LETTER TO PRIME MINISTER Nikšić: Stop Sanja Vlaisavljević from destroying the FBiH Publishing Foundation!

(Patria) - The Management Board of the FBiH Film Foundation has sent a new letter to Federal Prime Minister Nermin Nikšić, asking him to finally address this issue.

The Publishing Foundation has long been under strong pressure, both financial and political, as the heads of this institution refuse to submit to the instructions of Federal Minister Sanja Vlaisavljević.

Because of this, the Management Board of the Publishing Foundation had already written to Federal Prime Minister Nermin Nikšić and drawn his attention to the abuses committed by the Federal Ministry of Culture and Sports, headed by the minister, but this had no effect.

We transmit the letter in its entirety:

Dear Mr. Nikšić,

Less than two months ago, we sent you a public call to prevent the obstructions by the federal minister of culture and ensure the regular conduct of one of the two most important activities of the FBiH Publishing Foundation, namely the implementation of the competition for support for new literary works by domestic authors in 2024. We informed you that the regular implementation of the competition, which had been carried out for the previous nine years by the month of August, was prevented by obstructions from the head of the Federal Ministry of Culture and Sports, who, during the competition procedure, sought an illegal change to the rules on conducting the competition. This was intended to secure a formal possibility for the leadership of the Federal Ministry of Culture and Sports to manage the selection of jury members and their work, which the Foundation's Management Board, understandably, did not allow.

Since your response was absent, in December we repeated the call and warning that we do not wish to bear responsibility if you continue to neglect your obligation towards institutions under the jurisdiction of the FBiH Government and their activities provided for by the Budget Law, and if, in that case, the minister of culture succeeds in her continuous efforts to devalue the status and reputation of the Publishing Foundation and prevent the implementation of the only official state aid to writers of new works in the Federation of BiH. We highlighted the fact that 72 authors and the public, who value the importance of literature and culture in the life of society, rightly expect your explanation as to why you accept responsibility for the immeasurable damage that the minister of culture is inflicting on publishing, books, and culture.

Our call and warning were followed by public statements from authors, publishers, journalists, writers' associations, and publishers' associations, who all expressed dissatisfaction with the actions of the minister of culture and provided support for our institutional opposition to her harmful actions and efforts to preserve the credibility of the social role and activities of the Publishing Foundation. Unfortunately, you responded to all of this with silence. And your silence in this case meant, above all, ignoring the creative effort of seventy-two Bosnian-Herzegovinian writers who went through the ordeal of writing original literary works, and the humiliating exposure of their personalities and works to the whims of the minister of culture.

But, should we say unfortunately again, repeat the old word about the comic and the tragic, or say how it is possible to trivialize banality. Instead of you and your answer to the question of whether the competition for support for new literary works for 2024 will be conducted, the minister of culture spoke out with her new order to relocate the Publishing Foundation, and the other three foundations, from their current premises to other premises. It is hard to say which in a series of decisions by the minister this is about relocating foundations from current premises to basement premises, from basement premises to some others, from those others to some third ones. These decisions have been her regular and main acts towards the foundations over the last six months. The Management Boards of the Publishing Foundation and the Library Activities Foundation did not accept her orders, while the staff of the other two foundations, whose Boards accepted the minister's orders and recommendations, were relocated several times, even to unsuitable/basement premises. The unsuitability of those premises was established by the findings of the Cantonal Inspection.

Everyday political banalities include more or less transparent attempts to replace real or big problems with artificial or smaller problems. Replacing the problem of the competition for new works, and the question of whether 72 authors have in vain submitted manuscripts to the address of the Publishing Foundation, with the supposed problem of managing the Foundation's office space, and the question of storing envelopes with manuscripts, is a disgrace even for the most base trivialization of politics, for the most transparent attempts to mock professional work and responsible governance.

Bearing this in mind, we state that this is precisely one of the many reasons why the relocation of the Foundation is not possible. Namely, due to suspicion of unauthorized entry by several persons into the Foundation's premises, after working hours, on 29.10.2024, a criminal complaint was filed with the MUP of the Sarajevo Canton to investigate the circumstances and prevent possible liability of the Management Board for the potential loss of documentation. The MUP of the Sarajevo Canton contacted the Publishing Foundation and announced that the case would be forwarded to the competent prosecutor's office. Until the procedure is completed, the Foundation does not plan to undertake any activities regarding the relocation of documentation and similar activities. The envelopes received for the competition are under the strict control of the Publishing Foundation, exactly as they arrived by mail.

In addition to this reason, we emphasize that the preservation of documentation, according to the statute, is exclusively the obligation of the Management Board, and in this regard, we would not take risks of relocation in which certain documentation could be lost or possibly destroyed. We emphasize that Foundation funds were invested for these needs to adapt the premises to the large amount of archival material and to ensure the material was adequately stored. Taught by the experience of the other two foundations that agreed to relocation and which were completely decimated and humiliated in every respect, we do not plan to take such risks.

Also, the Foundation has used these premises for twenty years, and any form of relocation from these premises would be humiliating, especially given the fact that an entire institution (which in publishing and author circles is said to be the last line of defense of publishing) would have to move out so that some employee could be "placed" in that space. This composition of the Management Board cannot allow such activities, and we are obliged to preserve the dignity of the Foundation regardless of the consequences.

We inform you that in the event of further delay in resolving the problem with the implementation of the competition for new manuscripts, we will be forced to take all available procedural actions with the aim of protecting the public interest in the field of publishing, for which we, as the Management Board, are responsible.