SNSD seeks sanctions for organizers of White Armband Day, Bosniak councilors leave session

PRIJEDOR, (Patria) - DF and SDA councilors left the 18th session of the Prijedor City Assembly after they were not allowed to address the session, reports the Patria News Agency.

Namely, the head of the SNSD councilor club, Dragoslav Kabić, requested at the session that the organizers of the White Armband Day commemoration in Prijedor be sanctioned, claiming that it was all Bosniak propaganda and that Bosniaks and Croats never had to wear white armbands in Prijedor.

The SNSD councilor in the city assembly was given four minutes to speak about "alleged Bosniak propaganda," and when the DF and SDA councilors requested to be allowed to respond, that right was denied to them.

After that, councilors from these parties, Mirsad Duratović (DF), Mesud Trnjanin, Sabahudin Garibović, and Ajdin Mešić (SDA), decided to leave the session.

- Although the SNSD and the assembly majority postponed the City Assembly session last year at my request, which was supposed to be held on May 31st, White Armband Day, this year they showed all the duplicity of the policy they pursue, depending on daily political needs and the use of sensitive topics for electoral purposes.

The Hague Tribunal determined that Bosniaks and Croats had to wear white armbands, but that is not enough for the city authorities. This is a continuation of the denial of war crimes by the authorities in Prijedor – DF councilor Mirsad Duratović told the Patria agency after leaving the session.

Mesud Trnjanin, head of the SDA club in the city assembly, believes that this insults all the victims from Prijedor.

- We are outraged by such public statements and the abuse of the assembly podium to present falsehoods and insult all non-Serb victims from Prijedor from the period 1992-1995, for the purpose of an election campaign – Trnjanin told Patria.

We remind you that after the commemoration of White Armband Day in Prijedor on May 31st, the City Board of SNSD issued a statement saying that the White Armband Day event is held "without any valid evidence and arguments."

SNSD believes that "tying a white armband was a wartime identification mark for Serbian armed members in the defense of the city of Prijedor on May 30 and 31, 1992."

The crisis headquarters of Bosnian Serbs, on May 31, 1992, via local radio, called on Bosniaks and Croats to mark their houses with white sheets and to wear white armbands when leaving their homes.

During the war in Prijedor, according to official data, 3,137 people were killed, including 256 women and 102 children. More than 30,000 people passed through Prijedor's camps.