RS authorities sent invitation to Arkan's Tigers for January 9

The RS has requested that commanders of the “Tigers,” the unit of the murdered Željko Ražnjatović Arkan, come on January 9 for the so-called RS Day. Sources say that in Banja Luka it is being said that a helicopter was also promised to bring them to the central celebration. All this happens after the Prosecutor's Office of Serbia announced that it had launched an investigation into the crimes committed by that unit in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia. Unfortunately, this is only confirmation of the point to which Milorad Dodik, the organizer of this spectacle, has come.

More than 19 years since the Tribunal indictment

Even 24 years later, an investigation begins into the unit that practically turned the world against the regime of Slobodan Milošević and his accomplice from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Radovan Karadžić. After the open crimes in Bijeljina and the shocking photographs of the famous Ron Haviv, nothing was the same as before. In Bijeljina, the whole world could then see how JNA General Marijan Praščević reported to the alleged outlaw Arkan. That was a shock. However, the Tribunal exposed such misconceptions.

So, why was the investigation totally delayed in Serbia? Because Serbian investigators also confirmed that it was a unit in the service and under the direct control of the Ministry of Interior of Serbia. This was confirmed in a statement by the then top police officer of Serbia, Radovan Stojčić Badža, who was then killed on April 11, 1997. Only five months later, an indictment was filed against Željko Ražnjatović Arkan at the Tribunal. Only 19 years after the indictment was filed by the Tribunal, the Serbian Prosecutor's Office launched its own investigation. In the Hague indictment, there is evidence of Arkan as an officer of the state police and the Tigers as a unit within the Ministry of Interior of Serbia.

Arkan would never have come under the scrutiny of Serbia's judiciary if an acquittal had been handed down to the two heads of Serbia's state security, Franko Simatović and Jovica Stanišić, the superiors of all of Milošević's so-called paramilitary units. Their trial was reopened precisely because the Serbian Prosecutor's Office never initiated an investigation or any serious punishment for the crimes committed by these units.

Serbia will have to start punishing the perpetrators of war crimes if it wants to avoid absolute blame being placed on its police and security leadership. This would open countless cases dangerous for the state of Serbia.

Karadžić, Krajišnik and Arkan's Tigers

That is precisely why the invitation to the Tigers from the authorities of Banja Luka could be considered shocking. The crimes of Arkan's unit also reach the political leadership of Republika Srpska, especially Radovan Karadžić, whose trial is currently ongoing and will certainly further confirm the stance that it is a criminal entity within Bosnia and Herzegovina.

On January 1, 1992, more than four months before the attack on Sarajevo, in an intercepted telephone conversation with Momčilo Krajišnik, Radovan Karadžić clearly said: „We will let our tigers loose, let them do their job.“

Thus, eight days before the alleged proclamation of Republika Srpska on January 9 at the Holiday Inn Hotel, plans for crime and aggression were made and only needed approval. Karadžić announces this clearly and loudly.