A politician is not forgiven if he admits the genocide in Srebrenica – the world

Judging by what he says, they are evaluations, Stanivuković is not willing to leave the spiral of nationalism. The latest in a series of statements is: “My country is the Republika Srpska, not RS for short, as the entity is called in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.” “Serbia is the mother, and Kosovo and Metohija are part of Serbia,” Stanivuković said.

It does not recognize either the Hague Court or the verdicts handed down to Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic.

“That court hurt my people,” he says, and to him, he says, “Uncle Mitch is a finished story.”

The elected mayor of Banja Luka does not even admit that a genocide took place in Srebrenica, because, as he says, the intention to exterminate the people, which is by definition genocide, was not there.

“The problem is that the issue is politicized,” says Stanivuković, who calls himself a modern politician who “loves all other people and does not run from mistakes.”

And he says he will come to Srebrenica when he feels he needs it.

These are differences in nuances, Tanja Topic, a Banja Luka political analyst, told Danas.

“The dominant narrative in the Republika Srpska is clearly national and, as a politician, he is not forgiven if he acknowledges the genocide in Srebrenica and if he does not emphasize love for the ‘mother’ of Serbia, and if he is not a good believer. That position on the denial of genocide and the disparagement of the Hague Tribunal is also official. Without that, I should not even think about a significant success in the elections, even if they were local. “

Topic also notes that “human rights admirers are (perceived as) a product of the hated West and the ideas they represent are not gladly accepted. Following the logic of local political figures, they are undesirable and not in the spirit of the people where they come from ”.

The interlocutor from Banja Luka remembers that Stanivuković built a campaign against corruption, addressing the little man.

He had “excursions” during the campaign, according to Topic, in which he expressed respect for the Chetnik movement.

“For him, the Chetnik movement is the first anti-fascist movement of World War II. I think ideological and political indoctrination played a key role in this part of his views, along with national homogenization and religious influence, because it is difficult to explain otherwise that a guy who does not remember the war, who has no idea of ​​ideologies, has such rigid and conservative points of view. He explains his points of view by the nature of the people from whom he comes. “

Stanivuković’s remarks do not surprise Vehid Šehić, co-chair of the Igman Initiative for Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In a statement to Danas, Šehić estimates that after the local elections, Banja Luka underwent changes in the political sense, but that the essential ones related to some moral changes were not experienced by Banja Luka, nor by many cities in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

“Stanivuković is a young politician who was raised, raised and educated at the same time, and learned what he says in school. He is a young man, he has a lot of other information at his disposal, so it is not surprising that he does not accept that the Srebrenica crime be called by name, as determined by the International Criminal Court in The Hague and the International Court of Justice in The Hague, which is genocide. ” .

Even in the declaration adopted by the Assembly of the Republic of Serbia, our interlocutor from Bosnia and Herzegovina reminds us, condemns the great crime that took place in Srebrenica, and “as determined by the International Court of Justice in The Hague, which declared clearly that genocide was committed. ” .

On the other hand, Sehic emphasizes that in Bosnia and Herzegovina there is still no disposition “to face the facts about everything that happened during the 1992-1995 war.”

Everyone has their own point of view, he says, “You will often hear three truths even though common sense dictates that there may be three truths but only one truth. And these are often half-truths that can sometimes be more destructive than even lies. “

He notes that he is not surprised by the attitude “in which we do not have the human courage to look the truth in the eye about everything that happened in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in our region”.

So, he points out, essentially nothing has changed, and on the other hand, there are attempts to revise WWII history not just on the political scene but sadly in textbooks as well: “that some others were anti-fascists and not a partisan movement created by the Yugoslav People’s Liberation Movement. “

As he underlines, we are fortunate that the truth about that war exists in European and world history, “regardless of whether they try to falsify documents, they will not succeed because others also wrote down everything that happened in Europe and the world during World War II. . war. “

Sehic points out that “we live in a country where we have the names of streets, squares, institutions after people who were on the side of fascism and Nazism in World War II.” Can someone be a national hero who sided with such ideologies that were disguised in the laws of war, they are automatically criminal ideologies? “Someone is trying to justify something that cannot be justified,” says our interlocutor.

“At the same time, many leaders assure us that they are on the European path and that the European value is anti-fascism. Unfortunately, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the political sense, antifascism does not exist yet and it is hypocritical when some people celebrate antifascist parties and then glorify some who were against antifascism in that period. So, unfortunately, this is our reality: the moral fall that we live, the truth that it is not a category of value in our lives and, therefore, no one should be surprised why the situation is like this with young people who should still think in the past and the future in a different way. “.

What are the changes in terms of values? Sehic wonders, if, as he puts it, we have the same vision of “some false heroes from our past, so it will be a long time before we realize that the truth it is the only real cure for all our internal problems. ” even individually and as a society “.

It is an indisputable fact, he points out, that in a war everyone commits crimes.

“Somewhere it is an ideology, somewhere you cannot control some crimes, but you have to punish them. But justifying any crime is absolutely unacceptable in civilization.”

Stanivuković, as he himself said, advocates that “Banja Luka be open, a city friendly to all”, but, he says, that as long as he is at the head of that city, the gay parade will not be organized.

According to Tanja Topic, it seems that Stanivukovic demonstrated with this statement that he is not the mayor of all citizens and that “by fighting his opposite, he became the same.”

“A man who fought for the liberation of the Krajina square in Banja Luka for his citizens, would now forbid for his political life a walk for those who disagree with the people and religion. Although he is not the one who gives the green light in this case ”.

“They all swear to God, they are all supposed believers. I will quote a man who is a moral refreshment for me on the world stage, and that is Pope Francis who, when asked how he sees people as gay, said ‘who it’s me to judge them. ‘Therefore, no one has the right to condemn human beings in this way, “says Vehid Šehić.

Everyone, he adds, “and especially those who declare themselves religious, forget that God is the master of the world.” However, many have taken God away so they decide the fate of people forgetting that they are all beings of God. If we saw them as beings of God, then we would not have such attitudes towards a certain part of the population. “

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