INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY AND FBiH AUTHORITIES SILENT ON ATTACKS ON SERB RETURNEES

SARAJEVO, JULY 28 /SRNA/ - Milorad Kojić /SNSD/, a member of the House of Representatives of the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH, told SRNA today that it is very concerning that neither the authorities of the Federation of BiH /FBiH/ nor representatives of the so-called international community have responded or mentioned any sanctions against the vandals who have recently attacked Serb returnees in that entity and desecrated Serb cemeteries and Orthodox holy sites.

Regarding the increasingly frequent attacks on Serb returnees and the desecration of Orthodox cemeteries, often occurring during Serbian Orthodox religious holidays, Kojić warned that it is clear this behavior has become normalized among Bosniaks in the FBiH. This is due to the absence of a system to punish these offenders and the lack of reaction from the international community. According to him, under the Dayton framework of BiH, all peoples, whether in the Federation of BiH or Republika Srpska, have the full right to sustainable return and to freely practice their religion. "This is something completely normal in Republika Srpska. However, the tacit approval of attacks on returnees, through the failure to punish the perpetrators, has become truly alarming in the Federation. It can be seen as a serious form of pressure aimed at forcing Serbs to completely withdraw from the territory of the Federation, to abandon their ancestral homes, or to sell their property for peanuts," Kojić said. This, he emphasizes, is a classic example of the "Kosovo system," and if such a perverse and inhumane system continues to go unpunished by the prosecutor's office and police in the Federation of BiH, there is a serious threat of the complete ethnic cleansing of Serbs from the territory of the Federation in peacetime.