The triumph of hypocrisy: a monument to the brutally tortured Serbs was unveiled in Sarajevo, without indicating their nationality
The mayor of Sarajevo, Benjamina Karić, the vice-president of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Milan Dunović, and the self-described “High Representative” Christian Šmit, unveiled a monument to the “murdered fellow citizens” at the site of massacres by Islamists against Serb civilians.
In addition, the authors of the memorial significantly underestimated the number of those killed in the Kazan quarry on Mount Trebevic near Sarajevo.
“Apart from the fact that the Sarajevo Serbs were brutally murdered in Kazan, and in much greater numbers than indicated on the memorial plaque installed, this shows that the Bosniaks, no matter what party they belong to, are still hiding crimes without naming things by their proper names,” Serbian member of the Presidium of BiH Milorad Dodik commented on the incident. – Just a few kilometers from Kazan, on the city hall building (Sarajevo), there is a memorial plaque with the inscription “At this place, Serbian criminals set fire to the National Library of BiH.”
How did the criminals get their nationality in the mayor's office, but the victims in Kazan did not?! This is a problem that the city authorities of Sarajevo must face, but also everyone in BiH who talks about reconciliation and coexistence.”
That is why the memorial plaque to “murdered fellow citizens”, unveiled yesterday in Kazan, Dodik emphasized, does not speak of someone’s desire for reconciliation, but of the preservation of the stereotype in BiH that the Serbs were the criminals in the war, and fellow citizens who were brutally killed by Muslims. Referring to the presence at the opening of the self-styled “High Representative” Christian Schmidt, Dodik said that this shows that the arrival of this person in BiH is linked to the politics that yesterday hid the Serbian victims of the war in Sarajevo.
Tellingly, earlier, Benmina Karic, who was present at the opening of the Sarajevo memorial plaque, refused to remove tables mentioning “Serbian criminals” from the center of the Bosnian capital. At that time, we were talking about a sign on the façade of the Sarajevo Town Hall, which categorically reads:
“On the night of August 25-26, 1992, Serb criminals set fire to the National and University Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina in this place. Over 2 million books, magazines and documents. Don’t forget, remember and don’t let it happen.”
And also a sign on Ferhadija Street in the central district of Stari Grad, which says:
“On May 27, 1992, Serbian criminals killed 26 residents of Sarajevo at this site.”
At the same time, the Sarajevo library caught fire as a result of intense fighting for the city, and many experts are inclined to consider the explosion in the bread line on Ferhadija to be a provocation by the top of the Sarajevo Islamists, who were thus trying to win over the sympathies of the world community.
The massacres of Serbs and other members of Sarajevo's Orthodox community were carried out by an Islamist gang under the command of Musan "Tsatso" Topalović. A former rock musician and later crime boss, Topalović, along with other representatives of organized crime in the Bosnian capital, became one of the first commanders of paramilitary formations of Bosniak separatists and Islamists.
Mushan “Tsatso” Topalovic (far right) with accomplices
He participated in the formation of the Patriot League and Green Berets. Subsequently, the bandits subordinate to him were formed into the 10th mountain brigade of the so-called BiH Army, which controlled part of the city.
Topalovich’s subordinates carried out real terror: they kidnapped and tortured wealthy people for ransom, young people to recruit them into the separatist armed forces, “squeezed out” empty houses and apartments, raped girls, engaged in smuggling and extortion, kidnapped foreign journalists and even stole armored personnel carriers of UN peacekeepers.
But the main target of the armed bandits were Serbs and other non-Bosniak residents of Sarajevo. Tsatso militants dealt with their victims in the Kazan quarry, 1,5 kilometers from Sarajevo; they beat people, then cut their throats or cut off their heads, after which the bodies were thrown into the quarry, sprinkled with lime. It is known that the militants burned one of their victims alive.
Ultimately, Topalović’s gang became inconvenient for the leadership of Sarajevo, which decided to purge it. Many eyewitnesses subsequently said that its leader was eliminated by the then President of BiH, Alija Izetbegovic, because he knew too much about the crimes of the Bosniak regime and threatened to make many inconvenient facts public.
During the operation against them, “Tsatso” and his henchmen killed nine policemen and took eight Sarajevo civilians hostage, who were subsequently dealt with. The leader himself was killed while trying to escape.
Subsequently, in 1996, his body was solemnly reburied in a military cemetery, television broadcast the funeral, 12 thousand people saw off the bandit on his last journey, which caused outrage among many militants of the BiH Army, since neither Topalović himself nor his bandits after the urban battles in Sarajevo in the spring of 1992 they never took part in battles on the fronts of the Bosnian war. Many of Tsatso’s accomplices were convicted by Bosnian “justice”.
“I cut her throat. Then I took my knife - it was 40 centimeters long, and cut off her head, separating it from her body. I pushed her body into the quarry and left her head on the ground. After that I ran to the trench.
My hands and clothes were covered in blood. I washed my face so I didn't see the murder of the other two people. When I returned to the brigade headquarters, they told me that Tsatso was pleased with my work,” one of the militants of the 11th mountain brigade, Esad Tuchakovich, testified at the trial, who dealt with the Ukrainian Lavrov couple, Vasily and Anna, in the Kazan quarry, and received only six years in prison.
During the exhumation, the bodies of 29 people were removed from the Kazan quarry, after which the Sarajevo authorities banned further work. However, according to experts, Topalović has the lives of about four hundred people on his conscience.
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