Izetbegovic Posters in Lukavica, Cosic Backs Author
On the anniversary of the death of Bosnia's wartime presidency chairman, unsigned posters appeared in East Sarajevo, and Mayor Ljubisa Cosic says he supports whoever put them up.
East Sarajevo Mayor Ljubisa Cosic said on October 19 that he supports the unknown author of posters accusing Alija Izetbegovic, which went up in Lukavica that morning, on the 23rd anniversary of Izetbegovic’s death. East Sarajevo lies in Republika Srpska, the entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina that borders Serbia, and the message is aimed at a politician whose name is still tied to the war in that country.
What do the posters in Lukavica say?
According to Index, the posters appeared in Lukavica in East Sarajevo. Srna reports in its own article that billboards with Izetbegovic’s photograph were put up in the municipalities of Istocno Novo Sarajevo and Istocna Ilidza, so the two sources do not describe the location in the same way.
The message is written in Cyrillic, with an English translation in Latin script beneath it. It reads: “Twenty-three years later, bloody hands have not been washed clean by death, nor have those responsible for crimes against the Serb people been forgotten.” The photograph is accompanied by two dates, October 19, 2003 and October 19, 2026, the day Izetbegovic died and the day the posters went up.
The posters do not say who put them up, Index reports. The visible part of Srna’s article does not say either, and the rest is available only to that agency’s subscribers.
What did Mayor Cosic say?
Reporters from the portal Klix.ba called Cosic to ask whether he knew anything about the posters. According to Index, he did not, because he had gone straight to work that morning. When they read him what the posters say, he replied:
“This morning I went straight to work, so I didn’t see the posters, but if someone put them up, well done to them.”
He then accused Izetbegovic of crimes against Serbs, and Index quotes his words in full:
“His death prevented his prosecution for crimes against Serbs. He was the chief organizer of everything bad that happened to us. He probably didn’t know much of it himself, but command responsibility applies to him too. After all, I remember him for rejecting the peace under which we in Bosnia were supposed to stay in a truncated Yugoslavia. He accepted it by noon, then rejected it. I don’t have a good opinion of him.”
Cosic offered a personal judgment rather than a fact: the sources cited here mention no verdict or indictment against Izetbegovic, so the claim about a prevented prosecution rests solely on his statement.
Who was Alija Izetbegovic?
Izetbegovic died in Sarajevo on October 19, 2003. During the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina he was chairman of the Presidency of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and after the Dayton Agreement was signed he became a member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The articles we reviewed contain no reaction from Sarajevo to the posters, and no information on whether any institution has opened an inquiry into who put them up.
