Biljana Plavsic

It was the morning after the February 29-March 1 1992 independence referendum in Bosnia and Herzegovina - an event that a well-known BBC journalist had described to me, sipping a beer, as "good news at last from the Balkans".

"Milosevic's men on the ground" was the most common description of these two leading Serbian state security officials - Jovica Stanisic, chief of the interior ministry's State Security Service and his right-hand man, Franko 'Frenki' Simatovic, commander of the service's Special Operations Unit.

Lawmakers in the Republika Srpska National Assembly voted on Tuesday evening to reject a demand from High Representative Valentin Inzko, the international overseer of Bosnia's peace agreement, for people convicted of war crimes to be stripped of decorations awarded to them by the National Assembly in 2016.

The Bosnian Serb parliament will discuss a request from Bosnia's international overseer, the Office of the High Representative, OHR, to revoke decorations given to convicted war criminals.

Biljana Plavsic is being treated for COVID-19 at Dragisa Misovic Hospital in Belgrade and her condition is serious, a family member told SRNA, the official news agency in Bosnia's Serb-dominated Republika Srpska entity on Thursday.

High Representative Valentin Inzko, the international overseer of Bosnia and Herzegovina's peace agreement, has sent a letter demanded that Republika Srpska National Assembly, the parliament in the Serb-dominated entity, annuls honours that it awarded last October to people convicted of war crimes within "a deadline of three months, by the end of April 2021".

The Tuzla-based Foundation for Truth, Justice, Reconciliation has filed a criminal complaint against Nedeljko Cubrilovic, president of the National Assembly in Bosnia's Serb-dominated entity Republika Srpska, and members of the organising committee that recently gave awards to convicted war criminals including Radovan Karadzic.

Former RS President Biljana Plavsic has told Sputnik that former U.S. President Bill Clinton was to blame for the crime in Srebrenica.

Plavsic, who was sentenced to 11 years in prison and since released after pleading guilty at the Hague Tribunal, said it was "indisputable that people were killed at Srebrenica," adding, "but on whose orders?

Milorad Dodik, the president of Bosnia's Serb-dominated entity Republika Srpska, withdrew from parliament on Wednesday the draft legislation which would have granted benefits to the entity's founders, senior officials and MPs who held office between 1991 and 1996, including Karadzic.

Dodik said that the law was withdrawn because "unprincipled" opposition.