National Congress of the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina
ONLINE NEWSLETTER - International
No. 518
January 31, 2008
http://republic-bosnia-herzegov
CONTENT
1. BOSNIA VIOLATES OWN CITIZENS' HUMAN RIGHTS BY REVOKING THEIR CITIZENSHIP IN A POLITICAL PROCESS
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1. BOSNIA VIOLATES OWN CITIZENS' HUMAN RIGHTS BY REVOKING THEIR CITIZENSHIP IN A POLITICAL PROCESS
By Tarik Borogovac, NCRBH
Imad al-Husseini is a Bosnian citizen of Syrian background awaiting deportation from Bosnia and Herzegovina, possibly back to Syria, where he could be tortured or executed. His large beard gets much air time these days in the media in Bosnia and the neighboring countries. Namely, he is the media’s poster terrorist. It is constantly speculated that he is a war criminal and even implied that he is somehow connected to al-Qaeda or Osama bin-Laden himself. Finally, it is always noted that he was a soldier in the Bosnian army during the war in the early 1990’s.
Yet, the most interesting thing about Imad al-Husseini is that he is completely uninteresting to any agency of any government that is pursuing terrorism or war crimes. The U.S. never asked to have him. Bosnia always handed over anyone the U.S. asked for, without requiring any answers. For example, in 2002 it gave up six Bosnian citizens, all of Algerian background, who have been imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay ever since, without formal charges. Al-Husseini would have been in Guantanamo Bay if the U.S. had ever asked for him. The War Crimes Tribunal for former Yugoslavia at the Hague did not ask for al-Husseini either as a possible perpetrator of a war crime during the Bosnian war, despite wild speculation from the media. Even the Bosnian courts have not charged him with anything, except a domestic disturbance.
Without any charge against him, we have to assume that he is merely a victim of a human rights violation. Namely, according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, article 15.2 "No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality". What is meant by this clause is that since citizenship is the basis for realization of various rights, (residence status, property, employment, etc.) cases that put in question citizenship should be treated in an authorized court, and on an individual basis, with some "due process". In Bosnia, there is actually a commission, appointed and led by politicians, that is tasked with taking citizenship away from large numbers of Bosnian citizens, in a process called "citizenship review". This commission originally took away al-Husseini's Bosnian citizenship. He sued, and a Bosnian court ordered the reinstatement of his citizenship, on grounds that the commission disregarded documentation about his military service, and which proved that his citizenship was legal and valid. Amazingly, two days after the court's decision his Bosnian citizenship was taken away again by another purely political body -- the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina, i.e. the government -- which explained that his removal is "of vital national interest". That is truly arbitrary.
Again we come back to the question: why is this guy so important to go to such lengths to strip him of his citizenship so arbitrarily, and to portray him as such a terrorist, but not important enough to charge him with anything, or arrest him while he lived in Bosnia all those long years up to now? Well, he is only important as an example for others. In al-Husseini's case, the politicians are clearly putting their arbitrary commission above the courts, and sending a message that any other court challenges to its decisions are futile. But they have to justify such a drastic move somehow, so through back channels they name him as a terrorist or war criminal in the media.
The commission for review of citizenship is reviewing citizenships of thousands of individuals in a very short time span. In the round that ended just a few days ago, they announced 661 names of individuals that had their citizenships revoked. Most of the names are Arabic, but a great number are Bosnian, and a few are western. Even if we cannot say for sure that al-Husseini has not in some way been connected to a terror ring, we can definitely be sure that not all of those men and women are terrorists. It has been well publicized that when some of them are forced to leave the country, they will leave their own children and spouses behind. Does not marrying Bosnian spouses and having Bosnian children entitle them to citizenship?
Bosnian politicians often use manipulations of citizenship to eliminate individual citizens or whole groups of citizens whom they consider to be undesirable. Years ago, Prof. Francis Boyle, the lawyer for Bosnia who sued Serbia and Montenegro at the International Court of Justice for committing and aiding aggression and genocide in Bosnia, had his citizenship simply erased - probably in retaliation for starting that lawsuit. Another example, as we have explained previously in this newsletter, is that the Bosnian law on citizenship represents a continuation of ethnic cleansing. Namely, those Bosnians who also took citizenship in one of many other countries will lose their Bosnian citizenship in 2011. Due to agreements with the Serbia-Montenegro union and Croatia, the law excludes those countries, and their citizens can have dual citizenship with Bosnia. Consequently, the law disproportionately affects the Bosniak population, which was the primary target of the ethnic cleansing (genocide) campaign carried out by followers of war criminals Milosevic, Karadzic and Mladic in order to create a "Republic of the Serbs" in Bosnia. Namely, Bosniak refugees primarily settled in third countries, such as the U.S.A., Australia, Canada, etc. In a few short years they will automatically be denied their Bosnian citizenship only because they accepted citizenship of the host country.
We conclude with the story of how al-Husseini and other volunteers became Bosnian citizens at all. When the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (RBiH) declared its independence from Yugoslavia, it was a secular state with an overwhelmingly secular populace. The state hastily formed an Army of the RBiH to defend itself from Serb extremist militias, aided by the Yugoslav National Army, who were brutalizing the population as part of their aforementioned ethnic cleansing campaign. The U.N., led by the U.S. president Bush, Sr., put an embargo on Serbia and Montenegro (rump Yugoslavia) for aggression. A number of foreign men, mostly Muslim, volunteered to fight for Bosnia. Although they were not numerous enough to seriously affect the outcome of the war, if they helped at all in that desperate situation, they were very welcome, and for that all Bosnians should be grateful. Most of those volunteers earned the citizenship that was given to them.
Yet, at the time Serbian propaganda needed to turn the world's perception of the war from one waged between an aggressor state and victim state, to a religious conflict between Christian and Muslim armies. The Arab fighters were a great asset to Serbia in that respect, although not by their own fault. Namely, the presence of any number of Arab volunteer soldiers is not proof that the Army of RBiH was a Muslim militia. Instead, the large numbers of Serb and Croat soldiers in the ARBiH categorically prove that it was not a “Muslim militia”. Among them we can list heroes and commanders at highest levels, including Dragan Vikic, general Jovan Divjak, general Zeljko Knez, general Stjepan Siber and the current Croat member of the BiH Presidency Zeljko Komsic. Nonetheless, the propaganda using the Arab fighters was very effective, especially since the President of Bosnia at the time Alija Izetbegovic went along with it and constantly tried to show off the "Islamic" nature of the ARBiH, even by taking a group of soldiers on a pilgrimage to Mecca, to be photographed while praying. This was a misrepresentation of the secular ARBiH, and it is our opinion that Izetbegovic created it intentionally to help the Serb propaganda machine. Ironically, for this, the Arab fighters loved him the most, because to them he was the only "true Muslim" among their Bosnian commanders. In the Bosnian media, al-Husseini still invokes the name of Alija Izetbegovic in this context.
Alija Izetbegovic later illegally (in violation of the constitution of RBiH) put his name on the Dayton agreement to partition the country, creating the ethnically clean "Republic of the Serbs" (RS). The Serb politicians, and others who work for them, still use the same tactic of labeling Bosniaks as "Islamic terrorists". Long-bearded Arabs, such as al-Husseini, serve as "proof of the radical Islam danger in Bosnia" in the court of public opinion, even if they cannot be charged with anything in a real court. They hope to distract the U.S. and Europe enough from focusing on the real war criminals -- the perpetrators of genocide who created the "Republic of the Serbs".
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