Former Croatian President Stjepan Mesic wrote a public appeal to whomever it may concern as well as the local media, for the salvation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Dnevnik.hr reported on Thursday.
“I appeal as someone who for the last thirty years has persistently and consistently advocated the inviolability of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a united country, which does not mean a unitary country, and who fought for equal rights of all its citizens, and consequently its constituent peoples. I am deeply concerned about the continuing deterioration of relations in Bosnia and Herzegovina and am aware of the fact that any internal conflict in that country would necessarily have negative consequences not only for peace and security in Southeast Europe but throughout the continent,” Mesic wrote among other things.
He estimated that there is no time to lose and felt that it was his duty, but also a debt to all those who trusted him as President of the Republic of Croatia for many decades, to say that the future of BiH can be secured only by radical changes, not by maintaining the current situation with current protagonists who do not negotiate to find a way out but to not find it at all.
“The situation we are witnessing, in which the behaviour of the Republika Srpska entity and its leader, Milorad Dodik, should be seen exclusively as an instigator of the crisis, while its real causes are far deeper and should be sought outside the Republika Srpska, realistically carries within it the potential for open conflict. This would not be possible if Dodik did not enjoy the support of the largest Croat party in BiH, the Croat Democratic Union of BiH (HDZ BiH),” Mesic warned.
He also added that Dodik’s questioning of Bosnia’s existence would not be possible without Serbia’s active support, as well.
In his opinion, the support for the Dayton Peace Agreement which ended the war in BiH is nothing else but keeping the country from going forward, as there is neither international (mainly the US and EU) nor the local will to change it.
“The past decades have shown that the so-called the political elite in BiH, regardless of the diversity of reasons and motives, basically had only one goal, and that is to bring down the state and society, but criminally and profitably, to today's level.
Bosnia and Herzegovina, established by the Dayton Accords, was doomed to failure from the very beginning, to be dysfunctional and, by promoting the principle of equality of the three constituent peoples, to actually rob individuals of their basic human rights and establish inequality between them. Those who do not declare themselves as members of one of the three constituent peoples are deprived of some of their basic rights,” Mesic wrote.
In his opinion, the only way out for BiH is the creation of a civic state and for neighbouring Serbia and Croatia to stop meddling in its internal relations.
“This means establishing a temporary structure of the country, under international control (if necessary with respectable peacekeepers with a clear mandate) and with the active participation of international actors, drafting a new BiH constitution that would avoid all the pitfalls of the current constitution, and – after a transitional period of five years – holding of parliamentary and local elections, in order to establish a new structure of government based on the results of these elections. Thus the fate of Bosnia and Herzegovina would finally be handed over to those living in it, to all BiH citizens,” Mesic concluded.
