A disgrace for Europe! Austria must release the Savior of Sarajevo immediately!

"Europe has learned nothing from the Holocaust. Nothing has been done to put an end to these murders. What is happening in Bosnia and Herzegovina is a posthumous victory for Hitler." - The late Marek Edelman, last commander of the resistance fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto.

The savior of Sarajevo, General Jovan Divjak (Ret.), recipient of the Victor Gollancz Award by the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) in 2008, was apprehended on Thursday evening by Austrian police on the basis of a Serbian arrest warrant. He is currently in custody awaiting trial. The President of STP International, Tilman Zülch, has made the following statement:

The arrest of the Savior of Sarajevo is a disgrace. The governments of almost all European nations, including Germany, looked on passively during the genocide of the Bosnians, thus directly or indirectly aiding the crimes of Serbian and Yugoslavian troops, while Divjak defended the residents of the Bosnian capital against the Serbian besiegers. The late friend and supporter of the Society for Threatened Peoples, Simon Wiesenthal, is only one of those who spoke up to condemn the open partisanship of the British and French governments on the side of the Serbian attackers.

For almost four years this multicultural, Olympic city, capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, was besieged by Serbian troops. For almost four years, Sarajevo was mercilessly fired upon and bombed by Serbian besiegers positioned in the surrounding mountains. Almost 11,000 residents of the city, of all ethnic groups, were killed – including some 1,572 children.

General Divjak distanced himself from the Yugoslavian People's Army when they were ordered to fire on Croatian Vukovar, and later resisted the aggression against Bosnia and the crimes perpetrated on the Bosnian civilian population. While Sarajevo was under threat, he established a defensive army made up of civilians and former soldiers, students and schoolchildren, from members of all Bosnian nationalities.

Divjak, recipient of a number of human rights awards as well as honorary citizenship of the cities of Grenoble, Padova and Montesilvano, and of the highest distinction of the French Foreign Legion, is the man who saved Sarajevo. He rescued the Olympic city from ethnic cleansing and from sharing the fate of Srebrenica, Foca, Višegrad and many other ethnically cleansed Bosnian cities.

We call on the Austrian government and judiciary to immediately release Jovan Divjak: former general, human rights activist and, more recently, founder and manager of an excellent relief organization for children.

It is unheard of that the Savior of Sarajevo should be arrested on a Serbian warrant while the government, the judiciary and the military in Serbia continue to protect the war criminal Ratko Mladic, one of the three main responsible parties for the genocide.

List of the 62 organizations and victims' associations for the immediate release of Jovan Divjak

"Srebrenica Mothers" – Srebrenica / "Mothers from Srebrenica and the Drina Valley" – Sarajevo / "Women from Srebrenica" – Tuzla / "Forum of the Citizens of Srebrenica" – Srebrenica/Tuzla / "Srebrenica 99" – Tuzla / "Club of Intellectuals from Srebrenica" – Srebrenica / "Society for the Prevention of Genocide" – Srebrenica / Alliance of Former Prisoners of Concentration Camps in BiH – Sarajevo / Women's Section of the Alliance of Former Prisoners – Sarajevo Canton / "Women – Victims of the War" – Sarajevo / "Izvor" – Association for the Search for the Missing from Prijedor / "With Hearts to Peace" – Kozarac, Prijedor / "Return," Association of Returnees to Bijeljina / Association of Families of the Missing "Mostovi" – Bosanska Krupa / "Association for the Search for the Missing" – Brcko / "Association of Camp Inmates" – Brcko / "Association of Families of Prisoners and the Missing from the Community of Prozor" – Prozor / "Association of Families of Victims and the Missing" – Hadzici / "Association of Families of Victims and the Missing" – Kladanj / "Association of Families of Victims and the Missing" – Kljuc / "Association of Families of Prisoners and the Missing from the Herzegovina-Neretva Canton" – Mostar / "Association for the Missing" – Mostar / Association for the Missing, "Mostovi prijateljstva" – Prijedor / "Students' Association" - Srebrenica / Returnees' Association "Zepa" – Zepa / Association of Families of the Missing "Vrbanja" – Kotor Varos, Travnik / "Association of Families of the Missing from Zvornik" – Tuzla / "Returnees' Association Kotorsko" - Kotorsko – Doboj / "Union Roma – BiH" – Sarajevo/Lukavac / Alliance of Drina Valley Associations / "Women of the Drina Valley" based in Bratunac / "Women of the Drina Valley" based in Vlasenica / "Women of the Drina Valley" based in Sarajevo / Returnees' Association "Vrbanja" – Banja Luka / "Coalition for Return" – Banja Luka / Association "Roma Women" – Tuzla / Association of Families of the Missing from Višegrad "Višegrad 92" – Sarajevo / Serbian Citizens' Council – Sarajevo / Croatian People's Council Volksrat – Sarajevo / Council of the Congress of Bosniac Intellectuals – Sarajevo / Institute for Documentation of War Crimes Democratic Youth Movement – Sarajevo / Centre Andre Malraux – Sarajevo / Foundation "Justice for Bosnia and Herzegovina" – Sarajevo / Culture Club "Preporod" – Sarajevo / Citizens' Association "Terra" – Sarajevo / Women's Association "Mak-Bosanka" - Sarajevo / Humanitarian Association "Merhamet" – Sarajevo / Citizens' Association "Višegrad 92" – Sarajevo / Association "Eho" – Ljubuski / Women's Association "Women of BiH" – Mostar / Citizens' Association "Youth Forum" – Stolac / Returnees' Association "Return and the Right to Remain" – Bijeljina / Citizens' Association "Deblokada" – Sarajevo / Union of women's organizations BiH "Fokus" / Helsinki Committee / Women in Black / Funds of Biljana Kovacevic – Vuco / Citizens' Initiatives / Center for Cultural Decontamination / Civil Right Defenders / Jewish Community - BiH, Sarajevo (President Boris Kozemjakin) as well as the members of the former State Executive Committee of Bosnia and Herzegovina during the war, Stjepan Kljuic, Croat / Ejup Ganic, Bosniak / Miro Lazovic, Serb / Mirko Pejanovic, Serb / Ivo Komsic, Croat and David Kamhi, member of the now defunct resistance movement "Patriotic League – Sarajevo, Jew

Background to Genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1992-1995

 1. More than 100 concentration, internment and rape camps with over 200,000 civilians held prisoner

 2. Many thousands of prisoners murdered in concentration camps including Omarska, Manjaca, Keraterm,          Trnopolje, Luka Brcko, Sušica and Foca

 3. Systematic detention and murder of members of intellectual and political elites.

 4. Flight and expulsion of approximately 2.2 million Bosnians and their dispersal around the world

 5. Many thousands of unrecorded and unacknowledged deaths among children, the elderly and the sick,            injured and incapacitated during and as a result of their flight and expulsion

 6. Siege, starvation, shelling and partial extermination of 500,000 Bosnians in the UN "safe areas" of Tuzla,        Goražde, Srebrenica, Žepa and Bihac lasting for nearly four years.

 7. Bombardment of the sixth UN "safe area" of Sarajevo for nearly four years, costing 11,000 lives including      1500 children.

 8. Massacres and mass killings in many towns and municipalities in northern, western and eatsern Bosnia          (Posavina, Prijedor area and Podrinje).

 9. Systematic destruction of hundreds of villages and towns.

10. Comprehensive destruction of Islamic cultural monuments and extensive destruction of Catholic cultural         monuments, including 1189 mosques and medresas and as many as 500 Catholic churches and religious       establishments, together with 38 Orthodox churches.

11. Ongoing investigation of the whereabouts of approximately 15,000 missing persons and exhumation and       identification of remains.

12. Kidnapping and mistreatment of 284 UN soldiers used as human shields

13. Rape of more than 20,000 Bosnian Muslim women in rape camps and elsewhere

14. Murder of 8372 Bosniaks from the town of Srebrenica, mostly men and boys but including 560 women,         and their burial in mass graves

15. Killing of approximately 150,000 people through "ethnic cleansing" and its consequences.