At the entrance to Istocno Sarajevo at the end of June, a sign was placed with the inscription “Welcome to Istocno Sarajevo, the city of 157.000 Serbs who had to leave Sarajevo.” An unknown person crossed out the inscription with black spray and wrote another message.
Namely, over the inscription on the sign that should mark the entrance to Istocno Sarajevo it was written “Krajisnik forced us”, alluding to the then chairman of the National Assembly, Momcilo Krajisnik.
On December 17th, three days after the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement, at the 56th session of the body he chaired, Krajisnik discussed the emigration of the Serbian population from Sarajevo.
“That is why we need time for a political solution, and in the end a separation. Ultimately, the best solution is for Sarajevo to move out and for a location to be found for people to settle down and for us to settle there, and if there is any danger with that buckle to unfasten it,” Krajisnik said then.
Some of Krajisnik’s remembered and recorded words are: “Don’t stay in Alija’s country. Leave and move to the Republika Srpska (RS). If my house in Zabrdje was handed over to the Federation, then what are you doing there?”
After the war, during an interview he gave to the media when asked about the departure of the Serbs from Sarajevo, he said that it was not wise for the Serbs to leave.
“Looking from this point of view and the circumstances as they are, perhaps it would have been better if the Serbs had stayed in their homes,” he said.
The mayor of Sarajevo, Benjamina Karic, filed a criminal complaint against the mayor of Istocno Sarajevo Ljubisa Cosic due to putting up that sign at the entrance to Istocno Sarajevo, stating that he is responsible for the criminal offense of “Publicly causing or inciting national, racial, or religious hatred, discord, or intolerance among constituent peoples and Others, as well as all others living or residing in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH)”, Klix.ba reports.
E.Dz.
photo: Klix.ba
