In Stolac, more than a hundred Bosniaks built a wall around the cemetery at the Poprati – Poprzen location near Radimlja. In doing so, they continued the work started a month ago, and took the solution to the years-long problem of the lack of burial places into their own hands. Namely, the construction of the cemetery at this location was approved by the City of Stolac, but the decision was annulled. And in the Spatial Plan for the next ten years, adopted last week by outvoting the Bosniaks, the cemetery was moved to another location – unacceptable for the Bosniaks.
Volunteers, machines, concrete blocks. The Bosniaks of Stolac, yesterday morning, determinedly, despite the changes in the decisions of the competent institutions, continued the previously started works on the construction of the cemetery. Location Poprati – Poprzen near Radimlja. The City of Stolac approved construction, then annulled the Decision. However, Bosniaks who have been waiting for years for the construction of the cemetery were not stopped by that.
“We are forced to react in this way because we see there is no understanding,” emphasizes the chief imam in the Islamic Community Council of Stolac, Mersed Sabanovic.
“We are here today completely legally and in a legally valid process,” said the president of the Islamic Community Council of Stolac, Orhan Tikvesa.
Valid because by appealing to the cantonal ministry of spatial planning, they prevented the Decision on annulling the permit from coming into effect.
“With that appeal, they postponed the effect of the Decision on the annulment of the building permit, so now we have a building permit. Our building permit from last year is legally binding,” says Salmir Kaplan, SDA representative in the Herzegovina-Neretva Canton (HNC) Assembly.
The chairman of the City Council of Stolac, Edim Sator (SDP), emphasizes that the commission went to the field and wrote that there are no legal or other obstacles to the construction of the cemetery.
In the new ten-year Spatial Plan, which the City Council of Stolac adopted by outvoting the Bosniaks, the cemetery at the original location is not included. It was moved to another, inadequate location for the Bosniaks.
“The place where we found private parcels that the City will buy, and which in the Spatial Plan are already defined as being in the urban zone, we can turn into urban land. That is the only way – to buy private parcels and be able to provide space for burials,” says Stjepan Boskovic, mayor of Stolac (HDZ BiH).
“Nothing has been offered to the Islamic Community Council of Stolac, and that is all on a long stick,” says Tikvesa.
“To wait for him to buy a location that is not adequate – means there is nothing from that,” considers Kaplan.
However, the location near Radimlja by force of law cannot be designated for a cemetery. It has the status of state property, which, in the opinion of the Bosniaks, would not change the cemetery.
“It is time for this madness to stop and for us all to be equal in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). The Office of the High Representative (OHR) needs to interpret the amendments and additions to the law on the prohibition of disposal of state property,” says Boskovic.
Such solutions, the hardest for BiH, the Bosniaks in Stolac cannot wait for, because the cemetery has long since been needed. And after building the wall, there is also hope that this years-long problem will be ended.
“In the end, truth and justice will prevail and the dead will finally find their rest in the cemetery,” concludes Zlatko Hadziomerovic, president of Bosniaks Cultural Community Preporod Stolac.
