BANJA LUKA, Bosnia-Herzegovina — The United States warned on Tuesday that ongoing celebrations of a Bosnian Serb self-proclaimed national holiday — which included a parade of paramilitary and police troops — were in violation of Bosnia’s constitution and a 1995 peace agreement, and as such amounted to a criminal offense. The Jan. 9 holiday commemorates the day in 1992 when …
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina — He was once described in Washington as an anti-nationalist “breath of fresh air” in the murderous, genocide-scarred Balkan morass of ethnically divided Bosnia. The 63-year-old political science graduate first came to prominence in 1998, as a moderate reformist narrowly elected regional prime minister of Republika Srpska, one of Bosnia’s two postwar administrative units. He notoriously defended the …
On July 23, the Office of the High Representative, the top international body overseeing the implementation of the peace agreement that ended Bosnia’s war, criminalised the denial and glorification of genocide in the country. Republika Srpska parliament’s aggressive, united and unapologetic rejection of the legal changes introduced by Inzko demonstrated clearly why criminalisation of genocide denial was an urgent necessity …
