Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Republika Srpska Police Protect Serbs From Floral Assault

There have been some troubling signs lately that Dodik is a genuine menace to peace and reconciliation in Bosnia, but the latest news--that over 100 Bosniak women were barred from laying flowers at a warehouse in Srebrenica--suggests that he has decided that the international community and the High Commissioner will allow him to keep pushing his luck.

The following story only briefly mentions this incident, focusing instead on the new, nationalist anthem and "national" symbols recently adopted by Dodik's quasi-state:

Muslims furious at anthem and symbols adopted by Bosnian Serbs

I have a copy of "Bosnia Daily" in .pdf format (no link, sorry) with slightly more information, including this tidbit:

Republika Srpska police yesterday
stopped relatives of victims of
the 1995 Srebrenica massacre
from visiting a site where more than
1,000 Bosniak men were shot by
Bosnian Serb troops. Police said the
presence of 100-odd women in the eastern
Bosnian village of Kravice posed a
security risk because local Serbs did not
want them there. Republika Srpska
Prime Minister Milorad Dodik said the
gathering was a "direct provocation".


That is the behavior of a regime which feels confident that the international community is ready to wash its hands of Bosnia and leave it to the locals. I cannot express how deeply I hope he is miscalculating.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

150 women wanting to lay flowers is a "direct provocation"? I wonder hoe Mr Dodik would describe machine-gunning a thousand defenceless prisoners and then hand-grenading the survivors?

It's beyond fiction.

Anonymous said...

http://balkans.courriers.info/article10893.html

this article provides a french translation of two accounts of this incident.

sorry for those who don't speak french... maybe an internet automatic translator can do?

Anonymous said...

Hi, do you happen to know what happened in Kravice during the war?

It's a Serbian village.