told local media. Commander Naser Oric was indicted by The Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for crimes against Serbs but was acquitted of all charges in 2008, a ruling that angered the Bosnian Serbs and Serbia, who see the tribunal as biased against them. The official, Camil Durakovic, mayor of the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica, said he had been with Oric at the time of his arrest because they were due to attend a series of events in Geneva to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the massacre of up to 8,000 Muslim men and boys from Srebrenica. Durakovic told Bosnia's state-owned Federalna Televizija that Oric had been detained on a border crossing between France and Switzerland. He was handcuffed and taken to a police station in Geneva, Durakovic said. "He is currently being interrogated," Durakovic said. A spokesman for Switzerland's Federal Office of Justice told Reuters he could not comment on the matter. Serbia issued an arrest warrant for Oric in February 2014 over the killing of nine Serb civilians in the village of Zalazje near Srebrenica in July 1992. Oric, then a Bosnian army commander, was in charge of organizing the defense of the town. Two decades after the end of the Bosnian war, the country remains politically and ethnically divided, comprising a Muslim Bosniak-Croatian federation and a Bosnian Serb republic. Underscoring those divisions, Bosnian Serb lawmakers on Wednesday rejected a resolution describing the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of the Muslim men and boys as a genocide, saying the motion was an attack on their community. The Srebrenica massacre, widely viewed as the worst atrocity on European soil since World War Two, was the culmination of an ethnic cleansing drive by the forces of Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic aimed at carving out a Serbian state from ethnically mixed Bosnia.

 

Zagreb Slams Bosnia Over Croatian Fighters’ Indictments (BIRN, by Sven Milekic, Denis Dzidic, 11 June 2015)

Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic has described claims in indictments that Zagreb’s forces were involved in wartime crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina as “insulting” and is refusing to cooperate with the Sarajevo judiciary.

Zagreb, Sarajevo

The government in Zagreb is refusing to cooperate on investigations with Sarajevo that it considers misrepresent Croatian forces’ role during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic described some of these indictments as “political”, and told the authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina to “mind their own business”. “We are receiving cases with political indictments, with political phrases [in them],” he said. Milanovic’s government is angry about Bosnian indictments that list the accused as members of a large-scale systematic attack or joint criminal enterprise by the Croatian political and military leadership, thus implying that Zagreb waged an aggressive war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Zagreb is willing to admit that individual crimes were committed by Croatian soldiers or intelligence officers, but will not accept any implications that the Croatian political and military leadership were ever involved in any joint criminal enterprise. Milanovic said that such indictments “insult the Croatian legal system” and that Zagreb would not even acknowledge them. “They are contrary to our national interests and we have to make it clear that we will not act on that,” he added. He said that the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, ICTY, did not found Croatia guilty over the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina and that Zagreb had not been judged to have been an aggressor in the neighbouring state. The government in Zagreb has also adopted a statement expressing its concerns about the Bosnian judiciary’s indictments and requests for investigations into former Croatian fighters. The government statement underlines that Croatia only participated in the war in accordance with the appropriate international agreements with Bosnia and Herzegovina. After the Washington agreement was signed between Bosnian Croats, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia in March 1994, ending the Croat-Bosniak conflict, two states signed an international agreement in Split in July 1995 which enabled Croatian troops to cross the Bosnian border in order to fight Bosnian Serb forces. The government statement says that all Croatian institutions must not act on any indictments or requests which suggest that there was any Croatian involvement in a joint criminal enterprise. The Bosnian prosecutors’ office has denied that there is any possibility of indictments being “political”, and said that it is up to decide if it will cooperate with the Bosnian judiciary on war crimes cases. Although the state of Croatia has never been prosecuted for aggression against Bosnia and Herzegovina, the ICTY did establish that Zagreb had a certain level of involvement in the war there prior to the 1995 agreement in Split. As a temporary international tribunal, ICTY is not trying states and therefore has not dealt with the issue of Croatia’s aggression. Additionally, currently no international court is deciding upon the crime of aggression, although International Criminal Court plans to introduce it in future. Zlatko Aleksovski, a former member of the Bosnian Croat wartime force, the Croatian Defence Council, HVO, and commander of a prison near Busovaca in central Bosnia was found guilty of violations of the laws or customs of war by the ICTY in 2000. In the judgment, the ICTY’s appeals chamber found that “armed forces of the Bosnian Croats, the HVO, were acting under the overall control of Croatia”. It also found that Bosnian Croat prison guards acted as representatives of Croatia. In all other cases against former HVO officials, Croatia was also found to have played a role in the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Although not a final judgment, the ICTY’s trial chamber stated in its verdict on against Jadranko Prlic and other former senior HVO officials in 2013that the “direct involvement of the HV [Croatian Army] in the conflict pitting the HVO and the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina against one another and the overall control wielded by the HV and by Croatia over the HVO” was evident. Zeljko Jukic, another former member of the HVO, was found guilty in March 2015 at the Bosnian appeals court of taking part in a widespread and systematic attack on Bosniak civilians, including the forced disappearance of five people, torture, looting and forced displacement between July and September 1993. The judgment stated that he committed the crimes along other HVO and Croatian Army soldiers - the first final judgment from the Bosnian judiciary that names the Croatian Army in the context of committing war crimes. Croatia has a constitutional law which bounds it to respect and legally implement all final judgements passed by ICTY. The director of Zagreb-based Youth Initiative for Human Rights, YIHR, Mario Mazic, said this means that the Croatian government’s stance is “revisionist, false and disrespectful towards the victims from a symbolic point of view”. “From a practical point of view, they [the government statements] are problematic because it means that the Croatian government does not see itself having an interest in fulfilling justice,” he told BIRN. Mazic said that this “may have consequences in terms of preventing cooperation between Croatian institutions and judicial institutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina”. “It can prevent the courts from obtaining information and documents that are needed in trials for the crimes committed by Croatian forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” he added. Mazic said that previous ICTY judgments clearly showed Croatia’s role in the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but the Zagreb authorities are “systematically denying the findings of the judgments”. Suljo Kmetas, the president of an association of victims from Prozor who testified at Zeljko Jukic’s trial, told BIRN that Milanovic’s statement was farcical. “Look, this is nothing new. There is evidence which has been used in The Hague and at Zeljko Jukic’s trial, there is footage of Croatian soldiers in Bosnia, there are orders, and I have seen these soldiers from Osijek and Vinkovci with my own eyes [during the war],” said Kmetas. “Milanovic said what he said out of pure self-interest. He wants to say that Bosnia had a civil war between Bosniaks and local Serbs and Croats, but this is not true. Bosnia was attacked by Serbia but also by Croatian forces and all that he is doing is trying to clean himself and Croatia of the filthy crimes,” he added. The Croatian government meanwhile has said that it will continue to cooperate with the Bosnian judiciary, but insists that it will take action against any attempts at the “politicisation of court proceedings”.

 

Macedonia detain 128 migrants hiding in five homes (Reuters, 11 June 2015)

SKOPJE - Macedonian police have detained 128 illegal migrants from Syria, Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries sheltering in five houses in a village near the border with Serbia, the Interior Ministry said on Thursday. Villagers had rented their houses to the migrants for 1,500 euros ($1,685) a month, ministry spokesman Vlado Kotevski said. He said four Macedonian nationals would be charged with people smuggling. The early morning raid on the houses in Vaksince came a week after British Channel 4 TV broadcast a programme in which it reported the migrants were being held there against their will. Kotevski said the migrants had told investigators they came to Vaksince via Greece of their own free will. "None of them complained of being threatened or blackmailed," Kotevski told reporters. Migrants fleeing war, poverty and persecution in the Middle East and Africa are increasingly using the Balkans to reach Western Europe, as this route is deemed longer but safer than sailing across the Mediterranean, where thousands of migrants have died in rickety boats. Separately to the Vaksince case, police in neighbouring Serbia said on Thursday they had arrested two police officers and another six people suspected of trafficking people, for a fee, from Belgrade to Subotica, near the border with EU member Hungary.

($1 = 0.8900 euros) (Reporting by Kole Casule; Writing by Aleksandar Vasovic; Editing by Zoran Radosavljevic and Alison Williams)

 

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