Bosnia's first president Alija Izetbegovic passed away 22 years ago today

He died on October 19, 2003, of heart failure.

According to estimates, more than 100,000 people attended Alija Izetbegovic's final farewell, as well as a large number of Bosnian and international officials.

Alija Izetbegovic was born on August 8, 1925 in the northern town of Bosanski Samac, in a prominent family that first lived in Belgrade, and who moved to Bosanski Samac in 1868. In the second year of Izetbegovic's life, his father Mustafa, who was involved in trade and banking, decided to move to Sarajevo, where he completed elementary school and high school.

Due to his membership in the Young Muslims Association, Izetbegovic was arrested in 1946 and sentenced to three years in prison. He was released from prison in 1949.

After leaving agronomy studies after three years, Izetbegovic enrolled in the Faculty of Law in Sarajevo, which he successfully completed within two years. From 1950 to 1960, he worked as a construction site manager, and from 1960 to 1982, as a legal advisor in numerous Sarajevo companies.

Six years in prison

In the spring of 1983, he was arrested and in the summer of the same year, in the staged "Sarajevo Trial", he was sentenced to 14 years in prison, where he spent six years.

After his release from prison, Izetbegovic founded the Party of Democratic Action (SDA) with a group of like-minded people in 1990, which won the most votes in free elections and would later play a key role in defending Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Bosnian war 1992-95. He served as head of state and the SDA for several terms.

He announced his decision to withdraw from the Presidency of BiH on June 6, 2000. He announced that he would step down after the expiration of his term as Chairman of the Presidency of BiH on October 12 of the same year. He also refused to run for office at the Third Congress of the SDA in 2001 and was declared honorary president of the party.

Numerous works

Izetbegovic is the author of a number of publications, studies and books: "Islam between East and West", "Problems of Islamic Revival" and "Islamic Declaration". These books have been translated into several languages ​​and published in several countries. In 1999, he published the book "My Escape to Freedom", and in 2000 the book "Memories" (an autobiographical record). The collected works of Alija Izetbegovic in ten volumes were published in 2004.

He has received a number of recognitions and awards, such as the King Faisal Award, medals from the Center for Democracy in Washington, and the most influential Spanish newspaper, Madrid's "El Mundo", chose Alija Izetbegovic as the world's person of the year in 1995.

In 1997, Istanbul's Marmara University awarded him the title of Honorary Doctor of Laws for his contributions to the protection of human rights, the establishment of peace, and as a distinguished jurist. At the Crans-Montana Forum in 1998, he received the prestigious award for the advancement of human rights.

Respect for the whole world

Alija Izetbegovic was buried at the Kovaci Cemetery in Sarajevo. His funeral was attended by more than 100,000 people from all over Bosnia and Herzegovina and abroad, and telegrams of condolence arrived from about a hundred countries.

The statement of Richard Holbrooke, the creator of the Dayton Agreement, about Izetbegovic stands out among many.

"If it weren't for Alija Izetbegovic, Bosnia and Herzegovina wouldn't exist today," he said.

The then Prime Minister and current President of the Republic of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, upon hearing the news that Alija Izetbegovic had died, said that it had shaken his people and him from the depths of his soul.

"Izetbegovic is a man who influenced history with his life and work. His mission is an expression of human honor and astonishing perseverance, which was an honor for the entire world. For the values ​​​​in which he believed, for his country and his people, he is an inexhaustible source of courage and exceptional value," Erdogan said at the time.

The then President of the Republic of Croatia, Stjepan Mesic, also emphasized that Izetbegovic, with his personality and political activities, strongly marked the events in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

"He devoted his entire life to political activity and was not broken even by the difficult years of prison life. His statesmanship role in the war and post-war years in Bosnia and Herzegovina, that difficult period for all states in the former Yugoslavia, is unquestionable. I often met him at countless peace conferences that, unfortunately, failed to prevent the war, and our acquaintance continued later when Bosnia and Herzegovina managed to maintain itself as an independent state," Mesic emphasized.

Numerous other statesmen from around the world, the region, and officials in Bosnia and Herzegovina have expressed their admiration and respect for the work that Alija Izetbegovic did during his lifetime.