Biljana Plavsich, the former president of Republika Srpska, died on Thursday morning in Belgrade at the age of 96, according to sources close to the family. She passed away on Thursday, and the funeral is to be held in Banja Luka.
Plavsich was one of the key political figures in the leadership of Bosnian Serbs during the first half of the 1990s. Before entering politics, she worked as a university professor of biology in Sarajevo and held a doctorate in biological sciences. She entered politics on the eve of the breakup of Yugoslavia as a member of the Serbian Democratic Party (SDS), and alongside Radovan Karadzic and Momcilo Krajisnik, became one of the leading political figures among Bosnian Serbs. During the war, she was known for her highly nationalistic rhetoric and statements about the non-Serb population. One of the photographs that marked her political career was taken in 1992 in Bijeljina, where she was photographed shaking hands and kissing Zeljko Raznatovic, alias Arkan, the leader of the Serbian Volunteer Guard, whose members had committed crimes against civilians.
Following the signing of the Dayton Agreement and the withdrawal of Radovan Karadzic from political office, Plavsich became the president of Republika Srpska in 1996. This was followed by an open conflict with the faction led by Karadzic, and the political centre of Republika Srpska gradually shifted towards Banja Luka. She founded the Serbian People's Alliance and aligned herself with political factions that had the support of the international community. In this period, a key role was played by Milorad Dodik, whom Plavsich proposed for the position of prime minister of the Republika Srpska in early 1998, after which Dodik became prime minister for the first time.
The ICTY brought charges against Biljana Plavsich on 7 April 2000, accusing her of genocide, crimes against humanity, and violations of the laws and customs of war. She surrendered to the tribunal on 10 January 2001. In October 2002, she reached an agreement with the prosecution and pleaded guilty to persecution as a crime against humanity. The prosecution withdrew the other charges, including the charge of genocide. In the factual basis of her plea, it was stated that the political leadership of the Bosnian Serbs had conducted a campaign of persecution against Bosnian Muslims, Bosnian Croats, and other non-Serb populations in a large area of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Plavsich acknowledged her participation in the persecution in 37 municipalities. She accepted responsibility for her role and expressed remorse for the victims and the suffering caused.
The court sentenced her to 11 years' imprisonment on 27 February 2003. The judgment stated that she had participated in a campaign of ethnic separation that resulted in the deaths of thousands of people and the displacement of thousands of others. She was transferred from The Hague to Sweden on 26 June 2003, where she served her sentence in the women's prison in Hinseberg. After serving two-thirds of her sentence, she was released on parole in late October 2009 and returned to Belgrade, where she lived after her release from prison. In later public statements, she cast doubt on the sincerity of her own admission in The Hague, stating that she had accepted the agreement with the prosecution for pragmatic reasons, as it led to the other charges against her, including the charge of genocide, being dropped.
