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Up to 300 people protested in Sarajevo on Friday in support of Atif Dudakovic and 12 other former Bosnian Army troops who are accused by the state prosecution of crimes against humanity and war crimes against Serbs and Bosniaks.
The protesters held signs and banners with the slogan reading “Heroes, not criminals”, as well as Bosnian Army flags.
One of the organisers, Nihad Alickovic from the AntiDayton movement, said that Dudakovic and the others were wrongfully arrested.
“I think the arrest is a form of attack on justice and truth, and it is an attempt to equate aggression and defence,” said Alickovic.
Samir Petrovic, a former Bosnian Army serviceman who was decorated for bravery, also insisted the arrests were unjust.
“We are sending a clear message, we will not accept those who falsify history,” Petrovic said.
Bosnia’s Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, Muharem Fiso, said that it was sad that Sarajevo has had to “defend the honour of honorable generals”.
“Justice will triumph,” he added.
Protests in support of the men have also been held in Dudakovic’s hometown Bihac and other towns around the country this week.
Dudakovic, along with 11 other officers and soldiers of the Bosnian Army’s Fifth Corps, was arrested on May 27 on suspicion of having committed war crimes against Serbs and Bosniaks in 1994 and 1995.
The alleged war crimes involve several hundred casualties, including civilians and captured Serb soldiers from Bosnia’s Western Krajina municipalities in 1995, as well as crimes against Bosniak civilians from the Autonomous Province of Western Bosnia, a self-proclaimed Bosniak-led wartime breakaway statelet, in 1994.
In 2009, media in Bosnia and Serbia broadcast a videotape that apparently showed Dudakovic giving an order of “fire” or “burn it all”, referring to a Serb village during a military operation in 1994.
Dudakovic dismissed the footage as “part of the propaganda war that is still ongoing, and is nothing new”.
After the broadcast of the video however, a criminal complaint was filed against Dudakovic by the then president of Bosnia’s Serb-dominated entity Republika Srpska, Dragan Cavic, and the entity’s then prime minister, Milorad Dodik.
Dudakovic was a popular Bosniak military commander and during the Bosnian war commanded the Bihac enclave in north-west Bosnia. After the war, he became the general commander of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina army.
