Milorad Dodik’s new announcements about the secession of Republika Srpska (RS) and the reactions in this entity and Serbia to the adoption of the resolution on the genocide in Srebrenica in the United Nations (UN) caused a series of reactions in which conservative and nationalist organizations called on citizens to organize their own “defense”. At the same time, fabricated documents of official calls for conscription appeared. These cases show how misinformation can affect security.
A statement calling on “patriots” to self-organize because they cannot trust institutions and international forces and issued by the Bosnian/Bosniak National Council, a not-so-well-knownorganization from Sarajevo led by a war crimes indictee, spread in just a few hours to dozens of groups and a page on the social network Facebook where most of members are returnees from the Podrinje area. That announcement caused panic, and it was shared hundreds of times on other Facebook profiles, as well as other social networks.
In a statement, the Council states that “in accordance with the general situation in the country, citizens cannot trust institutions that are predominantly managed by the descendants of former war criminals” and calls on “patriots to prevent rampages, thefts, attacks on citizens, institutions and individuals”, and the Armed Forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina (AFBiH) remind of responsibility.
Today, the council is headed by Mahir Zisko, who is currently on trial for war crimes before the Court of BiH. He says that he published the statement a few days after Milorad Dodik’s threats.
“We warned that we don’t want the scenario from 1991 to repeat,” says Zisko and adds that he called on citizens to self-organize only if the institutions do not do their job.
“What should we do, stick a finger in our ear and our head in the sand and wait”, says Zisko, who is on trial with nine other people for attacking a column, killing, wounding, and abusing members of the Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA) in Dobrovoljacka Street in Sarajevo in 1992.
This announcement, one of several similar ones that called for self-organization in the past week, also led to the reaction of the vice president of RS. The former mayor of Srebrenica Camil Durakovic released a video message trying to calm the citizens, especially the Bosniaks in Srebrenica.
A series of other similar announcements alarmed citizens, and at the same time, fake recruitment calls appeared, forcing official institutions to deny that they had sent any such calls.
Such behavior constitutes a criminal or misdemeanor offense, points out professor of criminology and security studies Nedzad Korajlic. He explains that citizens who do this are mostly unaware of the consequences that such speech can bring.
Mayor of Srebrenica, Adnan Bijelic, called on citizens not to fall for false messages and misinformation and to inform themselves through official communication channels, Detektor reports.
E.Dz.
