Letter from Academician Duraković to Gabriel Escobar

Academician Esad Duraković, in a letter addressed to Gabriel Escobar, explains the core of the problems in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Patria publishes Professor Duraković's appeal in full.

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Dear Mr. Escobar,

Patriots, humanists, cosmopolitans here in BiH are still looking to the US, whose power you represent these days in Bosnia, and on which its future may depend: its path to prosperity or its path to ruin. It depends on you, it would be great if you would keep that in mind – allow me to say that. Therefore, your mission is not only about the future of Bosnia, but your mission here also tests the US's sense of justice, its commitment to democracy and humanity. Believe it!

The war was stopped here by the Dayton Peace Agreement, but by that agreement – essentially – the Army of Republika Srpska was saved, the liberation offensive of the Army of BiH before Banja Luka was halted, and aggression was rewarded with a creation that called itself Republika Srpska.

For almost 30 years since then, it has become clear that this country cannot function under that peace agreement (it was declared a temporary solution even then), that it is necessary to change some things and make BiH functional. Before you, who represent the most powerful country in the world, there are two alternative paths today:

1. You have the opportunity to improve those Dayton solutions that have proven to be dysfunctional, to build upon that agreement so that BiH functions like any other normal country, self-sustaining, civic, humane, democratic.
2. The alternative to that path is deepening the crisis by giving in to the demands of nationalist leaders (today these are Čović and Dodik) who are working on the project of completing the aggression of Milošević's Serbia and Tuđman's Croatia. If you do that, then it would be the completion of the project from 1992. Negotiate with the opposition, listen to what the citizens want, not with nationalist leaders: there are very many of us who want a multinational and peaceful Bosnia, a civic, truly equal Bosnia, because what Mr. Čović advocates is only a deepening of national conflict in BiH.

Please keep in mind, Your Excellency, that the current political leaderships of both Croatia and Serbia are not factors of stabilization; rather, the instability of BiH is being created precisely from those two countries. The key to resolving the crisis lies there. We who strive for a civic and democratic BiH are disturbed by Mr. Palmer's negotiation course, which, moreover, is in a kind of "conflict of interest" due to his connections with Serbia. We are not asking for anything more than what you and Europeans have in your countries for your citizens.

Please, Mr. Escobar, save us from this nationalist hell! It depends on you and your country whether Bosnia will boil over again or be a peaceful Bosnia – in the harbor of civic and democratic prosperity.
Allow me to remind you of President Biden's speeches from the war years in BiH – when he bravely and precisely, truly leadership-like, named the aggressors and victims in BiH. That speech still gives us hope today. But that speech also obliges you – to create solutions here in BiH that will be consistent with the just and humane actions of your boss – President Biden. In doing so, among other things, you will strengthen his political, democratic, and human credibility, his consistency, and his authority.

Academician Esad Duraković