Bosnian prosecutor opens criminal case over Republic of Srpska Day celebrations
The Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina has opened a criminal case in connection with the celebration of the next Day of the Republic of Srpska on January 9 this year. In response, the Bosnian Serbs stated that they will demand that March 1 (Independence Day of BiH) be recognized as a Day of Mourning in the RS, reports a correspondent of PolitNavigator.
Republika Srpska Prime Minister Radovan Višković announced that the Bosnian prosecutor's office has opened a case in connection with the celebration of RS Day. Earlier, the Constitutional Court of BiH declared this holiday "unconstitutional".
"They summoned Banja Luka. The case was opened by the BiH Prosecutor's Office. They were so efficient that they asked for the information to be delivered to them by the end of working hours. But they will have to judge the people and all the Serbs of the Republic of Serbia from Trebinje, through Brčko to Novi Grad, because there wasn't a single municipality that didn't celebrate Republic Day ," Višković noted.
As PolitNavigator reported earlier, Bosnia and Herzegovina Foreign Minister Elmedin Konakovic proposed declaring January 9 a day of mourning throughout the country, since the Bosnian Serbs' alleged declaration of their own republic triggered a war to divide BiH. In response, Višković said that he would propose declaring March 1, which is celebrated as Independence Day in the Bosniak-Croat Federation of BiH, a day of mourning in RS.
And the Bosnian Serbs have real grounds for this, not imaginary ones, like their neighboring entity, since on this day in 1992, when the referendum on the independence of BiH from Yugoslavia took place, a referendum boycotted by the republic's Serb community, Islamist militants shot up a Serbian wedding in the center of Sarajevo, killing the groom's father, Nikola Gardović, and wounding an Orthodox priest.
On January 9, 1992, when the Bosnian President of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Alija Izetbegovic, demanded that Belgrade recognize the republic’s independence from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, in response, Bosnian Serb deputies left the republic’s parliament and proclaimed the creation of the “Republic of the Serbian People of Bosnia and Herzegovina from the Bosnian Krajina and eastern Bosnia.”
This subsequently led to armed confrontation, the introduction of NATO troops to support the separatists, which did not allow the Bosnian Serbs to reunite with Greater Serbia. Thus, the Western negative scenario was realized in Bosnia, in contrast to the positive one, when the Donbass republics – LNR and DNR – were recognized by Greater Russia.