Bosnian Serbs protest at naming of Sarajevo airport after wartime Muslim leader

Bosnian Serbs protest at naming of Sarajevo airport after wartime Muslim leader
BBC Monitoring Europe (Political) - October 7, 2005, Friday

Excerpt from report by Bosnian Serb news agency SRNA

Banja Luka, 7 October: [Bosnian] Serb Republic [RS] President Dragan Cavic and the Serb member of the Bosnia-Hercegovina [BiH] Presidency, Borislav Paravac, sharply condemned in a joint statement today the decision of Sarajevo Canton to name the airport and Trg oslobodjenja [Liberation Square] in Sarajevo after [wartime Bosnia-Hercegovina President] Alija Izetbegovic, as well as the support given to this decision by high-level officials from the ranks of the Bosniak [Bosnian Muslim] people.

"This disgraceful and insulting decision glorifies the deeds and policies of Alija Izetbegovic, which resulted in tens of thousands of Serbs and Croats killed, missing and expelled from Sarajevo, an ethnically cleansed Sarajevo, numerous camps for Serbs such as Silos and Tarcin, and the slaughter of Serbs and Croats by mujahidin units which he commanded," says the statement of the RS president's office.

The statement underlines that the square named after Izetbegovic contains the seat of the Diocese of Dabar-Bosnia, a building which the Sarajevo city authorities have not returned to the Serbian Orthodox Church.

"By this unitarianist act with Sarajevo airport, all passengers, except Bosniak ones, are symbolically banished and the harsh rule by a numerical majority of one people over the other two has come into effect," the statement says.