Balkans

Around Gavrilo Princip’s home village in Bosnia, disputes over whether he was a hero or a terrorist have raised tensions ahead of the centenary of the outbreak of World War I.

A witness said that ex-fighter Marinko Bjelica, on trial for war crimes in Kalinovik, vowed to commit murder at a school where Bosniaks were detained, in order to avenge his two sons.

Bosnia’s Federation entity has adopted a set of anti-corruption laws, which aim to establish specific law-enforcement bodies tasked with pursuing perpetrators of organised crime.

The defence for former Bosnian Army soldier Edin Dzeko, charged with executing six Croats in 1993, said that witnesses who accused him of the killings were lying to avoid prosecution.

All war crimes trials must be public, as well as the full names of the perpetrators, while the current practice of ‘anonymisation’ of suspects should end, a conference in Sarajevo heard.

The budgets of Bosnia’s two entities face trouble since a planned tranche of money from an IMF stand-by arrangement was blocked.

A hundred years on from the Sarajevo assassination, schools in former Yugoslav countries are teaching different histories about the causes of the 1914-18 war, reflecting more recent conflicts.

The trial of seven Bosnian Serbs charged with taking part in murders, illegal detentions, torture and other inhumane acts against Bosniaks and Croats in Kotor Varos will begin this month.

Nihad Bojadzic, the former deputy commander of the Bosnian Army’s Zulfikar Squad, said that he was not told about an attack on the village of Trusina, where 22 Croats were killed.

Several opposition parties in Republika Srpska have formed a united ‘Union for Changes’, which aims to take on the governing Alliance of Independent Social Democrats, led by Milorad Dodik, in Bosnia’s upcoming elections.