On this date 32 years ago, on May 2, 1992, a crucial battle for the defense of Sarajevo took place in Skenderija, when units of the then Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA) tried to occupy the building of the Presidency of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (RBiH).
The battle in which Sarajevo was defended on May 2, 1992, better known as the Battle for the Presidency of the RBiH, was crucial for the defense of the capital, but also for the defense of the independence and integrity of the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Tanks and armored personnel carriers of the then JNA were stopped by the efforts of defenders gathered in the Territorial Defense of the RBiH and the MUP of the RBiH, on Skenderija, about a hundred meters from the building of the Presidency of the RBiH. The occupation of the Presidency building was prevented, but the siege of Sarajevo lasted for more than 1,400 days in full view of the whole world, during which citizens were killed by mortar shells, sniper shots, anti-aircraft weapons, they were without water, electricity, gas, and food, which was confirmed by the judgments of the Hague court.
On the same day, May 2, 1992, the JNA captured the then President of the RBiH Presidency, Alija Izetbegović, and the delegation, who were returning from negotiations in Lisbon, at the Sarajevo airport. Then they were taken to Lukavica.
This event was a prelude to what would happen the following day, May 3, when the JNA began withdrawing units from the Bistrik barracks. After negotiations, the exchange of Izetbegović was agreed.
On May 2, 1992, television footage went around the world in which President Izetbegović announced in a program that he had been kidnapped and that he was not allowed to enter the BiH Presidency building.
Photos and videos of the burning trams on Skenderija, in the center of Sarajevo, as well as the explosion of a grenade at the corner of Dalmatinska and Titova streets, opposite the Central Bank of BiH building, went around the world.
On the same day, the Main Post Office in Sarajevo was set on fire, and 45,600 telephone connections were out of order.
For one of the longest sieges in history and the terrorizing of the population of the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, among other things, the former president of Republika Srpska (RS) Radovan Karadžić, as well as the commander of the RS Army, Ratko Mladić, and former commander Stanislav Galić of the Sarajevo-Romanian Corps of the RS Army, while Dragomir Milošević, who took command of the Sarajevo-Romanian Corps of the RS Army in 1994, was sentenced to 29 years.
The former president of Serbia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milošević, was also accused at the Hague Tribunal for crimes committed in Sarajevo, but he died during the trial in March 2006, after which the process was suspended.
Biljana Plavšić, the former president of the RS, pleaded guilty to participating, among other things, in the crimes in Sarajevo, after which she was sentenced to 11 years in prison, BHRT writes.
