German newspaper: Serbian veteran from the Jewish cemetery – Aleksandar Vučić

The Saturday edition of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) newspaper carries the article "Snipers in the Jewish Cemetery", which states that Aleksandar Vučić, as a young volunteer, "served criminal politics in Sarajevo."

Author Mihael Martens begins his extensive text with the history of the Jewish community in Sarajevo, which was almost completely destroyed by the Holocaust. The historical overview is decorated with quotes from Nobel Prize winner Ivo Andrić – Martens is a good connoisseur of his work. The author then describes the traces left on the Jewish Cemetery by the war of the 1990s. This is followed by a brief description of the siege of Sarajevo, in which more than 11.000 people died.

"One of the sites of the siege was the Jewish Cemetery in Sarajevo. The higher parts of the cemetery, located on a hillside, were under the control of the Serbian attackers. From there, snipers kept the city in their sights. British General Michael Rose, who at one time commanded the UN peacekeeping forces in Sarajevo, stated before the Hague Tribunal that the Jewish Cemetery constantly represented a dangerous starting point for shelling and sniping in the city. The city hospital in the Marijin Dvor neighborhood, at the bottom of the Sarajevo Basin, was also targeted from positions in the cemetery. A surgeon employed at that hospital testified before the court that patients and medical staff were repeatedly wounded by sniper fire coming from the direction of the Jewish Cemetery."

Then Martens brings the protagonist who is actually the main subject of the text – Aleksandar Vučić – onto the newspaper stage:

"The man who, as a young volunteer, was present at that place, at least for a while, in the midst of the criminal events at the Jewish cemetery in Sarajevo, would later become famous and powerful – today's President of Serbia Aleksandar Vučić. It was not his opponents or detractors who made this unpleasant detail from his biography public. He himself spoke about it in several interviews in the 1990s, and with pride.

These interviews were published in newspapers that have long since ceased publication and that have left very few traces on the internet. For this reason, many of Vučić's statements in which he boasted about his participation as a war volunteer have not made it from the printed past to the digital present and have remained relatively unknown. However, anyone who explores the holdings of the National Library of Serbia in Belgrade will find numerous traces in the paper archives."

"Young Volunteer Vučić"

The text presents the results of the author's persistent search through archival materials from the analog era – quotes from statements by Aleksandar Vučić from his radical period. The portrait of Aleksandar Vučić published in August 1994 by the Serbian illustrated weekly "Duga" provided the author with good material for the following statements:

"In 1994, Vučić was already considered a rising politician in the Serbian Radical Party, which was led by paramilitary leader Vojislav Šešelj, and which is presumed to have been founded or at least partially controlled by Serbian state security."

The author retells the article from "Duga" and notes that the journalist noticed "war trophies" hanging on the walls in Vučić's room at his parents' house, without explaining what exactly they were.

And then follows Aleksandar Vučić's statement: "When the war in Bosnia started, I went to Serbian Sarajevo and signed up as a volunteer." Martens notes that Vučić justified his step by stating that he went to Sarajevo "to defend Serbness". In addition, the text also reveals where the young volunteer Vučić was first deployed: "Vučić told the magazine Duga in 1994 that he 'was at the Jewish cemetery for a while' before going to Pale". After that, the German article lists open questions: "It is not clear from Vučić's interview what exactly he did at the Jewish cemetery in Sarajevo. Did he also shoot at the city? Did he also kill civilians? What was his role? It is certain, however, that there is no credible evidence for the claim that has been appearing in public in recent months - that Vučić allegedly led wealthy foreigners who, as 'weekend snipers', for financial compensation, shot civilians in Sarajevo, primarily women and children, from Serbian positions. But such sensationalist stories are not even necessary to conclude that the future president of Serbia, as a young war volunteer, put himself in the service of deeply criminal politics."

"Vučić said that he fully supported this policy on other occasions, including in a special edition of the magazine Velika Srbija, the mouthpiece of the Serbian Radical Party, published in September 1997. At that time, he was already the party's secretary general."

The following is Vučić's statement in the edition of Velika Srbije printed in 50.000 copies: "In that truly crisis period for our people, I found myself in a dilemma that tormented many, especially the younger generation, which was resolved by my forty-day stay as a volunteer in Sarajevo."

The German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung notes that in the same 1997 interview, Vučić also stated that he "spent a total of eight months in the territories of Bosnia under the control of Bosnian Serbs, of which `two months at the front'". The following is another original statement by Aleksandar Vučić from that interview: "If you think I stood up for Croats or Muslims - I didn't and it doesn't occur to me to be ashamed of that".

The author adds that Vučić simultaneously emphasizes alleged Serbian rights to parts of the state territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia, but also calls for patience until political circumstances in the world change.

In the final part of the article, Martens says: "Today, Vučić speaks differently. In his political rhetoric, he has accepted the Dayton Agreement and respects the territorial integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, in the media close to Vučić, a revisionist tone is still present - exactly the one he announced back in 1997."

The text says that Vučić, speaking about Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, stated in 1997: "When our party comes to power in Serbia, we will remind every day that these territories are our centuries-old land."

At the very end of the text, the author asks: "What do such words mean today? The United States, which three decades ago was a key factor in stopping the wars in the Balkans, has since withdrawn from the region or even provided support to nationalist hardliners. European countries have failed to fill that vacuum. A Serbian veteran from the Jewish cemetery in Sarajevo is closely following these developments."

Michael Martens recalls that Aleksandar Vučić, in his harsh attack on the Dayton Peace Agreement back in 1995, wrote: "In the end, the Serbs will raise their heads and take back their lands. We just need to wait a little longer."

And the text ended with the question: "Is this wait coming to an end?"