The same forces that rebelled against the state and the international order in the early 1990’s are today doing the same only now through Bosnia’s institutions and by trying to suspend the Constitution, the newly elected Bosnian Croat member of the tripartite Presidency, Zeljko Komsic, said on Saturday.

“Citizens are obliged to resist this in a democratic way,” a statement the leader of the Democratic Front (DF) released to mark the 23rd anniversary of the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement said.

The agreement ended the 1992-95 war and contains Bosnia’s Constitution.

“Citizens have to defend themselves against the deepening of discrimination aimed at suspending the Constitution which in itself already contains numerous discriminating elements,” Komsic said.

But he emphasized that even such a constitution must be protected as it is a precondition for Bosnia to one day become “a normal civic country in which ethnic identity will neither be a privilege, nor barrier for any Bosnian citizen.”

The forces that protected the country during the war have also protected the international order, as “Bosnia and Herzegovina was on May 1992 accepted into the United Nations,” said Komsic.

He said that 23 years ago, “due to acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing committed against them,” citizens had to make “huge concessions” in order to achieve peace and preserve the country.

These concessions have produced inequality and now years later, rulings by the European Court for Human Rights have pointed out those destructive concessions and ordered Bosnian authorities to get rid of the problematic parts in their constitution, he said.

“Not only did those in power not remove the existing discrimination, but a significant number of them are trying to revive it through Bosnia’s institutions,” he concluded.