ZAGREB, January 30, 2018 – The president of the Bosnian Serb entity of Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, has been included on the 2018 list of persons barred from entering the United States, along with numerous war crimes convicts as well as people Washington considers to be problematic due to other reasons, such as retired Croatian generals Ljubo Ćesić Rojs or Stanko Sopta.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OPAC) of the US Department of the Treasury in late January released a consolidated list of people who are under sanctions by the US government, and the section of the list marked Balkans consists of some 200 persons and organisations from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, Kosovo and Macedonia.
Among those whose possible assets in the USA have been blocked and who are barred from entering the country are almost all the war criminals from the former Yugoslavia such as Veselin Šljivančanin, Vojislav Šešelj, Ratko Mladić, Biljana Plavšić, Momčilo Krajišnik and Radovan Karadžić, as well as most of the members of Karadžić’s immediate family.
Even though updated on January 26, the list still contains the name of long dead war crimes indictee and former Serbian president Slobodan Milošević, as well as the name of Croatian Serb rebel leader Goran Hadžić, who died in 2016.
The list also includes Croats convicted for war crimes such as Dario Kordić, Mladen Naletilić, Vinko Martinović, Mario Čerkez and Ante Furundžija. Valentin Ćorić, one of six former Bosnian Croat officials sentenced by the Hague war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia last November is on the list too, but the others in that group, such as Jandranko Prlić or Milivoj Petković, have not been listed. Ante Jelavić, a former member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina wanted by the country’s judiciary, is also on the list.
The Bosniaks on the US list include wartime chief of staff of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Enver Hadžihasanović, former Bosnian minister of the interior Bakir Alispahić, and Senad Sahinpašić, a close friend of Bakir Izetbegović, the incumbent Bosniak member of the collective state presidency.
Albanians on the list include Kosovo’s current Deputy Prime Minister Fatmir Limaj while the Serb Democratic Party (SDS), a part of the ruling majority in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the Ravna Gora Chetnik Movement, are some of the organisations listed as being under sanctions.
