The following media round-up on international, legal and foreign policy issues from around the Balkans for the period from 8 November 2024 to 15 November 2024. Guernica 37 will provide weekly media updates with a focus on Bosnia and Hercegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia. Should you wish to contribute or submit a media summary, opinion piece or blog, please send to Ned Vucijak at nenadv@guernica37.com for consideration.
Macedonia – 14th November
The mayor of the Albanian dominated municipality of Cair in Skopje has held a ceremony granting honorary citizenship to Westley Clark, the retired US general who led the 1999 NATO bombing campaign against former Yugoslavia. The award was given “in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the strengthening of peace and stability in the Balkans”. In 1998 as NATO’s Supreme Commander, Clark led Operation Allied Force against the Yugoslav and Serbian forces in Kosovo, which then declared independence in 2008. See here.
Bosnia – 13th November
The trial of Kerim Lucarevic, the former Commander of the Military Police of the Territorial Defence force of Bosnia and Herzegovina, has begun at the Bosnian state court in relation to wartime deaths during the Dobrovoljacka Street incident in Sarajevo, where JNA soldiers were killed and injured in an attack on their column as it retreated from the city under a UN escort. Lucarevic stands accused of failing to take action to punish those who killed and injured the soldiers and of failing to take necessary and reasonable measures to prevent abuse of captured Yugoslav soldiers. See here
Bosnia –13th November
The Bosnian Serb wartime general, Radislav Krsitc, who is currently severing 35 years in prison for aiding and abetting genocide, following his conviction by the International criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY), has admitted his guilt and asked for forgiveness from the families of the victims in a letter to the court requesting to be considered for early release.
In the letter written to the Residual Mechanism of the ICTY, Krstic stated “I accept the verdicts of the Tribunal from 2001 and 2004, where it is established that the forces of the army to which I belonged committed genocide against Bosniaks in Srebrenica in July 1995, and that I helped and supported the genocide by knowing that some members of the General Staff had the intention to commit genocide,”.
He further added that he would like to “bow down before the victims and ask for forgiveness” if their families allowed, and praised a UN General Assembly resolution last year which designated 11th of July as the International Day of Reflection and Commemoration of the 1995 Genocide in Srebrenica. See here.
Serbia – 11th November
The Bosnian state court has acquitted a Bosnian Serb of multiple counts of rape as against a Boniak women which allegedly took place between 1992 and 1993 in the town of Derventa, while he was head of the Doboj Security Service Centre.
The verdict stated that while the woman was undeniably a victim of wartime sexual violence, her testimony in relation to the accused, Andrija Bjelosevic, was not found to be credible, reliable or objective. See here.
Croatia - 8th November
A mass grave has been discovered near the town of Vukovar in which the bodies of 5 middle aged and elderly men have been exhumed. Vukovar was the scene of heavy fighting in 1991 when it was surrounded by the Yugoslav army and Serbian paramilitaries.
Croatia is still searching for 1,788 people who went missing during what is known in Croatia as The Homeland War. In relation to the newly discovered grave, Croatia’s minster for veterans, Tomo Medved said “This location and these five remains are evidence of the criminal aspect of murder that the State Attorney’s Office and the Interior Ministry are investigating,”. See here.