2,500 Army of RBiH members from Prijedor look to Sarajevo, ignored in RS

Ramiz Salkić, the vice-president of the BiH entity RS, spoke on Tuesday with representatives of the Prijedor Region Veterans' Association. This association gathers around 2,500 former members of the Army of RBiH from the Prijedor region, and the key goal of their work is to protect the interests and rights of veterans of the defensive-liberation war, reports the Patria News Agency.

Senad Bratić, vice-president of the National Assembly of RS, and Dževad Smajić, president of the Prijedor Region Veterans' Association, as well as members of the inner leadership of the association's member organizations, attended the meeting.

Representatives of the Veterans' Association informed Salkić about the current issues, emphasizing that the issue of financing such veterans' associations in the BiH entity RS has not yet been systematically resolved. According to Dževad Smajić, this Association, in the two years of its existence, has managed to unite the interests of all veterans in this region, and to be a link between former fighters and government bodies, and the only support has come from Sarajevo, i.e., Bihać. It was stated that there is still no willingness at the RS entity level to treat associations of veterans of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina equally with associations of veterans of the Army of RS. Therefore, any kind of support and assistance can still only be expected from the Federation, which puts former members of the Army of RBiH in an inferior position. However, the announced law on war veterans in RS should also take into account the interests of the members of the Army of BiH.

Salkić expressed his belief that veterans, only through a well-organized Association, will be able to represent the interests of all their members in the future, and that the resolution of all problems should be raised to a higher level, in order to systematically arrive at concrete and effective solutions.