Serb Chetniks’ Links to War Criminals and Extremists Uncovered

But even though inter-ethnic relations remain highly sensitive, members of Chetnik associations from Bosnia and Serbia who participate in these events did not face any consequences for staging their rowdy celebrations and singing nationalist songs that seem to threaten bloodshed until last year.

By analysing hundreds of pages of documents from the official court registrations of all 16 associations in Bosnia and Herzegovina whose names include the terms 'Ravna Gora' or 'Chetnik', BIRN has established that some of them have strong connections with war criminals.

The documents revealed that a number of individuals from these associations have either been convicted or are currently on trial for war crimes in Bosnia and Serbia. Most of them are former members of the Bosnian Serb Army. One prominent Chetnik was convicted of manslaughter in Serbia.

BIRN has also discovered that Bosnia's State Investigation and Protection Agency is monitoring associations whose names contain the words Chetnik and Ravna Gora because of suspicions that they are propagating extremist ideas.

Other extremist connections that Chetnik associations have cultivated were revealed when a Bosnian citizen was prosecuted for going to fight for pro-Russian separatist forces in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. At the trial, the Bosnian state court heard how the Ravna Gora Movement from Serbia was funding Serb volunteers to travel to the Ukrainian conflict zone.

War crimes and Chetnik 'dukes'

A T-shirt with pictures of Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic at a commemoration of Chetnik leader Dragoljub Mihailovic at Ravna Gora in May 2006. Photo: EPA/SASA STANKOVIC.

The original Chetniks were a loosely-structured movement that...