The verdict today by the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY) is that Radovan Karadžić committed genocide during his effort to create a Serb state in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is yet another confirmation that the so-called “Republic of the Serbs” committed genocide at its founding. Genocide had to be committed, simply because it would be impossible to establish a Serb state on any territory within Bosnia and Herzegovina without first “cleansing” that territory of non-Serbs, as every part of Bosnia and Herzegovina was ethnically mixed. As a result of both its origins in genocide, as well as its continued existence and action after the war, the “Republic of the Serbs” is ethnically clean to this day.

Clearly, the abomination that is the “Republic of the Serbs” cannot be allowed to exist in this world. We cannot allow it to continue to victimize the survivors of genocide. We cannot allow it to be a reward for Radovan Karadžić and his associates, an embodiment of their terrible criminal acts. We cannot allow its blood-stained flag to hang in front of burial grounds of victims of genocide, and in front of courts where the children of murdered parents have no hope of getting justice. The police of the “Republic of the Serbs,” the very force that executed the genocide, as proven in front of the International Court of Justice, cannot remain in charge of investigating past and ongoing crimes committed against non-Serbs. All of Bosnia and Herzegovina cannot continue to be an apartheid state, where a person’s basic rights depend on matching up their ethnicity and their address, and where Jews, Gypsies and our best citizens who refuse to declare their ethnicity, have no rights at all.

So in this moment we call all those who consider themselves friends of Bosnia and Herzegovina, friends of the victims of genocide committed by Radovan Karadžić, and believers in the moral and common sense principle that genocide should not be rewarded with legalization and recognition, to stand with us and clearly declare their support for the abolition of the “Republic of the Serbs.” That is the only meaningful and just response to the terrible crime of genocide.

And we consider those who choose to remain silent, and stop short of calling for the abolition of the “Republic of the Serbs,” and restoration of a non-apartheid, united Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as accepting the legalization of the results of genocide, and therefore effectively collaborating with Radovan Karadžić.

Tarik Borogovac, National Congress of The Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina

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