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The Chetnik rally in Visegrad in March 2019. Photo courtesy of Fokus.ba.
The Bosnian state prosecution said on Thursday that it has filed an indictment charging Dusan Sladojevic, alias Krvce or Cica, Slavko Aleksic, alias Vojvoda, and Risto Lecic with inciting hatred between Bosnia and Herzegovina’s main ethnic groups at a rally in Visegrad.
Members of the Ravna Gora Movement – widely known as the Chetniks – rallied in Visegrad on March 10, 2019 wearing black uniforms and reportedly singing ethnically provocative songs.
The indictment alleges that the three suspects participated in incidents that “caused distress and fear among the population in Bosnia and Herzegovina, particularly [post-war] returnees and residents of Visegrad and the surrounding places, by playing and singing a song expressing threats or violence”.
AFP news agency reported at the time that the Chetniks were filmed singing that “the River Drina will be bloody again”. Visegrad, which is located by the River Drina, was the scene of war crimes by Serbs against Bosniaks in 1992.
The indictment alleges that Sladojevic, Aleksic and Lecic with “caused ethnic, racial and religious hatred, discord and intolerance between the constitutive peoples [Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs] and others”.
The Chetnik rally is held annually to commemorate the day on which Dragoljub ‘Draza’ Mihailovic, the leader of the World War II Chetnik movement, was caught by the Yugoslav Communist authorities in 1946.
During WWII, Mihailovic’s forces committed war crimes and other atrocities, including crimes against Bosniaks in the Visegrad region.
He was executed in Belgrade in 1946 but was controversially rehabilitated by a Serbian court in 2015 on the grounds that his trial under the Communist regime was politically motivated.
The indictment of the three men has been filed to the Bosnian state court for confirmation.
Another case focusing on the Ravna Gora Movement’s activities on Orthodox Christmas Eve in January 2020 is also being investigated.
After marking the religious holiday, Chetnik supporters formed a car convoy and drove around honking horns and blasting out traditional Serb songs. The convoy passed close to the Srebrenica Memorial Centre in Potocari, and through the towns of Bratunac and Visegrad.
Prosecutors are investigating a possible case of incitement of ethnic and religious hatred and intimidation of Bosniaks who returned to live in the area again after fleeing during the war.
