Inzko for DW: The RS Assembly imposed collective responsibility on Serbs, not me

SARAJEVO, (Patria)  - Valentin Inzko's letter arrived in the parliament of the Republika Srpska entity just as passions had cooled regarding the statement by SDA leader Bakir Izetbegović about the Serbian people as bad.

Inzko is asking the President of the National Assembly of RS, Nedeljko Čubrilović, to revoke the charters of merit that the Organisational Committee for marking 25 years of the parliament's work awarded four years ago to Radovan Karadžić, Biljana Plavšić and Momčilo Krajišnik, who were convicted of war crimes by the Hague Tribunal. In the letter, Inzko gives an ultimatum to the first man of the parliament to revoke the charters of the convicted war criminals by the end of April, „whose actions during the armed conflict shocked the world and caused unimaginable human suffering,“ writes DW

Collective responsibility

„This act would correct the humiliation inflicted on the victims of war crimes, their families and all citizens of BiH, but also remove collective responsibility from the Serbian people, and by removing collective guilt and eliminating the burden of the past, the entire nation would be relieved and move much more easily towards the noble goals of the future, including EU accession,“ the letter states, among other things.

The polemic and fierce reactions in RS were sparked by Inzko's formulation attributing collective guilt to the Serbian people, which in RS they say will not be good for future dialogues. Analysts also point out that no nation has been assigned collective responsibility, not even after the crimes during World War II. Professor at the Faculty of Philosophy in Sarajevo, Enver Kazaz, does not dispute for a moment that glorifying people accused of war crimes should be prevented and condemned, but that imposing collective responsibility on one nation is absurd.

„It is impossible to speak of ethnic collective responsibility, but rather of political, institutional and individual responsibility for war crimes in the war in BiH. This stance by Inzko shows that he does not understand the problem of responsibility for war crimes. And it shows that Inzko is not up to the anthropological and ethnic level of discourse on war crimes. Such a stance does not distinguish him from domestic politicians who like to speak on behalf of their own nations,“ says Kazaz, stating that Inzko should apologise for the statement on collective responsibility.

“Relieving responsibility”

In initial reactions, Inzko tells DW that he did not impose collective responsibility, but that the RS imposed the burden of guilt on the Serbian people. He recalls that in October 2016, Karadžić, Plavšić i Krajišnik received three decorations and that the three of them “played a leading role in serious crimes against the Bosniak and Croatian population in the war in BiH”. 

"It was not me, but on 24 October 2016, the National Assembly of Republika Srpska imposed a heavy burden of guilt on the Serbian people, when it decorated three persons convicted of war crimes in the name of the Serbian people. Out of respect for the victims and their dignity, but also to relieve the Serbs of that burden, I sent a letter to the President of the RS Assembly to withdraw that step," Inzko told DW and emphasised that the discussion should focus on condemning the glorification of convicted war criminals and revoking the decorations, recalling that Karadžić is serving a life sentence and that Plavšić and Krajišnik have served long prison sentences, and that Krajišnik recently died from complications of a coronavirus infection.

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