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Milenko Savanovic, the minister of labour and veterans’ affairs in Bosnia’s Serb-dominated entity Republika Srpska said on Thursday that the commemoration of the killings on May 3, 1992 will not be held this year at the place where it happened, Dobrovoljacka Street in Sarajevo.
Savanovic said that “the security situation is inadequate” and the ceremony needs protection from large numbers of police officers, so to avoid possible provocations, it will be held this year in Miljevici in East Sarajevo.
East Sarajevo is part of Republika Srpska, while the capital is in the Bosniak- and Croat-dominated Federation entity of the country.
Last year’s commemoration in Dobrovoljacka Street passed off without incident, but afterwards, a municipal refuse worker put the flowers and candles in a garbage container, causing outrage among some members of the public.
Savanovic also complained that the local authorities in the capital had not allowed them to install a memorial or hold a proper religious service at the site.
“The cantonal authorities did not allow us to erect a memorial board with the names of all the people who were killed,” he said.
“We are unable to perform an Orthodox religious ceremony in an adequate manner according to Christian customs at that location in Dobrovoljacka Street. We will not go to Sarajevo until they allow us to do those things,” he added.
On May 3, 1992, a Yugoslav People’s Army column was attacked in Dobrovoljacka Street as it was pulling out of Sarajevo and several soldiers were killed or wounded.
Nobody has been tried for their deaths as yet.
As a result of an ongoing investigation in Serbia, two suspects have been detained – Ejup Ganic was arrested in Britain and Jovan Divjak in Austria.
But courts in Britain and Austria decided not to extradite them to Serbia, but to Bosnia and Herzegovina, where a parallel investigation into the Dobrovoljacka Street violence is ongoing.
Despite promises by Bosnian state prosecution officials, no indictment has been filed as yet, however.
Meanwhile the question of installing a memorial at the site of the soldiers’ deaths on Dobrovoljacka Street has long been a matter of dispute.
