PRALJAK IN NEUM: The Prosecutor's Office emboldens genocide deniers and war crime glorifiers, while instead of Our Lady, criminals appear in Herzegovina!

By: A. Čorbo-Zećo

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The story, and with it the pressure on the Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina to prosecute genocide denial and glorification of war criminals, is slowly fading from the public eye again. After March 6, when the Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) announced that a case had been opened against Milorad Dodik, the President of Republika Srpska, for genocide denial, everything on this topic went quiet.

But, in essence, opening a case does not mean much, because according to the law, after a case is opened, the BiH Prosecutor's Office conducts an investigation, after which the prosecutor decides whether to file an indictment.

Then, the Court of BiH confirms or rejects the indictment. So, we are far from any potential legal consequences for Dodik, as well as for all others who deny genocide.

Thus, the Association Movement "Mothers of the Srebrenica and Žepa Enclaves" sent a letter to U.S. President Joe Biden requesting a meeting to discuss "repeated and persistent threats against the surviving victims of the Srebrenica genocide as well as against the stability of BiH."

Earlier, they also spoke on several occasions with Chief Prosecutor Milanko Kajganić, but all discussions ended with promises that were never fulfilled.

The BiH Prosecutor's Office uses the excuse that there is insufficient case law and that the imposed law is not precise enough.

They justify themselves at the BiH Prosecutor's Office by saying there have been no indictments due to the difficulty of proving the existence of a criminal offense.

„It is clear what constitutes the elements of the criminal offense, and in what manner this denial should be carried out, i.e., in a way that produces a consequence. And that is the difficult part,“ Kajganić will justify.

It is hard to shake the impression that after the imposition of the Criminal Law prohibiting the denial of genocide and the glorification of war criminals by the former High Representative in BiH, Valentin Inzko, the dance with devils began. And that dance is between the judiciary and the deniers, who are otherwise their political commanders.

So, Kajganić and other prosecutors 'dodge' the law and look for 'a hair in the egg,' thereby encouraging others to commit criminal acts.

One such act was recently committed by the President of the Federation of BiH, when she said she does not renounce friends, including war criminal Dario Kordić, concluding that he "presumably ceased to be a war criminal convict" after serving his sentence.

It did not occur to the prosecutors to initiate an ex officio investigation against Bradara, so it is expected that some new interpreter of 'war criminals' will appear, who will deny verdicts, equate the sides, all with the help of the BiH Prosecutor's Office.

Prosecutors could even go to Neum; they are often there for seminars, and on the way there, in Čapljina, Mostar, Široki Brijeg, Čitluk, they can find a mural dedicated to war criminal Slobodan Praljak.

Neum is the latest to have painted a war criminal, at the end of last year, without any public reaction. The mural is located on Kralja Tomislava Street, and the residents of Neum added an inscription next to the image of Slobodan Praljak that reads: “Every Croat will know, as long as he lives, General Praljak was not guilty!” A nice welcome for tourists from the interior coming to Neum for a summer vacation!

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the unbearable lightness of glorifying war criminals and denying genocide is on the scene; it has become the rule, so murals and the arrogance of politicians on TV screens justifying criminals should not surprise the citizens of BiH. Nevertheless, the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council (VSTV) should deal more and more deeply with the work of prosecutors, and not just monitor their statistics, which have always been only an accurate sum of inaccurate data!