Željeznog Polja Residents: Is State Land in Žepče War Booty?

The citizens' association "Željezno Polje – Opstanak" (Survival), signed by its president Muhamed Sinanović, today sent an open letter to several addresses, warning that winter is coming soon, and their problems after the May and August floods have not been resolved.

- The overall picture is not encouraging and does not guarantee that a large number of victims will welcome winter in their promised new homes. A large portion of the affected, on whose behalf we are addressing you, have decided to tie their lives and their families' existence to safer areas of the Žepče municipality, considering that their existing habitats have been devastated and permanently unsafe due to landslides - the letter states, Patria reports.

Furthermore, as stated in the letter, state authorities in BiH have enacted legal regulations that enable the resolution of our new living spaces by allocating state land that has been leased to the municipality of Žepče. Thus, residents of the endangered area have proposed locations known as the ŠPD Žepče nursery or the Žepče field.

- The mentioned locations are permanently safe and suitable for rapid construction even in the autumn period, so with other assumptions, they would likely succeed in the race against winter to build their homes. For reasons unknown to us at the moment, these proposals of ours are met with bureaucratic silence and rejection by the municipal structures in Žepče. Citing alleged agreements made by municipal authorities with third parties, concerning our fates, these proposals are considered unacceptable and are rejected - the letter states, adding that there are examples they can cite where others are already resolving their housing issues.

- We have the impression that some contaminated minds perceive BiH state land as an ethnic exclusivity and war booty, more than twenty years after the events in BiH known to you.

The open letter was sent to the Government of FBiH, the Parliament of FBiH, the Council of Ministers of BiH, the OHR, the OSCE, the European Commission, embassies in BiH, and the media. Among other things, the residents of Željeznog Polja are asking these institutions to "within their institutional powers and obligations granted by international agreements, the constitutions in BiH and the valid laws of this country, and especially the guaranteed rights established by the Convention on Human Rights and Freedoms, enable the rule of law, not the fanatical individuals in the municipality of Žepče."