Amid tensions, Bosnian Serbs celebrate outlawed holiday

by RADUL RADOVANOVIC
Associated Press

BANJA LUKA, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Under growing international pressure over their leader’s secessionist aspirations, Bosnian Serbs have celebrated an outlawed holiday with a provocative parade showcasing armored vehicles, police helicopters and law enforcement officers with rifles, marching in lockstep and singing a nationalist song. The Jan. 9 holiday commemorates the date in 1992 when Bosnian Serbs declared the creation of their own state in Bosnia, igniting the multi-ethnic country’s devastating, nearly 4-year-long war that became a byname for ethnic cleansing and genocide. The holiday was banned in 2015 by Bosnia’s top court which ruled that the date, which falls on a Serb Christian Orthodox religious holiday, discriminates against the country’s other ethnic groups — Muslim Bosniaks and Catholic Croats.