Can Dodik Explain to Dieng Why SNSD Opposes the Strategy for Genocide Prevention

BANJA LUKA, (Patria) - Member of the BiH Presidency Mladen Ivanić will speak today with the Special Adviser to the UN Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide, Adama Dieng, and the President of the RS National Assembly Nedeljko Čubrilović, as well as the President of that entity, Milorad Dodik, will also hold talks with Dieng.

Yesterday, members of the Collegium of both houses of the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina (PA BiH) also held a meeting with Dieng. Serbian members Ognjen Tadić and Mladen Bosić did not appear at the meetings.

Deputy Speaker of the House of Peoples Safet Softić pointed out that, "unfortunately, still in BiH and its surroundings, there are people who deny crimes and genocide, which frightens and burdens overall relations, so great efforts are constantly being made to suppress and prevent this."

Another Deputy Speaker of the House of Peoples, Bariša Čolak, added that it is a fact that the past "cannot be changed, but that officials of this country are called upon to do everything so that evil never repeats itself, and that the help of friends from the international community is certainly welcome in this regard."

Today's meeting is seen as an opportunity for Dieng, in his conversation with Dodik, to facilitate the adoption of a Strategy that would enable the prevention of genocide in BiH. So far, there has been no such willingness.

Denis Bećirović, an SDP deputy on the occasion of Dieng's visit, once again used the opportunity to submit an initiative in the House of Representatives of the PA BiH for the adoption of the Strategy for the Prevention of Genocide, which was previously rejected.

At the end of December 2016, he had already submitted a deputy initiative to the Council of Ministers of BiH, requesting that within six months from the day of adoption of this initiative in the House of Representatives of the PA BiH, it draft and submit to the parliamentary procedure a Strategy for the Prevention of Mass Crimes and Genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

He recalled that on December 29, 2016, he submitted such a deputy initiative to the parliamentary procedure, but the Collegium of the House of Representatives of the PA BiH "obstructed legally submitted proposals of deputies at the state level."