Remembering Hamdija Pozderac, one of the most important figures for Bosnia and Herzegovina

SARAJEVO, (Patria) - The SDP BiH Centar Municipal Board, along with family and friends, marked the 31st anniversary of Hamdija Pozderac's death and laid flowers at the Bare cemetery.

The removal of Hamdija Pozderac from the political scene of Yugoslavia, as the strongest politician Bosnia and Herzegovina ever had during the communist era, can only be linked to his insistence, as president of the Constitutional Commission of the Assembly of Yugoslavia, on not changing the basic principles of the 1974 Constitution, which granted Muslims (later Bosniaks) the status of a nation within the SFRY, reports the Bosnian news agency Patria (NAP).

Hamdija Pozderac was a Bosnian-Herzegovinian politician, president of the Presidency of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

He was born on January 15, 1924, in Cazin, under the name Muhamed. He died on April 7, 1988, at the Clinical Center of Koševo Hospital in Sarajevo, under never-resolved circumstances. For many, he was killed to stop his fight for the equality of Bosniaks with other peoples in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Many still believe today that he was particularly responsible for the recognition of Muslims (today Bosniaks) as a people, one of the three constituent peoples in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
 

He had three brothers (Hakija, Sakib, and Ismet) and four sisters (Bekira, Fatima, Sadeta, and Zuhra). During his secondary education, he joined the then-illegal organization SKOJ, and in 1941 he became involved in the National Liberation War, performing a series of important functions and military duties.

After the war, he held a number of party and state positions. From 1965, he was a member of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Bosnia and Herzegovina. He was a delegate to the Education and Culture Council of the Assembly of the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, from 1971 to 1974 president of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and from 1971 to 1978 president of the Assembly of the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

He was a member of the Executive Committee of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Bosnia and Herzegovina and secretary of the Secretariat, and for a long time he was a member of the Presidency of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia and president of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Bosnia and Herzegovina. At the end of his rich political career, he was also a member of the Presidency of the SFRY, and when he was supposed to be elected president of the Presidency, he was forced to resign and shamefully withdraw from the political life of Yugoslavia, to which he had dedicated his entire life.

"Both Muslims and Serbs and Croats, as well as members of other nations and nationalities living in Bosnia and Herzegovina, ensure and realize their national identity and full affirmation of national values in it. Precisely for these reasons, although Bosnia and Herzegovina is not defined as a nation-state in the classical sense, it is truly a nation-state for Serbs, Croats, Muslims, and members of other nations and nationalities living on its soil," is a famous quote from Hamdija Pozderac.

On the political scene of the former Yugoslavia today, there are two politicians, descendants of the Pozderac lineage. In Serbia, that is Vuk Jeremić, and in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hamdija Lipovača.

The death of Hamdija Pozderac remains shrouded in mystery to this day, writes Patria.

Today, the memory of this politician and important historical figure of Bosnia and Herzegovina is preserved in the name of a Sarajevo street bearing his name.