| 26 November 2009
A REFUTATION OF ACCUSATIONS BY MS. LOMIGORA & PARTS OF THE BOSNIAK COMMUNITY AGAINST SWEDISH F. M. CARL BILT
The reactions to the early release of Biljana Plavšić from the Swedish Prison, after serving two-thirds of her ICTY-delivered sentence for war crimes in Bosnia, show that passions in the Balkans have not yet settled and that vengeful feelings arising from the war still fly high. The article by Selma Lomigora, accusing the Swedish Foreign Minister, Carl Bildt, for somehow conniving with Biljana Plavšić to secure her release, shows just how difficult it can be for academics to distance themselves from the passions arising from war-time victimisation.
Biljana Plavšić is an 80-year old woman, who participated in the top echelon of the Bosnian Serbian leadership during the Bosnian civil war 1991-95. As such, she simply had to be counted responsible for the decisions taken by that leadership, regardless of any personal involvement in their execution. Some of the statements she made during the war, in the frenzy of nationalism in the Western Balkans, at least seem to suggest that she condoned the policies that led to crimes committed by the Serbian side in the conflict. For this, she was sentenced, not least leniently, and spent years at this late stage in her life among thieves, robbers and killers, in a cell that only had artificial ventilation, in a prison far away from the family and friends, in Sweden.
| 25 November 2009
The most shocking news in the Western Balkans lately, is the early release of the war crime criminal Biljana Plavsic. Mrs. Plavsic, former president of Republika Srpska, had served two thirds of her sentence in a Swedish prison. The decision was made by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in compliance with Swedish law. The main rule in Swedish law provides that conditional release takes place when the convicted person has served two thirds of the total term of imprisonment. The International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia has in its verdict of 14th September 2009 consented to the conditional release of Mrs. Plavsic in accordance with Swedish law.| 15 November 2009
| 05 November 2009
Serbia has seen a highly decisive set of directions being formulated at the visit of the Russian President Medvedev in October 2009. These included a Serbian commitment to “a new security commitment in the region” that would rule out NATO as the only mechanism of collective security. While the details of the arrangement have not been publicized, it has become known that part of the deal is the establishment of a Russian “intervention” base in the southern Serbian city of Nish.