Srpska Demokratska Stranka
The Srpska Demokratska Stranka ( SDS , Cyrillic Српска демократска Странка; German Serbian Democratic Party ) is a party in Bosnia and Herzegovina . It was the Serbs' most important platform in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina during the Croatian War and the Bosnian War . At first, according to its own statements, trying to reach a consensus, it soon developed into a radical nationalist force that organized the arming of Serbs outside of Serbia and finally took part in the fighting with its own paramilitary groups .
Croatia
In Croatia, the SDS was founded on February 17, 1990 in Knin , the later “capital” of the Republic of Serbian Krajina , by the psychiatrist Jovan Rašković and others. They allegedly wanted to defend the interests of the Serbs against the growing Croatian nationalism and spoke out against Croatia's state independence.
When the situation came to a head, the more moderate Rašković was replaced by Milan Babić . Having previously only demanded cultural and personal autonomy, the SDS began to make claims on certain areas and to set up Serbian municipal councils in these.
Even before Croatia had declared its independence, Slobodan Milošević, with the help of the Yugoslav secret police ( SDB ), ensured that the Serbian areas would be supplied with weapons, equipment and the necessary military training via the structure of the SDS in the event of a war.
Bosnia and Herzegovina
In Bosnia and Herzegovina the development of the SDS looked similar. At the founding meeting in July 1990, representatives of the Muslims were still present, and Alija Izetbegović welcomed the emergence of a Serbian party. Party leader Radovan Karadžić was also initially known as a politician with changing political orientations. Other representatives of the party were Momčilo Krajišnik , Nikola Koljević and the later President of the Republika Srpska Biljana Plavšić .
But also in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the SDS soon became an instrument of nationalist fighters. She was the driving force behind the establishment of a Serbian nation-state in Bosnia-Herzegovina. As a first step in this direction, the Serbian-populated areas were declared Serbian Autonomous Regions in autumn 1991. Shortly afterwards, the SDS began preparing to take over the non-Serb majority settlements in these regions.
In the areas it controls, the SDS prevented people from participating in the referendum on the independence of Bosnia-Herzegovina. She had previously held her own referendum among the Serbian population, in which voters, as expected, voted for Bosnia to remain with Yugoslavia .
On January 9, 1992, the SDS declared the establishment of a Serbian republic in the area of Bosnia-Herzegovina, which was later to be named Republika Srpska .
Many observers consider the SDS in Bosnia-Herzegovina to be the main force responsible for war, murder and displacement. The “architect” of the Dayton Agreement, Richard Holbrooke, repeatedly called for the SDS to be banned, something that the Bosniak ethno-nationalist party SDA rejected.
After the war, the SDS remained the strongest party in the Republika Srpska. But in the local elections in 2004 it won fewer votes than the Association of Independent Social Democrats ( Savez nezavisnih socijaldemokrata (SNSD)), led by the entity's former Prime Minister Milorad Dodik . Numerous SDS politicians were dismissed by the High Representative because, in his opinion, they had violated the peace agreement.
In recent years, the SDS has tried to distance itself from its past. Its chairman at the time, Dragan Čavić (also President of the Republika Srpska), described the 2004 massacre in Srebrenica as a dark side in the history of the Serbs. Nothing and nobody could justify these acts of violence. In 2005 he called on the Serbs to regard Bosnia and Herzegovina as their state, just like the Bosniaks. On the other hand, after Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence in February 2008 , the SDS called for a referendum on the separation of the Republika Srpska from the state as a whole.
history
The SDS was led by the following people:
- Jovan Rašković , founder, died in 1992
- Radovan Karadžić (from 1990 to 1996), sentenced by the ICTY to life imprisonment for war crimes and genocide, among other things .
- Milan Babić , sentenced to 13 years in prison for serious war crimes before the ICTY , committed suicide in 2006.
- Biljana Plavšić (from 1990 to 1997), sentenced by the ICTY to 12 years imprisonment for war crimes.
- Momčilo Krajišnik on charges of genocide , among others , on charges against the ICTY
- Nikola Koljevic
- Dragan Kalinić (2000-2004)
- Dragan Čavić (2004-2006)
- Mladen Bosić (2006-2016)
- Vukota Govedarica (2016-2019)
- Mirko Šarović (2019-)
literature
- Tim Judah: The Serbs. Hystory, Myth and the Destruction of Yugoslavia . Yale Nota Bene, New Haven / London 2000, ISBN 0-300-08507-9 .