Ahmetović seeks amendments to BiH Election Law to grant greater rights to Bosniaks in RS

Sadik Ahmetović, a Member of the House of Representatives of the BiH Parliament (SDA), has submitted an initiative to the Interdepartmental Working Group for the Drafting of the BiH Election Law, requesting a series of amendments concerning the municipality of Srebrenica and other municipalities in the RS where Bosniaks were the majority population before the aggression against BiH, reports the BiH news agency Patria.

- BiH is burdened by the legacy of severe mass and systematic human rights and humanitarian law violations of the highest order. The legacy of the past, the genocide in Srebrenica, as proven before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, in order to establish the rule of law, activities should be undertaken to mitigate the consequences of the crimes and create conditions for promoting peace, democracy, and reconciliation in BiH, especially in the wider Srebrenica area, with the aim of preventing the repetition of the past. Therefore, I propose the following amendments to the BiH Election Law:

- That local elections for the Municipal Assembly of Srebrenica be based on the national structure of the Municipality according to the 1991 census.

- That elections for the National Assembly of RS, for the existing electoral unit to which the Municipality of Srebrenica, as well as the Municipalities of Vlasenica, Milići, Bratunac, and Zvornik belong, be based on the national structure according to the 1991 census.

- That a new electoral unit for the State Parliament be formed, which will encompass the Municipalities of Srebrenica, Vlasenica, Milići, Bratunac, and Zvornik, based on the national composition of that population from 1991.

Genocide was committed in Srebrenica and has been legally proven in The Hague. The victims of the crimes in the Srebrenica genocide are mainly from Srebrenica, but also from the wider area of surrounding municipalities. Therefore, the proposed Election Law also includes other municipalities that I have listed.

The Municipality of Srebrenica was a kind of concentration camp where all Bosniaks were killed based on their national affiliation. At least 8,371 men and women were killed.

I have defined these municipalities as one electoral unit, and this is a form of justice and a greater chance for the surviving victims of the genocide to have greater participation in both the National Assembly of RS and the State Parliament. Bosniaks are now reduced to a very modest statistic of about 15 percent there, whereas before the war they were the majority.