Izetbegović's "Plan B": Cameraman Kebo and War on the Japanese

Defending his party colleague Huso Ćesir, who attacked Žurnal's cameraman Adi Kebo, the SDA president said: “We had an incident yesterday or the day before, Huso Ćesir attacked the cameraman. Actually, he attacked the camera, not the man, but he was grabbing the camera, hitting the camera. And then a 'fuss' was raised, you know, now every politician has to race to condemn Huso Ćesir.”

Izetbegović is right to condemn the silence of those who have not devoted even half an hour of their many years of parliamentary life to protecting the journalistic profession in Bosnia and Herzegovina, even though they had both the opportunity and the means to improve journalism standards in BiH, rather than dragging it into the mire it is in now. However, Izetbegović's trivialization of Ćesir's attack on Kebo is utterly pointless, arrogant, and more than rude.

Izetbegović, indeed, more out of courtesy, said he condemns any kind of violence, but he tried to downplay the whole affair with Ćesir and Kebo, to make it seem not so serious, more politicized, by putting forward the thesis that Ćesir “actually did not attack the man, but attacked the camera.”

If we accept Izetbegović's thesis that “Ćesir did not attack the man, but attacked the camera,” then we must also understand that all the rage and curses Ćesir directed were not aimed at the camera operator Kebo, but at Takeshi Mitarai, Goro Yoshida, and other founders of Canon, who in 1937 in Tokyo invented that strange device that records people, animals, and Huso Ćesir's private company, and today, it even affects the mood of Izetbegović and SDA members, who lose their nerves in the presence of a camera and then make a blunder.

But, even if we accept Izetbegović's thesis that “Ćesir did not attack the man, but attacked the camera,” and that all the rage and curses Ćesir directed were not aimed at the camera operator Kebo, but at Takeshi Mitarai, Goro Yoshida, and other founders of Canon, who 82 years ago in some Tokyo garage invented that strange device that records people, animals, and Huso Ćesir's private company, this by no means means we have solved the problem of the SDA member's attack on a media worker; on the contrary, we have entered a different kind of problem. Ćesir, namely, in these new circumstances, misaddressed the criminal complaint after the incident. In the criminal complaint he submitted to the Sarajevo Canton Prosecutor's Office, Ćesir did not place all responsibility for the recording of his company Bosnaplast on the camera, or on Fujio Mitarai, the executive director of Canon, but on the camera operator, Adi Kebo. Although Kebo, according to Izetbegović's understanding, was not the target of the attack, but merely the holder and operator of the camera, who found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time while Ćesir was settling scores with the camera, it is absurd, you will admit, that the unfortunate cameraman now has to prove his role before a misdemeanor judge.

Two possible outcomes of the event, which will burden the Sarajevo court this hot summer and keep readers in suspense: either the Sarajevo judiciary ignores the fact that Kebo is merely the holder and operator of the camera, and, although he was not the subject of the conflict between Ćesir and the camera, still imposes some decent fine on him and thus puts a checkmark on Ć, or the prosecutor's office accepts a plea deal with Kebo, in which he would be the key witness in the entire case, while all the SDA's artillery would be aimed at the world's largest camera manufacturer - Japanese Canon.

Given Izetbegović and the SDA's previous acumen, and the very bad, almost hopeless situation in which Bosnia and Herzegovina and its citizens find themselves at this moment, under the synchronized attack of internal and external fascists, it is quite possible that this has been the strategy of Ćesir, Izetbegović, and the SDA from the start: “We will declare war on the Japanese, and then we will surrender.” Because, better to be occupied by rich Japan than, say, once again by poor Serbia and Croatia.