Sarajevo to Build Massacre Memorial without Naming Perpetrators

Sarajevo City Council on Wednesday voted to erect a monument to the mostly ethnic Serb civilian victims of the wartime Kazani Pit killings, but rejected a proposal by the Nasa Stranka party to name their killers on the inscription.

The inscription to be carved on the Kazani memorial, which according to Sarajevo mayor Benjamina Karic will be built by the end of the year, will include the names of the victims and the inscription: "We shall forever remember with sadness and respect our fellow citizens who were killed."

The memorial inscription proposed by a Nasa Stranka councillor was: "At this place, by the order of Musan Topalovic Caco, commander of the Tenth Mountain Brigade of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, male and female citizens of Sarajevo were killed during 1992 and 1993. Fourteen brigade members have been sentenced for those crimes. The number of victims is not final."

In a debate before the vote, Nasa Stranka councillor Adi Skaljic said the party was guided by court judgments from 1996 and 1999.

"Those judgments clearly say that the murders were committed by order of the commander of the Tenth Mountain Brigade of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Musan Topalovic Caco, and that four brigade members were sentenced for committing the killings, one was sentenced for assisting in the commission of murder and nine brigade members for concealing or failing to report those crimes," Skaljic said.

Deputy city council chairperson Dragan Stevanovic said during the debate that he was proud of the Bosnian Army and Interior Ministry leadership, who decided "in the most difficult of times, to deal with the renegade members who committed crimes" by prosecuting the perpetrators.

"The Nasa...

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