Just imagine: you kill 100 people, serve time, run for office, pass and receive 2.500 euros a month; it can only be done in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Let me ask you in a human way: is it okay for tried and convicted war criminals to engage in politics? Just like that, just human? And that in the country where they committed war crimes? You will say in unison: "No!" Well, you see, parliamentarians in BiH. It's not that it doesn't bother the institutions, but they understand the denial of due attention to evildoers as discrimination. As a threat to human rights.
And here's the thing. The Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina did not adopt the amendments to the Electoral and Criminal Law that refer to the ban on the candidacy of convicted war criminals. And what is most unfortunate, such a perverted decision was completely expected in this and such a political habitus.
For those who do not know, it should be reminded that the proposed amendments to the Law on the Prohibition of the Candidacy of Convicted War Criminals are in accordance with the practice in European countries, where such persons are prevented from running in elections. It's such a normal thing and a common place that it doesn't even need to be explained. But what would happen if Bosnia and Herzegovina adopted changes to the law? It could happen that we become a normal country, in which war criminals, who have served their sentences, will be able to be free persons, but will not be able to engage in politics. And how could they? Just imagine, to paraphrase writer Faruk Šehić, you kill 100 people, serve time, run for office, pass and receive 5.000 convertible marks (2.500 euros) a month. If that isn't proof that crime pays figuratively and literally, I don't know what is.
And the statement of Aleksandra Pandurević and Momčilo Novaković, who announced in front of the Serbian representatives and said that they will not support changes to the law, is all the more miserable and pitiful. It should be recalled that the aforementioned Novaković, ten days ago, in his statement strongly advocated for the continuation of the political dance of convicted war criminals. "If this comes before the representatives of the House of Representatives of the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina, there will not be enough of a majority to support it, that is, the representatives of the two nations will practically not support it - Croats and Serbs," he explained.
The success mantra 'a hero, not a villain'
Shouldn't the Serbs, in whose name genocide and the most monstrous crimes were committed - from Prijedor, via Foča, Višegrad, to Srebrenica - be the most rigid on this issue? Shouldn't the representatives of the Serbs in joint bodies initiate the first action that not only prohibits the denial of genocide, but also prohibits the participation in the political life of their former bullies, who were convicted in The Hague and who served their time in European prisons?
It would be so if it were not for one and the same political-national matrix at work, from 1995 onwards. All those powerful criminals, all those powerful Erdemović, Krstić, Mrđe, Šljivančanin, Lukić, and up to Krajišnik, Plavšić, Karadžić, Mladić and, especially, Milošević, should have been put on a pillar of shame by, above all, the Serbian people. Eh, what should have been, but wasn't. Reality says that a predominant narrative "hero, not criminal" was created, which was never sanctioned and which was raised to the level of an epic canon, which cannot be objected to in the Serbian corpus. "A hero, not a criminal" is the mantra by which he forgets and, in the end, forgives everything. And organized murders, and political liquidations of dissidents, and wartime looting, and, finally, mass crimes and genocide.
And all that bathed in a bath of oblivion. That is why the institutional rewriting of history is not surprising, nor are all those great honors, with which the first man of Bosnia and Herzegovina, was awarded. entity Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik decorated convicted war criminals. And towards the end (because there is no end yet), why not Momčilo Krajišnik, half businessman - half war criminal, I say, why such and such a Krajišnik would not once again embark on swimming in the political waters, which made a "prominent citizen" out of a pre-war criminal and founder of Republika Srpska", whatever that means? If he was greeted by Dodik's TV cameras, helicopters and live broadcast, all with students in the organizing committee for the welcome, why wouldn't Momo activate again?
Some, more inclined to common sense, will say: well, he has committed a crime, he can have a personal and driver's license, but not to engage in the act through which he committed the crime - politics. Because it would be the same as if someone offered a job as a kindergarten teacher to a pedophile who was dismembering. Or to Dr. Mengele, work at some clinic. Or... you already know how it goes with analogies in the normal world. In normal, yes, but with us - jok!
Instead of crawling into the mouse hole, Krajišnik is still gauging the arena for the political race in 2018 in the general elections. Mjerka, well, as a young woman, "hard market". And all this with the strong support of young Serbian politicians and the absence of a law that would remove Krajišnik and others like him from politics forever. Because it is out of mind for Krajišnik, or any man, for whom the political and ideological base was a springboard for war crimes, to step onto the political stage again. Out of mind, I repeat!
Support to 'colleagues' from other ethnic groups
And again, on the other hand, let's look at a little lower levels of government and how it is "pushed" there. Here, for example, is just the municipality of Šamac. In Šamac, Blagoje Simić, a man who was sentenced in The Hague and who served 12 of 17 years in prison, is the director of the Health Center. In addition, he is also a councilor in the local assembly of the municipality. But that is not enough. What is even crazier is the fact that the parties gathered around Bosniaks and Croats approved his appointment as director of the Health Center. Should we mention Sima Zarić, the former deputy mayor of the municipality of Šamac?
And that is why it is "normal" for local nationalists to support their "colleagues" from another ethnic group. And then everything is allowed, and everything according to the law. Then the "Krajišnik case" will actually be a fly in the ointment of the rule according to which war criminals who have served their sentences (remain) stars and celebrities, not people who have morally failed and should be free to look at all their downfall.
There is "brother Croat" Dario Kordić, an established icon of part of the Catholic clergy and the political right in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. We should not disturb the "Bosniak heroes" Enver Hadžihasanović, wartime commander of the Third Corps, and retired colonel Amir Kubura, who are welcome guests at Bosniak nationalist receptions. No need to waste words about Fikret Abdić, the mayor of Velika Kladuša...
However, none of them started interfering in their "war work" as explicitly as Krajišnik. And that's why you need to persevere and show the sentenced persons in the corner of anonymity, where they belong. Because if we are not able to do that, we are no better than them, for sure. And our elected representatives showed not that they are not able to make such a decision, but that not voting for it is a completely "expected" thing.
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