Bosniaks criticised Wednesday’s celebrations that were marking the 27th anniversary of Republika Srpska, a semi-autonomous region within Bosnia dominated by Serbs, for which the Bosniaks claim was established thanks to ethnic cleansing and genocide committed during the 1992-95 war.

“Even the birds in the trees know that an aggression and genocide took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” the head of the ‘Women Victims of War’ Association Bakira Hasecic told N1 commenting on the RS Day celebration.

Hasecic became one of the most prominent human rights activists in the country after she was raped in the eastern town of Visegrad by members of the now-defunct Army of Republika Srpska during the war. Her sister died in a Bosnian Serb-run detention camp.

“I have felt the villains on my skin twice in Visegrad and nobody needs to tell me what happened in my Visegrad, which was ethnically cleansed within two months,” she said, adding that she is only one of the thousands of women who experienced wartime rape.

“Whoever intends to build the future upon our suffering, is mistaken. I think it is due time that our elected politicians from all three peoples say ‘it has been enough’ and to give our people, especially the victims, a chance to try and live a life worthy of a human being,” she said.

We should raise awareness among the new generation so that they know what happened in the past, she added.

The Constitutional Court banned the celebration of the Day of the RS in 2015, granting an appeal by Bakir Izetbegovic, who was at that time the Bosniak member of the country’s tripartite Presidency.

The reason stated was that the celebration falls on the same date as an Orthodox religious holiday, and celebrating it is, therefore, discriminating against the mostly Muslim Bosniaks and the mostly Catholic Croats.

The Court gave the RS Government six months to find a new date for the celebration but the request has so far been ignored.

The main Bosniak ethnic-oriented party in the country, the Party for Democratic Action (SDA), strongly criticised the event and called out the Serb member of the country’s tripartite Presidency and leader of the ruling party in the RS, Milorad Dodik.

By disrespecting the law, the symbols and institutions of Bosnia and the Constitutional Court decision, Milorad Dodik is “provoking tensions which cannot produce any good for anyone in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the region,” the party said in a statement.

The party also criticised a recent statement Dodik made when he called the Drina river, which is the natural border between Serbia and Bosnia, a “Serb river.”

Dodik has frequently advocated the secession of Republika Srpska and its annexation to neighbouring Serbia.

With such statements, the Bosnian Serb leader is “sinking deep into the mud of greater-state ideas which have in the 20th century turned this river into the largest mass grave of innocent civilians, whose only ‘fault’ was that they were not Serbs,” the party said.

There are no Serb, Bosniak or Croat rivers in Bosnia, the party insisted, saying that there are only ‘Bosnian and Herzegovinian’ rivers. “One of them – Drina – is the centuries-old border between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia. And that’s what it will stay forever.”

The party called upon Dodik, other RS officials and officials from Serbia to “finally realise that they will never manage to endanger Bosnia and Herzegovina and its internationally recognised borders.”

The Vice-President of Republika Srpska, Bosniak Ramiz Salkic, said that “representatives RS Government bodies” have “systematically, openly, institutionally, publically and aggressively” defied a Constitutional Court decision.

“In this way they defied the principles of the functioning of a lawful and democratic state, continued to provoke big and widespread tensions and anxiousness among the citizens, further damaged the political relations between politicians and continues to undermine the process of Bosnia’s integration into the European Union,” a statement from Salkic and Bosniak representatives in the RS National Assembly said.

The Constitutional Court has stated that Serbs in the RS have a right to protect their tradition and identity, but it has also granted that right to the other ethnic groups living in the entity, the statement said.

“However, joint holiday as the so-called ‘Day of the RS’ should be, should unite people in memory of key events in their joint history and contribute to strengthening the collective identity as an important value in a multi-ethnic society,” it said.

The statement pointed out that Bosniak representatives in the RS have on January 5 last year submitted an appeal to the RS Constitutional Court asking it to decide it the Law on the Day of Republika Srpska is in line with the Constitution, and it urged the court to decide on it as soon as possible.