Bosnia’s Constitutional Court has suspended a controversial section of the school curriculum introduced by the Serb Republic’s education ministry, which portrayed convicted Serb war criminals Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic as heroes. The module, aimed at final-grade students in the Serb-dominated region, presented a revisionist perspective of the 1992-95 Bosnian War, glorifying the leaders convicted of genocide and war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). The court’s decision, made at a plenary session on Friday, came in response to a request by 13 national parliament members who argued that the curriculum would deepen ethnic divisions in Bosnia, a country still healing from the war that claimed over 100,000 lives and displaced millions.
While the court has limited power to enforce its rulings, the suspension of the curriculum is seen as a necessary step in preventing further segregation among students of different ethnic backgrounds. The Serb Republic, led by Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik, has a history of ignoring the court’s decisions and has withdrawn its judges in protest against the presence of foreign judges in Bosnia’s judiciary system, a key provision of the Dayton Peace Accords. Dodik, who has faced U.S. and UK sanctions for his secessionist rhetoric, continues to push for the unification of the Serb Republic with Serbia, fueling tensions in the fragile multi-ethnic state.
