Jovan Divjak

Jovan Divjak (; 11 March 1937 – 8 April 2021) was a Bosnian general who served as the Deputy Commander of the Bosnian army's general staff until 1994, during the Bosnian War.

Early life and education Divjak was born in Belgrade to parents originally from the Bosanska Krajina region of Bosnia. His father, a teacher by profession, was serving in the Royal Yugoslav Army in a village outside of Belgrade at the time of Divjak's birth. Jovan's family, like himself when he was alive, live in Sarajevo, to which Divjak moved in 1966. From 1956 to 1959, he attended the Military Academy in Belgrade. In 1964 and 1965, he attended the École d'État Major in Paris. Although Divjak was an ethnic Serb born in Serbia, he identified as a Bosnian.

Career From 1969 to 1971, Divjak was in the Cadet Academy in Belgrade, and from 1979 to 1981, 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 and the Sarajevo sector from 1989 to 1991.

Between 1991 and 1993, Divjak was court-martialed by the JNA for issuing 120 pieces of light armor and 20,000 bullets to the Kiseljak Territorial Defence and was sentenced to nine months' imprisonment. He avoided the sentence by leaving the JNA and joining the Territorial Defense of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the first days of war, he was arrested under the charge of collaborating with the Serb forces and was imprisoned for 27 days. In prison, Divjak was on a hunger strike for four days.

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 and 1997, Divjak served as the Deputy Commander of the Headquarters of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina, charged with co-operating with civilian institutions and organisations (administration, economy, health, and education).

Divjak 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.

From 1998 until his death, Divjak was a member of the Association of Independent Intellectuals "Krug 99", Sarajevo. Before 1998, he was an active member of other associations, including sports associations, and the faculty of physical education in Sarajevo, and he has been a member of various NGOs in Bosnia. He was the author of 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, "Ratovi u Hrvatskoj i Bosni i Hercegovini 1991–1995", "Dani" and Jesenski and Tura in 1999.

He appeared in the BBC documentary The Death of Yugoslavia in 1995 and is the subject of a 2013 Al-Jazeera World documentary, Sarajevo My Love.

In 2006, he was awarded the title of Universal Peace Ambassador by the Worldwide Council of the Universal Ambassador Peace Circle in Geneva. On 8 March 2011, he was bailed from custody in Vienna and on 29 July 2011, he was released after Serbia's extradition request was denied by an Austrian court due to lack of evidence and the inability to guarantee a fair trial in Serbia.

Personal life Divjak was married to his wife Vera from 1960 until her death in 2017. He was buried in Sarajevo at the Bare Cemetery on 13 April, five days after his death.

Reactions and tributes Following Divjak's death, many prominent Bosnian politicians and public figures reacted to his death, including Bosnian Presidency members Željko Komšić and Šefik Džaferović, former presidency member Bakir Izetbegović, newly elected Mayor of Sarajevo Benjamina Karić, poet and screenwriter Abdulah Sidran, former footballers Emir Spahić and Faruk Hadžibegić and many others.

Foreign media also reacted to Divjak's death, with the likes of Voice of America, El País, France 24, Swissinfo and others remembering his life.

The day after Divjak's death, on 9 April, the people of Mostar paid tribute to Divjak. The same day, an image of Divjak was projected onto the Vijećnica (Sarajevo City Hall), thus Sarajevo symbolically paid tribute to him. Upon his death, the government of Sarajevo Canton announced that 13 April 2021, the day of his burial, would be a national day of mourning throughout the canton.

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