On the occasion of the Statehood Day of Bosnia and Herzegovina, a ceremonial reception was held in the Sarajevo City Hall, and the organizers were the Chairman of the Presidency of BiH Željko Komšić and the Member of the Presidency Denis Bećirović. In his address, Komšić called for loyalty to this country, as he emphasized, just as all Bosnian and Herzegovinian patriots believed in it.
“We are marking November 25th this year, just as in previous years, as the day of the restoration of Bosnian and Herzegovinian statehood. For decades before the restoration of statehood, Bosnia and Herzegovina, its citizens and peoples, were in a subordinate position in relation to neighboring countries, all due to the character of the constitutional and legal order of the states of which it was itself a part,” Komšić reminded.
The ideas about its division, he stated, were not only alive but were also realized on the ground and in daily political reality, and the emergence of the People’s Liberation Movement in the history of Bosnia and Herzegovina was salutary for BiH, but also for the then generation of people who actively opposed the division and disappearance of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
“Therefore, it is quite clear why the People’s Liberation Movement included forces and individuals with different ideological and political views. Regardless of their differences, they found a fundamental consensus and motive for the fight in preserving Bosnia and Herzegovina as a single state,” said Komšić.
He emphasized that not everyone in the Communist Party was in favor of defining Bosnia and Herzegovina as a single and indivisible Republic, but thanks to the diverse spectrum of political actors, and most of all thanks to the patriotism of the generation of Bosnian-Herzegovinian communists, the position on the necessity of forming Bosnia and Herzegovina as a Republic prevailed at the top of the party and at the top of the movement.
“That decision was the result of the struggle of the people of this country, a struggle whose importance no one could deny, because the people who rose up in arms cannot be denied or ignored. The nuances, as I said, were not decisive in the decision to form the Republic, but that’s why they were decisive in characterizing and defining what that republic is. All sessions of ZAVNOBiH actually represent one whole, that is, the unity of the statehood restoration process,” he said.
According to him, the Dayton Peace Agreement itself and the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina confirmed some of the basic principles written down during the First and Second Sessions of ZAVNOBiH, through the expressed elements of both the ethnic and civic character of our Constitution.
“Both the restoration of statehood from 1943 and the Referendum on the Independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Dayton Peace Agreement continuously carry the same or similar constitutional principles. Both the civic and ethnic components have always been represented throughout all our constitutional arrangements, but it is also a fact that there has almost always been a competition between these two concepts. Those who today, by emphasizing only one component, the ethnic one, using only what was emphasized in the First Session of ZAVNOBiH, and neglecting the Second, are trying to fake some consociational arrangements, are nothing more than ordinary falsifiers of both ZAVNOBiH and Dayton,” stated the Chairman of the Presidency of BiH.
He said that no three different entities will be created in BiH today or tomorrow because, as he said, this is contrary to everything that Bosnia and Herzegovina is, which is written in the declarations of ZAVNOBiH and in the provisions of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
“Attempts to consociationally regress Bosnia and Herzegovina through further ethnic territorialization or territorialization of the electoral model on an ethnic basis violate both the values of ZAVNOBiH and the principles of Dayton. Therefore, Bosnia and Herzegovina is left with two paths. The path of achieved values and rights that we have fought for for decades from ZAVNOBiH to Dayton, and the path of democratic superstructure of achieved rights, the path of a civil state prescribed by our Constitution and general democratic values,” he emphasized.
He emphasized that BiH is not ideal, but it is ours, and the sacrifice that was made for it obliges us to both respect and love it.
“I am convinced that the generation that comes after us has the strength to preserve everything that is valuable and make this country better. The prerequisite for this is that we value what we have, for which, by giving their lives, the generations before us fought for. In the history of our country, there were many difficult and gloomy moments when it seemed that everything was lost, but we always found the strength to move forward. Let’s stay loyal to this country and believe in it as all the patriots of Bosnia and Herzegovina believed and before us,” said Komšić, and congratulated all citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina on November 25, the Statehood Day of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
