The Human Rights Blog

On the force feeding of Vojislav Seselj

Emir Suljagic is a journalist and survivor of the Bosnian genocide. He offers a personal perspective on the Seselj's hunger strike.

I have closely followed the discussion, as well as the debate in the media regarding Vojislav Seselj's hunger strike in the recent weeks and days. With some reluctance I would like to add something to the discussion that was conspicuously absent: the right of his victims to see him tried for some of the most gruesome crimes committed in Bosnian genocide. I was seventeen years old when a group of Seselj's men entered my hometown of Bratunac; they first disarmed Muslim police officers in the local police station (my father, who was a member of the reserve police included) and then proceeded to arrest some of the most prominent individuals in the town. Those who were considered elite: the richest, the best educated, individuals who could exert influence on the local Muslim community, as well as those who could articulate political opinions. that they were enthusiastically helped by our Serb neighbors, who took them around the town and the village, pointing out individuals perceived as threat is a different matter. Within weeks from their entering the town, Seselj's men set up a detention center in the gymnasium of one of the town's two elementary school building. The number of detainees steadily and rapidly grew to up to some seven hundred of them. What had happened inside the walls of that gymnasium is well documented; there are eyewitness accounts, books and newspaper articles have been written about it. In only few weeks the elite of that little town was annihilated; up to some four hundred people were killed in ways thought of as unimaginable until then. When his men entered town - this is mid-April 1992 - Vojislav Seselj followed; as they went about cleansing neighboring Muslim villages he sat in Fontana Hotel in Bratunac, drinking and talking with Radmilo Bogdanovic, Milosevic's liaison officer with "paramilitary groups". One of the villages they cleansed was Voljavica, where I was born and grew up. As those of us who managed to do it fled the village I could not help thinking of an old lady I was related to; no one knew how old she was, she herself could not remember the year she was born in and she was so old that when she walked she it with great difficulty and stooped almost to the ground. Several weeks later we learned that she was killed; hers was the rich branch of the family and the Seselj's men came looking for Deutchemarks and gold. Whether she had any, I don't know; whether she gave it to them, I don't know; what I do know however is that she was killed immediately after their visit and that her remains have never been found. So, on her and on behalf of twelve other members of the Suljagic family, some of who still cry from their shallow and anonymous graves of Eastern Bosnia I would like to say: feed Seselj and feed him well! Feed him by force if necessary and make him live through the trial and ensure that he is aware of what takes place in the courtroom, because there are rights of other people that are at stake here. Among them, rights of the following members of the Suljagic family, who will never be able to speak for themseleves again to have justice done: Suljagiæ Alija, Suljagiæ Amel, Suljagiæ Elvedin, Suljagiæ Ibro, Suljagiæ Mehmed, Suljagiæ Meho, Suljagiæ Munib, Suljagiæ Nermin, Suljagiæ Sadik, Suljagiæ Sakib, Suljagiæ Suljo, Suljagiæ Vejsil and Suljagiæ Zahida. Respectfuly, Emir Suljagic _______________________________