Fierce debate and even fiercer messages from Zagreb, where an international conference dedicated to the Dayton Peace Agreement and the political picture of Bosnia and Herzegovina three decades after the end of the war was organized. The gathering brought together Croatian, as well as Bosnian and Herzegovinian representatives, academic experts, and representatives of the American political scene.
Željka Cvijanović, a member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, also participated in the conference, who said that Bosnia and Herzegovina was and remains an experiment, and that the High Representative is not a legislator, and that the Constitutional Court is not the protector of the Constitution, but the creator of new solutions.
HDZ BiH leader Dragan Čović said that the Office of the High Representative should be closed and the issue of state property should be urgently resolved. The third entity is the solution, said the controversial Max Primorac, a lobbyist associated with the American conservative organization Heritage Foundation.
The head of Bosnian diplomacy, Elmedin Konaković, reacted to such statements, writing to the US Congress, and in that letter, among other things, he stated that many of Primorac’s claims were without a factual basis.
“Dayton was an agreement that promised equality for three peoples, and that did not come true. Local solutions are not possible if local actors do not have sovereignty. If the final authority lies in the hands of a European diplomat. This is the cause of constant threats of secession from Republika Srpska, and the number of Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina has fallen by 60 percent. They cannot even vote for members of their own people. It simply does not work. Such a development of the situation has opened up space for ‘communist China, Russia, and even Iran’, which are using chaos and further destabilizing the region,” Primorac said.
“You are pushing us into war again, and we don’t want that! We, Bosniaks, don’t want the ‘Cordoba syndrome’. We don’t want you to put us in a ghetto, or tell us that we apply Sharia, Muslim law and forget the rest! You say that only Croats cherish European values, so let me ask you, if you go to Stolac, why can’t Bosniak children ride on the same bus with Croat children? We are the only nation in the Balkans that does not have its own national state. We are not looking for one. “We want to live with you – both after the genocide and after the joint criminal enterprise. We want to live. And you show that you don’t want to live with us,” replied Mustafa Cerić, former head of the Islamic community in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
