|
Jovan Divjak was a former officer of the Yugoslav Peoples Army (JNA)
who quit its ranks when the former Yugoslavia begun
disintegrating, and joined the Bosnian army when war began there
in April 1992. He died on Thursday after long illness aged 84.
Born in Belgrade, he spent most of his military career in Bosnia
and identified as a Bosnian.
Divjak earned popular respect when he climbed onto a retreating
JNA tank in May 1992, trying to stop citizens of Sarajevo from
shooting at JNA soldiers.
"He was the only general who yelled: 'don't shoot!' instead of
'shoot!", Bosnian Oscar-winning film maker Danis Tanovic said
during the memorial ceremony held at the National Theatre.
Divjak was the only Serb member of Bosnia's Muslim-dominated
army command during the war in which 100,000 died.
In 2011, he was detained by Austrian police on a Serbian warrant
on charges related to the retreating JNA column, but released by
an Austrian court which said it could not guarantee that he
would receive a fair trial in Serbia.
After the war ended, Divjak retired from the army and devoted
himself to "Education Builds Bosnia-Herzegovina", a charitable
organisation he founded to help war orphans, which has awarded
7,300 scholarships to students who lost parents and those from
poorer families.
"This is a huge loss for me," said Muhamed Bojadzi, who as a
toddler was saved by Divjak from a hospital under attack and who
was later awarded a scholarship.
Sarajevo authorities banned people from attending Divjak's
funeral on Tuesday because of a surge in coronavirus cases.
(Reporting by Daria Sito-Sucic; Editing by Giles Elgood)
[© 2021 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2021 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.
|
|
