The attendance of officials of the main Croat party in Bosnia and Herzegovina at a commemoration event for convicted war criminal Marko Radic on Wednesday was met with strong criticism, with the leader of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) urging Bosnia’s international administrator and Central Election Commission to sanction the Croat Democratic Union of Bosnia and Herzegovina (HDZ BiH).
Radic, who was killed in the southern city of Mostar on Monday, was in 2011 sentenced to 21 in prison for crimes against humanity due to his involvement in the imprisonment, torture, murder and rape that took place in the infamous wartime prison camp ‘Vojno’, near the city.
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The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina established that Radic personally participated in the rape of prisoners, including underage girls.
Some 800 people, including about 80 women and children, were imprisoned at the Vojno prison camp.
He was not supposed to be released until 2027. However, he submitted a request to serve his sentence in Croatia, and on October 8, 2018, Bosnian Justice Minister, Josip Grubesa, granted it.
The Zagreb County Court retried the case and passed a verdict which took over the execution of the verdict of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, changing the sentence to 12 years and six months in prison.
Radic was released in December 2018.
The leader of Bosnia’s Social Democratic Party (SDP), Nermin Niksic, asked whether the European Union and Bosnian institutions will remain silent to the fact that officials of HDZ BiH, who often say they advocate European values in Bosnia, participated in the commemoration.
“After they challenged the verdicts of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, organized public receptions for convicted war criminals and marked the day of the founding of the Herceg-Bosna parastate as a kind of holiday, I cannot say that we are particularly surprised by the latest action of the HDZ BiH,” Niksic said.
He pointed out that Grubesa, the minister who signed off on Radic being transferred to Croatia, was a member of the HDZ BiH. It was to be expected that Croatia would release him early, he said.
Niksic added that the youngest to be imprisoned in the prison camp where Radic committed the crimes was a 17-month-old baby, while the oldest was 73. The youngest of the rape victims was a 15-year-old girl.
“For the HDZ BiH, participation in such monstrous crimes was not enough of a reason to at least distance itself from the character and deeds of Marko Radic. On the contrary, HDZ BiH celebrates such barbarians, criminals and evildoers, and thus completely without justification or basis stigmatizes the entire Croat people,” Niksic said.
“It’s high time we put the war behind us, to finally establish the principle that all those who committed crimes, regardless of their ethnic belonging, should be held accountable, and finally turn to the future,” he said.
Niksic called for Bosnia’s international administrator and the EU to sanction “all those who propagate hate speech and support war criminals, to tell them clearly that this is contrary to democratic standards” and to restrict their travel to the EU.
The Hugh Representative in Bosnia, Valentin Inzko, recently said he would propose this measure to be introduced against Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik if he does not rename a dormitory in Bosnia’s Republika Srpska entity which was named after convicted war criminal Radovan Karadzic.
Niksic said that the HDZ BiH should also be included in such a ban since it has continuously rejected war crimes rulings by domestic and international courts and glorified war criminals.
“The SDP BiH also expects the competent institutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina, primarily the Central Election Commission, and to examine the possibility of sanctions for the spread of hatred and intolerance on ethnic and religious grounds,” he said.
The Croat member of Bosnia’s tripartite Presidency and leader of the Democratic Front (DF), Zeljko Komsic, said that the HDZ BiH is trying to push Bosnian Croats into “civilisational darkness.”
“I am convinced that the majority of Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina are appalled by their actions,” he said.
