Krug 99: The domination achieved through ethnic cleansing must be broken in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Today's topic of the Krug 99 session "Bosnia and Herzegovina must become part of the modern democratic world" whose introductory speaker is Ahmed Husagić, president of the Movement Snaga Domovine, former advisor to the Chancellor of Austria, was defined almost a month ago and has a permanent, I would say, epochal character, believes the president of Krug 99, Adil Kulenović. We are publishing his explanation of the importance of the topic in full.

. It is with reason that a young man was chosen to speak, whose political sensitivity has been proven through political engagement in Austria, as a coordinator for integration of the Austrian political party SPD, and as one of the leading figures of the Bosnian diaspora in Austria. And who, it is to be expected, should be recognized in the Bosnian political environment as well. And that is what is most often, among reasonable people, often desired: a combination of acquired knowledge and experience from the European democratic environment and engagement in the transformation of our country towards the standards and values of Western democratic civilization. His engagement at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic in helping our students scattered across Europe speaks more eloquently than mere biographical data.

I said „epochal character“, in announcing the topic, from the deepest conviction and without a desire to flirt with mere stylistic figures. Bosnia and Herzegovina must finally become part of the community of the modern democratic world! The crisis, both security and political, no matter how radical, must also be a turning point for a decisive shift of Bosnia and Herzegovina from the embrace of historical pretensions and great-state expansionism of its neighbors. Even Tito in 1943, when making the ZAVNOBiH, historical and most important decisions on the restoration of Bosnian statehood, yielded before ethno-nationalist bullies,  accepting  that Bosnia and Herzegovina is tripartite, a special case in the then federal Yugoslavia, „neither, nor, nor“ and „and, and, and“, without being defined like all other federal units, that Bosnia is Bosnian, a community of all its people. Nevertheless, the greatest result in those historical circumstances is the restoration of Bosnian statehood as the first phase in its further construction., Kulenović pointed out.

The second phase of the state and democratic transformation of Bosnia and Herzegovina was supposed to occur with the first multi-party elections, the culmination of which was the 1992 referendum on independence. The war that followed against Bosnia and Herzegovina, with the most severe and internationally established consequences, delayed that path. But it confronted the Bosnian people with the forces of realpolitik of the international community, which did not protect an equal member of the United Nations according to the obligations of its own Charter. On the contrary, with the arms embargo, it deprived the sovereign right to defend the country.

The Dayton Peace Agreement stopped the war, but with its solutions for Bosnia and Herzegovina as a „special case“, with the model of ethnocracy instead of democracy, the political model of constituent peoples and the stigmatization of citizens, it deprived the possibility and right to create a free and prosperous community on the model of developed democracies. Because of this, the danger of renewed war, like a sword of Damocles, has been hanging over the heads of the Bosnian people for 26 years, destroying society and undermining the constitutional order of even such a state. In a manner and methods seen 30 years ago. The political establishment of the Serbian and Croatian states, sovereign nations, persistently impose the ideologies of ethno-nationalism in and for Bosnia and Herzegovina and other countries of the Western Balkans. Today, their skillful manipulation in interpreting the state and their own state law, belonging to the nation, i.e., the state, and using the ethnic identity of citizens of another state as an instrument of subjugating another state, another nation, is clearer than ever. That ideological concept and political strategy of ethno-nationalism are the key agents of violence and war, and expansionist great-statehood. Both in recent history and today. If that tribal, ethnic concept of current Serbia, Croatia, Hungary and others, of state rounding off of ethnic groups, were to prevail in Europe and the world, a third world war would be a certainty, and the United Nations a relic of the past.

And in the current security and political crisis, the key instrument of Serbian and Croatian great-statehood and expansionism is the so-called constitutionality of peoples. And in fact, the statements of Vučić and Milanović have greater specific weight on the situation and relations in Bosnia and Herzegovina than those of Dodik and Čović. Their gubernatorial and colonial attitude towards Bosnia and Herzegovina is more eloquent than the insults, humiliations and stigmatization of peoples and religious groups. Tying to the political system of Serbia and Croatia is a fact where „their“ ethnic and political groups have dominance achieved through ethnic cleansing. The planted cuckoo's egg about developing good relations between Serbs and Bosniaks, Bosniaks and Croats, is only a mimetic wafer of ethno-nationalism and the destructive destruction of the Bosnian state.

Because of this, the epochal generational challenge of free citizens is the defeat of great-statehood and ethno-nationalism both in the Western Balkans region and in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Opening perspectives for a modern Bosnian democratic nation, civic constitutional order and a sovereign state are guarantees for lasting peace in this part of the world.

Whether our allies on that path will be countries of developed democracies, civil and human rights and freedoms, or whether the indecisiveness of the international community and the policy of constant concessions to bullies will continue to keep us in the lobby of the democratic world and a powder keg in the Balkans, will depend on our courage and rational visions of democratic and every other resistance in the fight for peace, preservation of the state and a new phase of development and alliance with the modern democratic world.