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| Born | (1937-03-11) 11 March 1937 (age 87) Belgrade, Kingdom of Yugoslavia |
| Allegiance | Yugoslav People's Army (until 1992) Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina |
| Years of service | 1956–97 |
| Rank | Brigadier General |
| Commands | Commander in Sarajevo |
| Battles / wars | Bosnian War Siege of Sarajevo |
Jovan Divjak (Serbian Cyrillic: Јован Дивјак; born 11 March 1937) is a retired general from Bosnia and Herzegovina who served in the Army of Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ARBiH) from 1992 to 1995, during the Bosnian War. He was the Deputy Commander of the Army's Main Staff until 1994. He had little influence, and was banned from decision making in the Army, for which he was considered only a show general in order to present the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a multi-ethnic army. He has publicly declared himself a Bosnian born into an Orthodox Christian family.
Early life and military career
He was born in Belgrade to parents originally from the Bosanska Krajina region of Bosnia. His father was stationed in the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) in Serbia. He and his family currently reside in Sarajevo, where he moved in 1966. From 1956 to 1959 he attended the Military Academy in Belgrade. In 1964 and 1965 he attended the l'Ecole d'Etat Major in Paris. From 1969-71 he was in the Cadet Academy in Belgrade, and from 1979-81, he served in the War and Defense Planning School there. After several posts in the JNA, he was appointed Territorial Defense Chief in command of the Mostar sector from 1984 to 1989 then the Sarajevo sector from 1989 to 1991. In 1991/2 Jovan Divjak was court-marshalled by the JNA for issuing 120 pieces of light armour and 20,000 bullets to the Kiseljak Territorial Defense, and sentenced to nine months imprisonment. He avoided this sentence by leaving the JNA.
At the beginning of the Bosnian War, he joined the Territorial Defence of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the first days of war he was arrested under charge that he collaborated with the Serbian forces and was imprisoned for 27 days. In prison, Divjak was on a hunger strike for four days, but nobody payed any attention. Divjak later became the Deputy Commander of the Territorial Defense forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina and a month later he oversaw the defence of Sarajevo from a major JNA attack. Between 1993–97, General Divjak served as the Deputy Commander of the Headquarters of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina, charged with cooperating with civilian institutions and organisations (administration, economy, health, education).
Divjak, as an ethnic Serb, was a general for a show in order to present a multi-ethnic character of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. He himself commented the issue by saying that he felt like a "flower arrangement", and said that "of course, someone has to be a flower arrangement too". He expressed that it is shameful if his service to the Army was only temporary. Indeed, him and Stjepan Šiber were the only non-Bosniaks in the Chief of Staff. Both of them were offered retirement in March 1996 by the Bosniak leader Alija Izetbegović. At the beginning of the war, out of 18 percent of Croats and 12 percent of Serbs only one percent of both remained in the ranks of the Bosnian army personell. Divjak complained about this to Rasim Delić, then a Chief of Staff, as well as Izetbegović, but was explained that this was because "Bosniak soldiers didn't trust the Serb commanders". Divjak was later excluded by Delić from the decision making process in the Army. The Bosniaks in the Army had no confidence in Divjak, as he later stressed out in an interview with Oslobođenje.
His life today
Divjak is the executive director of OGBH ("Obrazovanje Gradi BiH": "Education builds Bosnia and Herzegovina"), which he co-founded in 1994. The association's goals are to help children whose families were victims from the war, by providing them money, for instance; but also to help the increase of education in Bosnia, even in the poorest parts of the country, by providing them financial and material support.
Divjak has won many international and national awards, including the French Legion of Honour, Order of Lafayette, Sixth of April Award of Sarajevo, the International League of Humanists Plaque and the Plaque of the Sarajevo Canton.
Since 2004, he has been a member of the Steering Board of the NGO Reference Group, Sarajevo. Since 1998, he has been a member of the Association of Independent Intellectuals "Krug 99", Sarajevo. Before 1998, he has been an active member of other associations, such as sports associations, or faculty of physical education in Sarajevo, and has been a very active member of various NGO in Bosnia. He tries to help his country as much as he can, and hopes that the future of Bosnia and Herzegovina is clearer than its past.
He has also written two books:
- In French "Sarajevo, mon amour". Entretiens avec Florence La Bruyere; published by Buchet-Chastel in 2004 with a foreword by Bernard-Henri Lévy.
- In Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, "Ratovi u Hrvatskoj i Bosni i Hercegovini 1991-1995", an offprint on the aggression against Bosnia-Herzegovina. "Dani" and Jesenski and Tura in 1999. He appeared in the BBC documentary The Death of Yugoslavia in 1995. In 2006, he was nominated for the title of Universal Peace Ambassador by the Worldwide Council of the Universal Ambassador Peace Circle in Geneva, and awarded.
On 3 March 2011, Divjak was arrested in Vienna based on a Serbian arrest warrant. However, Austria would not extradite him to Belgrade. On 8 March 2011, he was bailed from custody in Vienna. On 29 July 2011, he was released after Serbia's extradition request was denied by an Austrian court based on lack of evidence and the inability to guarantee a fair trial.
References
Notes
- JOVAN DIVJAK: I AM A BOSNIAN
- Video on YouTube
- ^ Ex-Yupress & 2 August 196. sfn error: no target: CITEREFEx-Yupress2_August_196 (help)
- Profile, nato.int; accessed 22 April 2015.
- "Austria won't send Bosnia general to Serbia". Reuters. 7 March 2011. Retrieved 7 March 2011.
- "Bosnian wartime general freed by Austrian court". reuters. 29 July 2011. Retrieved 29 July 2011.
News reports
- "Excerpts from an interview with General Jovan Divjak, the top Serb officer in the Bosnian Army: (Un)suitable son of the people". Ex-Yupress. 2 August 1996. Retrieved 29 April 2015.
Bosniak side
Croat side
Serb side
Western Bosnian side
Books
- Thomas, Nigel (2006). The Yugoslav Wars (2): Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia 1992-2001. Osprey Publishing Ltd. Retrieved 15 April 2013.