ASHDOWN: EU MUST SUPPORT THE FURTHER STRENGTHENING OF THE BOSNIAN STATE

SARAJEVO, Bosnia (July 29,2008) - The last thing the European Union needs is another destabilizing situation in the southeastern Europe. This may be what is in store according to the former International Community's High Representative in Bosnia Paddy Ashdown’s assessment.

"It is always more difficult, especially in the Balkans, to defend the preservation of multi-ethnic spaces and resist the creation of mono-ethnic ones. But to do otherwise is always folly and nearly always ends in blood.

Bosnia is going backwards again. The EU must stop running its policy for Bosnia for the benefit of its policy for Belgrade and Kosovo. Brussels must toughen up its conditionality, support its instruments on the ground, resist attempts to undermine the Bosnian state, insist on constitutional reform to make Bosnia more functional and tackle corruption which is becoming ever more embedded. It should also tell Belgrade that a key condition for progress towards Europe will be to support the Bosnian state and give no succour to those who seek to undermine it.

I'm sorry if this disturbs comfortable slumber of some capitals, especially in Europe. But I know of no way to whisper a wake-up call and no words to describe the pain that will ensue if Europe, once again, misjudges or misunderstands what is happening in Bosnia," Ashdown said in an article published by the British Guardian newspaper on Sunday.
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QUEST FOR OIL TO BEGIN IN BOSNIA

SARAJEVO, Bosnia (July 29,2008) - In about ten days a call will be announced for tenders for the selection of a strategic partner to Bosnia's main energy company Energoinvest. The two will form a joint venture for oil exploration in Bosnia.

This has been confirmed today by Energoinvest’s Deputy CEO Ibrahim Bosto, who announced that the new company would pick up where American Amocom left off in the 1990's.

Expressions of interest will be invited first, and the kind of company Energoinvest will be looking for is a company specializing in the area, and capable of providing both technological and financial backing.

There are four places around the country which have been identified as of potential interest.

Energoinvest, carried out a research which proved the existence of oil pools in the northern Bosnian region of Posavina, as well as in several locations in the southern Bosnian region of Herzegovina.

Energoinvest has the original report which indicates that Bosnia may have oil resources as big as Saudi Arabia or Iraq.

"The only solution at the moment is to find a strategic partner, who is ready to invest in this works, to co-operate with us and to reap the rewards of what may be there," Bosto said earlier this year.

According to several Bosnian experts, British Petroleum (BP) and the US Oil Company AMOCO, now also part of BP, were interested in oil resources in Bosnia before the 1992-1995 Serbian,Montenegrin and Croatian aggressions against Bosnia.
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BOSNIAN STATE COURT SET TO ANNOUNCE ITS VERDICT AGAINST ELEVEN SERBIAN WAR CRIMINALS CHARGED WITH GENOCIDE

SARAJEVO, Bosnia (July 29,2008) - The Bosnian State Court is set to announce its verdict against eleven Serbian war criminals accused of genocide committed in the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica,during the 1992-1995 Serbian aggression against Bosnia in what is being seen as a test case for the country’s justice system.

It is the first time a verdict for genocide could be handed down in Bosnia, in what is also the country’s biggest genocide trial.

The indictment charges former members of the genocidal Serbian fascist aggressor's formations,Serbian war criminals Milos Stupar, Milenko Trifunovic, Petar Mitrovic, Brane Dzinic, Aleksandar Radovanovic, Slobodan Jakovljevic, Miladin Stevanovic, Velibor Maksimovic, Dragisa Zivanovic, Branislav Medan and Milovan Matic with having participated in the capture and mass murder of some 10,000 Bosnian civilians in Srebrenica, and in taking 1,000 Bosnian civilians to the Agricultural Cooperative warehouse in the eastern Bosnian village of Kravice, where they were mass murdered by the genocidal Serbian fascist aggressor on the evening of July 13, 1995.

The trial against the eleven Serbian war criminals began in May 2006. More then 100 witnesses and ten court experts have been examined during the course of regular and additional evidence presentation by both parties.

One of the witnesses was a Bosnian who survived the mass murder because he was shielded by the bodies of those Bosnian civilians who were mass murdered by the genocidal Serbian fascist aggressor in Kravice.

He remembered that the storage shed was completely full when the detained Bosnian civilians were brought in, and how one of them complained that he could not stand anywhere because the storage shed was full of people.

"The soldier pushed him with his foot. Then a burst of shots was heard, and the shooting started," the witness said.

"I closed my eyes and waited to be killed. All the men fell. I lay down. There was blood everywhere." Shooting and the explosions of bombs and grenade launchers lasted for around one hour, he said.

When the shooting quieted down, the witness continued lying on the floor among dead bodies, listening to yelling and laughter coming from the genocidal Serbian fascist aggressor's soldiers standing outside the building.

"There was blood everywhere. I laid down on one of the dead men and put two dead bodies over me. I stayed like that for 24 hours," the witness said.

In its closing arguments, the Bosnian State Prosecution has called on the Trial Chamber to announce 11 Serbian war criminals guilty and sentence each of them to 45 years' imprisonment, which is the maximum imprisonment sentence prescribed by the Criminal Code of Bosnia.

"The Bosnian State Court should not hesitate to call the crime by its real name. What happened in Srebrenica was genocide. If a murder of 1,000 people and forcible resettlement of tens thousands of civilians, and a systematic approach to the commitment of those crimes, was not genocide, why do we then have all these theories, discussions and thesis that even a murder of one man can be considered as genocide?" the Bosnian State Prosecutor Ibro Bulic said, presenting his closing arguments.

The Defence teams of the eleven Serbian war criminals asked the Bosnian State Court to acquit the accused of all counts contained in the indictment, saying that the Prosecution had not managed to prove the allegations contained in the indictment, or that the genocide was committed in Srebrenica.

"The Defence does not deny that a crime did happen in Kravice but it denies that genocide was committed," Stojan Vasic, one of the attorneys said.

On July 12, 1995 the indictees guarded and controlled the road used by the buses to transport the detained Bosnian civilians who were deported from Srebrenica.

The indictment states that several thousands of detained Bosnian civilians were held in a meadow in Sandici and in its vicinity, in Bratunac municipality, before being transported to various locations, including the Agricultural Cooperative in the eastern Bosnian village of Kravice, and mass murdered by the genocidal Serbian fascist aggressor.
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TRANSPARENCY INTERNATIONAL BOSNIA CONTINUES TO OPERATE

SARAJEVO, Bosnia (July 29,2008) - Transparency International Bosnia (TI BiH) continued yesterday with its regular activities. The EU Commissioner for Enlargement, Oli Rehn, yesterday morning explicitly supported the work of TI BiH thus confirming the endeavours of the European Commission to continue protecting the work of civil society in Bosnia as well as insisting on the enforcement of the rule of law and the fight against corruption and organised crime as key priorities for all candidate and potential candidate countries in the European integration process.

Support that Transparency International Bosnia received for its standing from key institutions and governments, including the European Commission, is a clear message that human rights violations and political pressure on civil society organisations are not seen as acceptable behaviour for a country that pretends to fulfil EU accession criteria.

After suspension of its operations on 10 July, for security reasons caused by an unexplainable campaign orchestrated by the genocidal Serbian creature in Bosnia "RS" that aimed to publicly discredit this organisation, Transparency International Bosnia insists that the independent investigation of the so-called “racketeering affair“ should provide for an institutional answer and that all persons suspected for criminal acts must be held accountable in accordance with the rule of law, regardless of the position they currently hold.

Transparency International Bosnia expressed its deepest gratitude to all the organisations and individuals which provided unselfish support in these critical moments and conveyed the perspective that such a public reckoning with those critical of government activities should stop.
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BOSNIAN GDP GROWS 12.1%

SARAJEVO, Bosnia (July 29,2008) - Bosnia's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2007 amounted to 13.7 billion Bosnian Marks, i.e. 1.6 billion Bosnian Marks more than the year before.

The growth of the Bosnian GDP expressed at percentages amounted to 12.1% and is among the highest in Europe. This is, undoubtedly, worth the praise,Bosnian daily Dnevni Avaz said.

However, if one takes a glimpse of the structure of the Bosnian GDP over the after-war years, there is no reason to be pleased. This is the opinion of Anto Domazet, Director of Economic Institute of Sarajevo.

Production is not stimulated enough in order to produce significant results. Even a superficial insight shows that the growth of GDP primarily concerns trade, services and revenue increase in favour of public consumption.
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