Tuesday, September 30, 2008

BOSNIAN PRESIDENT HARIS SILAJDŽIĆ ADDRESSED PARLIAMENTARY ASSEMBLY OF COUNCIL OF EUROPE

STRASBOURG, France (September 30,2008) - The Bosnian President Haris Silajdzic met with the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Lluis Maria de Puig, and with the Secretary General of the Council of Europe Terry Davis in Strasbourg,France,the Bosnian State Presidency said.

President Silajdzic said in the meeting that he respects the Council of Europe for dealing with the issues of human rights and democracy, which are important issues for Bosnia.

He also underlined it was important to talk about the genocide which was committed by the genocidal Serbian fascist aggressor against the Bosnian people,during yje 1992-1995 Serbian aggression against Bosnia, and for which the UN is also responsible. De Puigo emphasized that Bosnia can always count on the Council of Europe’s help.

In the meeting with the Secretary General of the Council of Europe Terry Davis, the issues of human rights and segregation in education were discussed, and President Silajdzic said the idea of apartheid cannot survive in Bosnia.

The Bosnian President Haris Silajdžić also addressed the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe:

"Mr. President,
Mr. Secretary-General,
Distinguished Delegates,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is an honor to address the autumn session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Allow me to express my sadness at the passing of Lord Russell Johnston, who was your peer for twenty-three years and who ably presided over this Assembly between 1999 and 2002. Lord Russell Johnston worked tirelessly on human rights issues until the very end, and our thanks and sympathies go to his loved ones.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Bosnia and Herzegovina highly values the work of the Council of Europe and its bodies and institutions. We have often been direct beneficiaries of this work, and have as a result of it made improvements with respect to the rule of law, human rights, and democracy. For this, I convey to you the gratitude of the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

We are mindful, however, that we continue to face a number of obstacles We have a long way to go before Bosnia and Herzegovina is able to live up to the principles that constitute the very foundation of this body.

Even the progress that Bosnia and Herzegovina has made often falls prey to the discriminatory arrangements that are built into our system of governance. While Bosnia and Herzegovina was among the first five countries to ratify Protocol 12 to the European Convention, it is the only country in Europe, and the world, whose Constitution, bars some of its citizens from seeking office solely on the basis of their ethnicity.

To be sure, the Dayton Peace Agreement ended the war, aggression and genocide. Its value in such a context cannot be denied. But Dayton was also intended to reduce discrimination and reverse the effects of genocide and ethnic cleansing. On paper, it had all the necessary elements to do so.

Indeed, Annex 7 of Dayton guarantees that all refugees and displaced persons shall have a right to “return in safety, without risk of harassment, intimidation, persecution, or discrimination, particularly on account of their ethnic origin…” In practice, and in the words of the Bosnia and Herzegovina Constitutional Court, we have been witnessing:

“a systemic, continuing and deliberate practice of the public authorities of Republika Srpska with the goal of preventing the so-called ‘minority’ returns, either through direct participation in violent incidents or through the abdication of responsibility to protect the people from…violent attacks due solely to their ethnic background.”

Ladies and Gentlemen,

This matter, clearly, is not solely our concern. On the contrary, we are hearing statements this week, in these halls, that the right to return in another European context is not an important right, as demonstrated by the fact that it was never implemented in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Do these statements suggest that Republika Srpska has succeeded in creating an international precedent? Does one get to keep the ethnically clean slate created by butchering and expelling those who are different?

If that is allowed in Bosnia and Herzegovina, it will serve as a dangerous precedent and will seriously undermine this institution’s other objectives in my country. Dayton was clearly not designed with a la carte implementation in mind, as one of its components cannot function without the full functioning of the others. Obstruction of some of Dayton’s elements was born precisely out of a desire to stifle democracy and preserve ethnocracy.

One effect of this obstruction is that entity voting has morphed into an ethno-territorial mechanism, whereby only 22 percent of deputies in the State Parliament, all of them Serbs, and all of them from Republika Srpska, can block any decision they desire. Indeed, precisely because 1.2 million have not returned, there are only two non-Serb deputies from the RS, far from enough to unblock obstruction. Conversely, since a vote from RS is worth double a Federation vote under entity voting, this is a one sided mechanism.

And what has this entity voting been used for? Just in the last two years, it was employed five times to block changes to the Citizenship Law that would permit dual citizenship. Unless these changes, modeled on the European practice, are passed, over half-a-million Bosnian refugees, who fled the country not of their own volition but under the threat of death, stand to lose their native, Bosnia and Herzegovina citizenship.

This, Ladies and Gentlemen, is genocide and ethnic cleansing by other means. The plan calls for eliminating on paper those who could not be eliminated in person. The weapon of choice is entity voting. And this weapon is still there despite the clear language in this Assembly’s resolution 1513 that mandates that entity voting itself be “eliminate[d].”

It is not the implementation of Dayton, but the violation of its core principles, that led to the ethnic apartheid we see today in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We are about to start work on a new Constitution, and allowing this practice to continue will not make that process a successful one. Instead, we will see secretive and pressurized negotiations, resulting in a flawed document. I know because I was there two years ago when the April package of amendments, that the Venice Commission heavily criticized, was offered instead of a meaningful constitutional reform. You know as well, because you were here at that time, adopting a Report that unequivocally stated that it was the “this [entity] voting system, the insistence on it and its political implications, which is to blame for the failure of the constitutional initiative, not a handful of individual representatives who voted against the [April package].”

It is for these reasons that I ask you to clearly identify the culprits and hold them accountable. Indeed, if Bosnia and Herzegovina cannot end school segregation because Dayton gives it no competencies to do so, where should the finger be pointed? Likewise, if only 22 percent entity-voting deputies block the law on the census, refusing the EUROSTAT-recommended disaggregated data, should the 78 percent majority who voted for the census be equally blamed? Finally, if we do not create a Supreme Court, as you and the Venice Commission tell us we should, is the blocked majority to blame?

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Please clearly tell us what the European standards are, and I, for my part, pledge that I will entirely accept those standards. I am certain that I speak for a clear majority of the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina here. There are those who say that they would choose an ethnocracy and its institutions over Europe, but should such views be relevant in today’s Europe?

In fact, is today’s Europe substantively different from Europe 60 years ago? Are we now only declaratively in favor of the rule of law, human rights, and democracy, but secretly still harbor respect for brute force? Do we condemn genocide through a verdict of the International Court of Justice but do nothing to eliminate its results? I hope that we are not such a Europe. I hope that we are a Europe in which ICJ judgments are implemented and not left in the archives of that Court. I hope that we are a Europe that realizes that, in the long run, values will always win against short-sighted pragmatic interests.

I could quote the ICJ Judgment to remind you what values are at stake, but, instead, I will quote my good friend Lord Russell-Johnston, whose account of the Srebrenica genocide is almost identical to that of the Court seven years later: “almost ten thousand…husbands, fathers, and sons, some only ten or eleven years old, even babies,… were killed in a five-day-long spree of homicidal madness, committed by the Bosnian Serb troops under the command of Ratko Mladic, an indicted war criminal, who is still at large.”

While we applaud the recent arrest of Radovan Karadzic, the fact remains that some of the institutions that the ICJ Judgment explicitly identified as perpetrators of genocide are still in existence. We also applaud the revision of the indictment against Karadzic, which now includes two counts of genocide, across Bosnia and Herzegovina, and against both Bosniaks and Croats. Finally, considering that the ICJ Judgment is the first and only judgment under the Genocide Convention in history, I hope that this Assembly will consider its implications.

Dear Friends,

We have not forgotten the help we received from many of you, and for that we thank you once again. However, without a comprehensive reform of the Dayton Constitution, little progress will be made, threatening peace and stability in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the region. I hope that the monitoring process will continue, and that we can also count on the continued help of the Venice Commission in this regard. Rule of law is important as it regulates an otherwise chaotic world, and we need such regulation more than ever. There must be a notion that justice exists, and people must be able to believe in it.

Finally, I hope that we can count on you to identify those who are committed to Europe of the twenty-first century versus those whose thinking is still dominated by the sixteenth-century ideas of ethnic fiefdoms. Ironically, Bosnia and Herzegovina was for centuries a genuine multi-ethnic society whose unique fiber was almost destroyed through mass slaughter, rapes, torture, abuse, expulsion and plunder at the end of the last century. Helping us reverse the effects of those crimes and to build a modern constitutional state that is true to its multiethnic character will make both Bosnia and Europe a better place",the Bosnian President Haris Silajdzic said in his address to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
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BOSNIAN PRESIDENT HARIS SILAJDŽIĆ MET WITH PRESIDENT OF EUROPEAN COURT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS JEAN-PAUL COSTA

STRASBOURG, France (September 30,2008) - Following the meetings that took place yesterday with the President of the Parliamentary Assembly and Secretary General of the Council of Europe, the Bosnian President Haris Silajdžić has met with the President of the European Court for Human Rights Jean-Paul Costa in Strasbourg,France,the Bosnian State Presidency said.

President Silajdžić emphasized that he entered the Court with utmost respect, because he visited it precisely because of Bosnian citizens who, as he put it, perceive it as the last pillar of protection of their fundamental human and civil rights.He highlighted his commitment to for respect of verdicts of European Court, and announced that the number of appeals from Bosnia will probably rise until the new Constitution is introduced, which will be in accordance with the European Convention on Human Rights.

The Bosnian President Haris Silajdžić also accentuated that a great number of Bosnian citizens rely on the European Court because they fell that they can not receive justice at the national courts, which is, as he said, the result of discriminatory provisions or practice on different grounds.

The President of the Court Jean Paul Costa thanked President Silajdžić on this visit, and reiterated that presidential visit reflects the level of seriousness of a country towards the European Court for Human Rights. He informed the Chairman Silajdžić about the challenges the Court faces, and some planned projects directed towards faster solution of the cases, and invited Bosnia to help him in this respect.

Number of cases from Bosnia have also been discussed, the type and kind of such cases, as well as the need of an educational campaign in order to inform Bosnian citizens better with the rules of the European Court for Human Rights.
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U.S. DEFENCE DEPARTMENT DELEGATION VISITS BOSNIA

SARAJEVO, Bosnia (September 30,2008) - A high delegation of the US Defence Department, helmed by the U.S. Deputy Defence Secretary Gordon England, will arrive in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo today for a two-day official visit.

The guests from the United States will talk with officials of the Bosnian State Presidency, the Bosnian Council of Ministers and the Bosnian Defence Ministry, also their host in the next two days.
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IGGY POP CANCELS CONCERT IN BOSNIA

SARAJEVO, Bosnia (September 30,2008) - The famous American musician Iggy Pop has canceled his concert in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo "due to security reasons".

Art Zone that has organized the concert says that "the security issue" helped reduce number of sold tickets.

But,Bosnian authorities said that the concert was canceled because of no interest for the concert and are saying that the managers of the band do not want to acknowledge that.

Last weekend, the Bosnians have attacked a few lunatics who attemped to import "a homosexual parade" from the "Christian" world into Bosnia and have beaten and stoned them.
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CONFERENCE ON BOSNIAN INSURANCE MARKET DEVELOPMENT OPENS IN SARAJEVO

SARAJEVO, Bosnia (September 30,2008) - A conference about the Bosnian insurance market development opened in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo yesterday.

Ferdinand Kopp, a representative of the EC Delegation in Bosnia, announced then that a project supporting the operations of the national and two regional insurance agencies has been developed, and they will be funded from the IPA 2007 programme.

Director of the Bosnian Insurance Agency Samir Omerhodzic reminded that unification of the Bosnian insurance market was the key activity of the Agency last year.He also announced amendments to the Insurance Agency Act.
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BOSNIA TO BOOST COOPERATION WITH MOLDOVA

NEW YORK, United Nations (September 30,2008) - The Bosnian Foreign Affairs Minister Sven Alakalaj met with Moldova's Deputy Premier, Foreign and European Integration Minister Andrei Stratan yesterday within the High Segment meeting of the UN General Assembly.

The the two officials highlighted the need to deepen the bilateral and multilateral cooperation relations between Bosnia and Moldova.

Stratan hailed the cooperation between the two friendly countries within the Central-European Initiative, South East European Co-operation Process (SEECP), and other regional institutions.

The two officials exchanged opinions on the internal progress made by the two countries on their European integration path, and agreed to exchange experience in this sector.

Stratan also informed Alakalaj about Moldova's initiatives during its chairmanship of a series of South-Eastern European organizations
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SPAIN TO PUSH FOR WITHDRAWAL OF EU TROOPS FROM BOSNIA

MADRID, Spain (September 30,2008) - The Spanish Defence Minister, Carme Chacón, has announced that she will be lobbying her EU counterparts at a meeting in Touville (France) this week for the EU military mission in Bosnia (EUFOR) to become an "essentially civil" operation.

Addressing the Spanish Senate Defence Committee earlier this morning,Chacón argued that the transfer of responsibilities to the Bosnian Army is now practically complete, and that "it only remains to finalise the political reforms."

There are 321 Spanish servicemen and women deployed in Bosnia as part of a total contingent of 2,200 EU troops.
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GOOD YEAR FOR BOSNIAN FARMERS

SARAJEVO, Bosnia (September 30,2008) - The data from the regional statistics agency show that a total of 75,157 tonnes of wheat were harvested this year in the FBIH entity, which was an increase of 4.8 per cent compared to the year before.

The average yield was up by 4.9 per cent. Crops of other types of corn were also up, especially oat (+29.9 per cent).

Fruit producers also did well this year, harvesting by 38.8 per cent more cherries and 23.4 per cent more sour cherries. However, the apricot crop was by 22.8 per cent smaller.
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