The leadership in Bosnia’s Serb-dominated region must move away from its founders, as the recognition of Republika Srpska was an award for a successful genocide, Southern Connecticut State University professor David Pettigrew said at a Saturday session of the ‘Krug 99’ association of intellectuals.

“The recognition of Republika Srpska in Dayton was until now an award for a successful genocide, and the only fitting response would be a reunification of Bosnia and Herzegovina through constitutional changes,” he said.

“Returnees need to be welcome to return and live in communities from which they were forcibly expelled,” he added.

In order to improve the country, there should be no discrimination in employment, and the High Representative, the top official overseeing the civilian implementation of the 1995 Dayton peace Agreement, should support the “erecting of monuments for victims in Visegrad, Prijedor, Foca, as this would show respect to the memory of the victims and aid in local reconciliation,” he said.

The biggest barrier for Bosnia in moving forward is the unpreparedness to accept responsibility for convicted war crimes, “most of all for the removal of the consequences of the joint criminal enterprise and genocide,” according to Krug 99 President Adil Kulenovic.

“It is not only about the genocide and joint criminal enterprise, but also about the power structures in Bosnia and Herzegovina and its neighbourhood which continue doing what the genocide was committed for,” he said.

Rulings by the European Court for Human Rights are not being implemented, he said.

Kulenovic added that “Bosnia’s people cannot go on without international organisations and institutions, the international community.”