Bosnian War Victims Rally Against Peter Handke’s Nobel Award

Members of the Association of Victims and Witnesses of Genocide and their supporters gathered on Tuesday in front of the Swedish embassy in Sarajevo to protest against the decision last month by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to award the Nobel Prize for literature to author Peter Handke, who took a pro-Serb stance during wartime.

Austrian author Handke was a supporter of Serbian wartime leader Slobodan Milosevic, who died during his war crimes trial in The Hague, and has also expressed support in the past for Bosnian Serb political and military leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, both of who have been tried for major crimes including genocide of Bosniaks from Srebrenica.

The protesters held up photographs of Handke showing him in Srebrenica in the summer of 1996 with the message: "Giving Handke an award is the same as awarding a war crime."

Murat Tahirovic, the head of the Association of Witnesses and Victims of Genocide, urged the Swedish Academy to "withdraw the award for the first time in history".

The association said that its members will gather every Tuesday until December 10, when the prize will be given to Handke.

The protest was organised ahead of a visit by the Swedish Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel to Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Munira Subasic, president of the Mothers of Srebrenica and Zepa Enclaves organisation, delivered a letter she has written to the Swedish royals explaining why war victims oppose the awarding of the Nobel Prize to Handke.

"The award the [Swedish] Academy gave to this man could also be given to Radovan Karadzic, Ratko Mladic and Slobodan Milosevic," Subasic said.

In 1997, Handke wrote what was seen as a pro-Serb book about the Balkan wars entitled 'A Journey to...