The Croat National Assembly in Bosnia (HNS BiH), an organisation made up of Bosnian Croat political parties, rejected what it said were “false statements” made by Bosnia’s international administrator and complained that in his report to the UN Security Council he failed to say that certain policies in the country “trample on the rights of the constituent peoples.”
The High Representative, Austrian diplomat Valentin Inzko is tasked with overseeing the civilian implementation of the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement that ended the Bosnian war, presented his 58th Report on the situation in the country to the UN Security Council of Thursday.
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“The HNS listed numerous issues it said should have been in the report, such as what it said was a trend of “characterizing the Croat people as a minority,” calls from Bosniak parties to impose “illegitimate political representatives” for the Bosnian Croat people at various levels of government, announcements by Bosniak parties of “violations of the Dayton Accords in ways that damage the Croats in the 2022 local elections,” as well as “the Illegal and illegitimate composition of the Central Election Commission” and the fact that the “illegitimacy” of the current Bosnian Croat member of the tripartite Presidency is being ignored.
Bosnian Croat parties have been complaining about the election of Zeljko Komsic, the current Croat member of the tripartite Presidency, arguing that he was elected by mostly Bosniak votes and is not a legitimate representative of the ethnic group.
The HNS also complained that Inzko failed to mention the policy of “relativizing and preventing the implementation” of the agreement on amendments to the Bosnian Election Law, “policies of hatred” towards Croats and “obstructions of the rights of constituent peoples which are guaranteed by the Constitution” by the main Bosniak party, the Party of Democratic Action (SDA).
It said that the High Representative should act impartially in his mandate and must respect the democratically expressed views of “equal constituent peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina.”
“Representatives of the Croat people warn of increasingly intense calls to endanger the constitutional order of Bosnia and Herzegovina and undermine stability at the initiative of political Sarajevo,” the statement said.
The parties expressed concern about “increasingly frequent calls for the degradation of the Bosnian Constitution and the violation of the independent political will and rights of the constituent peoples.”
“Croats, as an equal and state-building people, will not be complicit in the harmful aspirations of Sarajevo and will continue to work for the realization of a developed, democratic and European Bosnia and Herzegovina,” it said.
“Especially in light of the 25th anniversary of the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement, which brought peace to Bosnia and Herzegovina, and acknowledging the fact that the High Representative in his Report distances himself from the use of his powers and recognizes the importance of democratic processes and representatives who were elected by Bosnian citizens, The HNS calls for recognition of the stances of legitimate political representatives, the protection of the Dayton Peace Agreement, further progress towards Bosnia’s membership in the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and stabilization of the internal dialogue,” it concluded.
