Croatia: Reactions to the Karadžić Arrest

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Cover images from Jutarnji List and Slobodna Dalmacija

While not having suffered as severely as the Bosniaks at the hands of Radovan Karadžić, opinions amongst Croatians were varied, although most were pleased with his arrest and looked forward to the day when he will face trial. Here are some opinions from the Croatian blogosphere:

Tinolovka writes (HRV):

Sacrificed victims cannot return to life and it is difficult to bring a fair and appropriate judgment that would finally find satisfaction of all the evil that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina, it is hard to find consolation for Srebrenica, but this is a good start, only now they should not stop until all ultimately responsible stand before justice.

Tonique DeWeen writes (HRV) about his disbelief of Karadžić living in plain sight in Belgrade, yet not being found:

Such a scenario would not have even come up in Hollywood: a wanted war criminal hiding in the capital city under the false identity of an alternative medicine doctor who published papers in journals and appeared on TV, and nobody alive recognizes him?

Angel&Wolf takes steps (HRV) beyond cautious optimism to take a more pessimistic stance:

…I have an uncomfortable feeling that this is no longer important. The arrest of Radovan is a matter that will pass after a week and once again we shall all continue to enjoy what was the legacy of Radovan…

Žuta Minuta (“Yellow Minute”) recalls (HRV) life in Sarajevo during the war and her feelings the day Karadžić's capture was announced:

…the memory of my first true fear of war. It was a 1992. With my mother, brother and I we dwelt in the Sarajevo settlement of Dobrinja. […] So Radovan Karadzic did not celebrate Vidovdan [St. Vitus Day] in Dobrinja. In fact, perhaps he did, sometime later, but no one recognized him. I do not know in which moment I slept, but today the whole day I feel good and rested. Honestly, I lost faith that they would ever catch Radovan Karadzic, so I was delighted.

2 comments

  • george of dubrovnik

    Radovan Karadzic wanted to expand Serbia so does Croatia but both countries have a right to do so as serbs and croats lived there. the problem started with AustroH empire and Otoman empire who prevented creation and expansion of Serbs and Croats, who are native nations to Balkan peninsula. At the end communists and Tito also did not want expansion and Bosnia Kosovo Macedonia is created. Western countries through history created so called bosnian state to prevent creation of Croatia or Serbia. In the core Bosnian lands (between the Drina and Bosna rivers) was in a near-constant state of flux between Serb and Croat rule. In the twelfth century, a semi-independent Bosnian banovina arose which was characterised by a weak religious structure and unclear ethnic affiliation. It rose to become a powerful kingdom in the fourteenth century, when the designation Bo¿njani was first used to sometimes describe the kingdom’s inhabitants. It was probably a regional name derived from the river Bosna which flows through the heart of the country. Before the collapse of the Roman Empire, the river was called the Bosona by the native Illyrians, and some scholars speculate that the name Bosnia itself derives from this term. The Bosnian kingdom grew and expanded under the Kotromanic dynasty to include Croatian and Serbian territories. As a consequence, even more Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians dwelt within its borders, along with adherents of a native Bosnian Church whose origins and nature are a subject of continued debate among scholars. Those belonging to this sect simply called themselves Krstjani (“Christians”). no coherent religious identity developed in medieval Bosnia as it had in Croatia and Serbia. As the centuries passed, the Bosnian kingdom slowly began to decline. It had become fractured by increased political and religious disunity. By then, the Ottoman Turks had already gained a foothold in the Balkans; first defeating the Serbs at the Battle of Kosovo and expanding westward, the Turks eventually conquered all of Bosnia and portions of neighboring Croatia. These developments would alter Bosnian history forever, introducing an Islamic component into the already confounded Bosnian ethno-religious identity. The Bosnian Church would forever disappear, although the circumstances under which it did are as hotly debated as its nature and origins. Some historians contend that the Bosnian Krstjani converted en masse to Islam, seeking refuge from Catholic and Orthodox persecution, while others argue that the Bosnian Church had already ceased to operate many decades before the Turkish conquest. Whatever the case, a distinct Slavic Muslim community developed under Ottoman rule in Bosnia, giving rise to the modern Bosniaks. During the Austro-Hungarian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1878 to 1918, the administration of Benjamin Kallay, the Austro-Hungarian governor of Bosnia and Herzegovina, enforced the idea of a strengthened unitary Bosnian nation (Bosanci) that would incorporate Muslim Bosnians as well as the Bosnian Catholics and Bosnian Orthodox Christians, who at that time were slowly beginning to separate into distinct peoples which threatened to destabilize Bosnia. Kallay symbolized the new nation with a structured, modern introduction of an official Bosnian flag, Bosnian language and coat of arms. In this way the Bosnian distinctiveness was strengthened and more importantly underlined and distanced from Serbian and Croatian nationalist interests in Bosnia and Herzegovina

  • nina

    US government is fully responsible for the support of terrorist sepparatist mouvements in Macedonia, Montenegro, Bosnia, Croatia Nationalist forces in Serbia. They wanted to do everything they can to win over communism. And they created this small banana states with no economy, no infrastructure and have placed The Balkan Peninsula 10 to 15 years behind the rest of Europe. Still the people of Bosnia are suffering even after 15 16 years. BUSH Admin, EU and NAto have supported destruction of Yugoslavia as they wanted to end Milosevic communism. Instead of creating small states with no future US forces and NATO could create a new democratic Yugoslavia based upon native ethnic borders. Note Albanians in Kosovo are not native native they are poor immigrants from Albania who came to former Yugoslavia to live better. They never accepted Yugoslavia and they wanted to separate in 1989. As Mouslims across the world they will never accept their home countries. Same applies to UK, Germany, France Spain… And they want to separate. That is why all Western Gov should allow immigration of people who assimilate and accept language and country they came into. Radovan Karadzic blame lies in the fact that he killed innocent Serbs and Croats who after Otoman invasion and expansion of their empire in Europe accepted Islam. So he should be trial for MURDER of Innocent people and genocide of own population. That is something that EU AUStralia and USA should know. The full and inescapable responsibility of the U.S. government and the CIA

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