Thread by @Be_Herrero

Today I’m bringing stories from the RS. Unfortunately, they’re horrifyingly sad & despicable↓
1) #Kalinovik residents are using this Sunday morning to paint a mural honouring the Kalinovik-born genocide perpetrator & war criminal Ratko Mladić. The painting reads Town of the Hero

Meanwhile, #Kalinovik ‘Caffe Royal’ is crowded with middle-aged men wearing nationalist t-shirts. Between sip and sip, they take care of their kids, who are playing war games with toy guns —in a very ‘professional’ way, running, taking shelter and shooting at imagined enemies.

Lest we forget that the ‘accomplishments’ of ‘The Town Hero’ amount to a whole catalogue of war crimes ranging from forced displacement to rapes & mass killings —not to mention genocide. #Kalinovik figures speak for themselves: out of 1.314 Muslim residents in 1991 only 57 remain

2) Also this morning some in #Foča where commemorating the fallen Serbs. Needless to say that some of the worst wartime atrocities were perpetrated here, and by Serbs. Again the figures speak for themselves: Bosniak residents down from 48,6 to 6,9% / Serbs up from 47,7 to 91,5%.

But what hits the hardest is seeing the EU flag at the Partizan (hall were Muslim women were tortured & raped during the war). By reconverting former mass rape camps the EU is not helping local development, but contributing to the RS politics of denial & war crimes whitewashing.

3) And with respect to the ongoing disgraces in Republika Sprska, confirmation that #VilinaVlas hotel is still working —and at full speed. Of concern is not what the tourists staying here may think, but the fact that this former mass rape camp has not been turned into a memorial.

4) Lastly, Kusturica’s dreadful tribute to Serbian nationalism. Erected with money coming directly from RS budget, gruevskian-style #Andrićgrad is not only absurd in terms of architectural rationality, but also a blatant insult to the local victims of the idea of ‘Greater Serbia’

Apart from trying hard to appropriate Andrić’s legacy, #Andrićgrad merely features empty cafés & disused buildings. Just in case the political motive driving the project wasn’t clear enough, Dodik is portrayed pulling a rope which he wished was a real way of finalising partition.

But the worst of having this apologia in the middle of #Višegrad is that all around the area, some 25 years ago, the rehearsal of the Srebrenica genocide took place, with Serb paramilitaries & their local fans murdering thousands of Muslim citizens in cold blood, incl. 119 kids.

To close this thread: As time passes by, Bosnian Serb leadership gets closer to achieving the original end goal behind RS. A key factor is the ongoing policy of genocide denial & war crimes whitewashing. And the int’l community is almost completely out of the picture. Terrifying.