Nebojša Kuzmanović Continues Tradition: Official Serbia's Love for its War Criminals

Who is Nebojša Kuzmanović, Deputy Provincial Secretary for Culture and Information of Vojvodina? For those interested and with a strong stomach, click on his blog address, for example. There you will find all sorts of things about this "engaged intellectual", Serbian media report, as reported by the Patria News Agency.

Starting with his thesis that Serbia is an "occupied country", from the end of 2015. How he agreed to be a deputy provincial secretary in an occupied country is not known to the public.

There, on that blog, you will also find his ode to Stojan Župljanin, a police executioner from the Banja Luka region, who was sentenced to 22 years in prison by the Hague Tribunal for war crimes in 20 Bosnian municipalities, including the crime at Korićanske Stijene, when more than 200 Bosniak prisoners from Prijedor and its surroundings were pushed down cliffs into an abyss.

Župljanin was arrested in 2008 in Pančevo, where he was heroically hiding. Kuzmanović says the following about him:

"Stojan's literature was created out of life's hardship and misfortune, and is dedicated to life...", he says in his review of some book by Župljanin that was "created in the Hague dungeons".

He also writes about Župljanin as a "Hague ascetic", and that these – convicted war criminals – will be "inscribed in golden letters in the memory of the Serbian people", and Župljanin himself will occupy one of the brightest places in that memory due to his "honor, honesty, and love".

Kuzmanović also says that Župljanin grew a mustache in the "dungeon", "as a sign of defiance and resistance to the prosecution", and recounts that he was welcomed in his cell with a modest offering: salmon, pork chops, honey coconut pie… He does not say where Stojan got the money for this feast, nor does he consider whether it might have been from all the victims who, during his rule in Bosanska Krajina, were first robbed and then killed, or, in the best-case scenario, robbed, tortured, and expelled.

And while Župljanin rots in the dungeon, Kuzmanović posts his photos on Facebook from visits to various countries, which are – all of them – in the hated EU, and in the even more hated NATO. Perhaps the man went there to undermine and occupy.

Dr. Kuzmanović also posted his photo with the Serbian Orthodox Church Patriarch Irinej with the comment: "With the blessing of the Serbian Patriarch Irinej for our Hague martyrs".

There, on that profile, is also his photo with the convicted war criminal, the murderer of Vukovar, Veselin Šljivančanin, at the promotion of his book with the bloody-cynical title "Son, Be a Man…".

It must be admitted that Kuzmanović, unlike his bosses, does not hide that he is fully consistent with the values of the nineties and family values born out of mass crimes, so a few years ago he sent his minor son to Siberia to a paramilitary camp, organized by the veterans' association "Patriotski front" (Patriotic Front).

There, children were taught to dig trenches, shoot, and throw grenades. There they were explained who the enemy of Orthodoxy is and who should be liquidated. When asked by a Radio Free Europe journalist why he did this, Kuzmanović said at the time that he wanted his son to be "raised in accordance with the traditions of our people".

It is evident that this is a tradition that will be nurtured in this provincial secretariat, and in the entire Vojvodina government in the next four years. But, let's not play dumb and be surprised: in a country where Nikolić is president, where Vučić is prime minister, and Šešelj is a favorite opposition figure – where Dmitrović is the editor-in-chief of the state newspaper, and Igor Mirović is the prime minister of a multinational province – it is completely logical that lovers of war criminals and paramilitary formations, along with priests of similar views, create cultural policy and "freedom of the media".