The Municipal Assembly of Srebrenica adopted today the proposals on changing the names of the streets in that city, and the proposal was adopted with 14 votes in favor and without representatives of the Bosniak Club, who had left the session earlier.
“The streets are named after the majority who think that Srebrenica is only a Serbian town, which is not true and is not correct,” Vice President of Republika Srpska Ćamil Duraković said in a statement to Fena news agency.
He warns that this is one of the most serious situations regarding that local community where, without Bosniaks, the representatives of the Serbs adopted a decision that has no other purpose than to insult others in a different way, in this case Bosniaks.
As Duraković pointed out, it is unacceptable for Bosniaks to change the names of streets which, according to the adopted proposal, will bear the names of persons “who were direct participants in certain activities and crimes in Srebrenica during the last war”.
Duraković believes that from 2016 until today, it is the continuity of the policy led by Mladen Grujičić, the head of the Municipality of Srebrenica, with the majority gathered around him.
“And a series of decisions that were made in the past aimed first to eliminate Bosniaks from the local government and that unfortunately happened in 2020 with the removal of me from the position of the President of the Assembly and the expulsion of the majority of Bosniak councilors from that majority in the Assembly and bringing Tursunović to the head of the Assembly . Thus, the form was respected so that they could continue their work,” emphasized Duraković.
He emphasized that unfortunately the price of that policy is that Bosniaks were left without any mechanism to stop or block certain decisions.
“That is why we have come to this position where the last activity is being carried out, which aims to eliminate Bosniaks from this city. And unfortunately, everyone watches it silently. In addition to all the appeals we sent, starting with those that went to OHR, foreign embassies and everyone who can influence this. Because here we are talking about the chief who has the support of the official institutions in Banja Luka and the policy currently implemented by Milorad Dodik and the ruling majority in this entity clearly encourages and supports such activities in Srebrenica where street names are changed in the place of genocide and everything that reminds that Bosniaks have ever been there,” warns Duraković.
He said that it must be put to an end.
“I think that it can also be an incentive for Bosniaks who think unfortunately wrongly, which is that it doesn’t matter who is the mayor of the municipality. It does not matter whether the mayor of the municipality is a genocide denier and whether the majority of those sitting in the Assembly are the ones who want to remove Bosniaks from those areas through various political pressures,” Duraković said.
He underlines that it is now very important who will be the majority after the next local elections, whether it will be the majority that will keep such decisions and implement them or will it be the majority whose first decision will be to repeal the decision made by Mladen Grujičić and his majority and restoring street names to a working condition.
“If the OHR does not do it, it must be the task of those who need to go to the local elections this year and in a political way return Srebrenica to normal policies that will not make uninational decisions by which they will override others and do something like this,” said Duraković.
The President of the Organizing Committee for the Commemoration of the Anniversary of the Genocide in Srebrenica, Hamdija Fejzić, told Fena that the adoption of the proposal on the naming of streets is another indicator of “showing the force of power”.
“The street names that we agreed upon in 2002 when we returned, that they should be the old pre-war street names, they were mostly going to change those names with their decision today. They brought exactly these and similar street names in 1995-1996, when they were alone in the Srebrenica Municipality Assembly,” said Fejzić.
According to the disputed proposal adopted by the Srebrenica Municipality Assembly, among others, Maršala Tita Street should henceforth be called Republika Srpska Street, Mihajlo Bjelaković Square into Republika Srpska Square, Srebrenica City Park into Major Kosta Todorović Park, and Reuf Selmanagić Crnog Street was proposed to be named Dubrovnik Street.
