Excellencies,
Religious representatives,
Honorable Ministers and Government Officials,
Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen,
Democracy builders of the World,

Bosnia-Herzegovina was one of the greatest European unknowns in the last century. Since the beginning of the World it has been a geographic watershed between the Adriatic and the Black Sea catchment area, and through a rather long history it has constituted the sensitive border between cultures, religions and mentalities.

Here civilisations collided with one another and, among others, the division of the Roman Empire in its two parts took place. Actually, all major states of the Old Continent had their boundaries on the territory of today’s Bosnia-Herzegovina. Starting from the already mentioned Roman Empire onwards the history has been recording here the attempts – successful and unsuccessful, longer or shorter – of Byzantine, Frankish, Hungarian, Ottoman, Venetian, and many variations of South-Slavic integrations, with more or less hidden hegemonistic tendencies towards domicile peoples.

Only at the turn of the millennium was a historical atmosphere created for the first time for all the countries of the region to enter the phase of a true democratic development, sharing the same or similar objectives of their foreign policies: to participate in the creation of a new undivided Europe.

Bosnia-Herzegovina, together with the region it belongs to, has only very slowly been building a desirable relation between history and democracy, and exactly this was the basic cause of frequent social turbulences and war conflicts. Here history is interpreted differently, very often in an extremely subjective manner, which always keeps latent the possibility of return of xenophobic, populist and authoritative regimes.

The process of fragmentation of the former state conglomerates into smaller, mainly national states may also be considered as a psychological vent for historic ambitions of individual peoples. Probably such feelings had to be given went to in order that one may become ready for the European integration. This was happening regardless of the complexity of the institutional hiatus, which then became almost an insurmountable obstacle for the confirmation of one’s readiness for a new Europe, especially in such a short period of time.

At the beginning of the new millennium and after the five years’ application of the Dayton Peace Agreement, Bosnia-Herzegovina and the whole region entered the “European phase”, which should give the country stability after a century of instability. It seems that for the first time in history it is possible to optimise the situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina, in spite of the catastrophic and multiple consequences of the recent war.

This process opens a Pandora’s box of possibilities that were previously unknown. These possibilities – such as, for example, the Decision of the BiH Constitutional Court on constituent peoples – can be used either for stabilisation and progress or, in the absence of progressive forces, for the reappearance of retrograde tendencies.

Basically, relations between peoples and territories have not yet been rationally understood in this part of the world. This kind of rationale will not and cannot mature without new concepts of governmental organisation based, above all, on democratisation and mutual tolerance that, again, come only with the process of Europeanisation.

The countries and peoples experience and interpret their belonging to Europe in different ways. Some of them consider themselves a part of Europe by definition, while others – small countries of central Europe – see it as a way of achieving their national independence, their cultural and political freedoms.

The peoples of the Continent consider themselves European and at the same time do not forget, but rather cherish their national affiliation.

Notwithstanding the antagonisms of the past and the current well-being, they want to share a common culture. This feeling is stronger in the western part; in the East it is an alternative to constant dilemmas of the national identity not yet self-fulfilled, whereas in the Southeast, particularly in Bosnia and Herzegovina and with its neighbours, there are still views that it is a suspicious cosmopolitan orientation. This suspicion comes from a part of the political establishment, that is, from those who provoke exclusively national emotions, using them as arguments and means for achieving political profits.

Is there a clear difference between Europeans and nationalists, especially on Europe’s periphery? The answer is positive because countries and peoples from the periphery of the continent still concern themselves with the questions from their turbulent past. Bosnia and Herzegovina is, unfortunately, the best example.

The war in Bosnia and Herzegovina was bloody and brutal. The most heinous crimes were committed in it, including genocide. Crimes were committed by all the three factions. To judge the weight these crimes and the level of suffering of individual ethnic group only on the basis of the known or just supposed number of victims in one group, is not in accordance either with God’s or human norms.

Collective responsibility does exist, but collective guilt is unacceptable, for crimes which are committed by individuals and groups. The arm of justice, first of all through the authority and activity of the Hague Tribunal, must rich all those responsible for the war and the perpetrators in war. Only in this way will the minimum of general security be provided in which the truth about the killed and missing will come to daylight, and exiled return to their homes of origin, their graveyards and places of worship are.

The criminal-justice establishment of facts about of war crimes and their perpetrators and the availability of special courts to deal with them are necessary for several reasons. First of all, for the sake of establishing the truth, because in war, and often for a long time after it, the facts callously manipulated. They are used to justify one’s own acts and intentions, or to impose collective guilt on others in order to produce negative stereotypes about them, and the like.

The truth has to be established for the sake of the future, too, to avoid the recurrence of a bad history, which is full of examples that it was just the crimes that were used as a method for the achievement of war or unrealistic political objectives.

Nobody can change the past, and only the truth can determine the realistic and deserved historical positions of winners and losers. The truth is especially important in the situations when neither of these two is defined, as in the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the peace, achieved by Dayton Agreement, made it possible for each of the factions to see itself as a winner, or a loser in medium term.

For this reason Bosnia and Herzegovina, with its overall political activity, supports the existence and the operation of international legal instances for a just and complete sanctioning of war crimes committed on the territory of the former Yugoslavia.

Thematic discussions on these issues and the involvement in them of a major number of relevant persons from different scientific fields and different segments of public life, certainly contribute towards creating a positive professional and public opinion. All this is supposed to give support to overall normative and legal activities on the international and national level in order to avoid the situations in which justice would be without power, or in which, in some inverted variant, power would not be accompanied by justice, which in terms of the consequences is one and the same thing.

Bosnia and Herzegovina supports the establishment of Truth and Reconciliation Commission which is needed not simply to uncover a hidden truth, but also to put an end to the existence of multiple “truth” fabricated with biases, corrupted histories and nationalist myths. Of course, the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission will not be easy. Nationalists and criminals who oppose peace process would prefer to bury such stories of cross-ethnic valor and humanity, because these accounts will make it harder to divide people and continue the cycle of intolerance. Also some others are already established their truth (s), and they don’t want to challenge that any more.

Although human rights are in their essence individualized and, through the destiny of concrete individual, even measurable, in Bosnia and Herzegovina they are mostly judged at the level of collectivity, national and social groups. Too much emphasis is laid on political, social and even historical context. At the same time one forgets the existential needs of the man in the street, of an individual at a given point in time, the needs such as: a safe roof overhead, a job to earn one’s livelihood, religious freedoms, the right to national and spiritual identity.

Such individualized approach is only appropriate, even in situations such as that in BiH none of the collectivities is strong enough to impose a solution that will not be accepted by one or both partners, and vice versa, nobody is so weak as to humbly accept what the other side tries to impose on him.

History shows that human rights are especially threatened during wars and local conflicts. This growing threat is accompanied by the amazing inventiveness in the forms and ways of endangering lives, property, freedom and universal human rights.

Therefore purpose of talks which we have just opened on this subject are not only to remind of what tragic and inhuman happened, nor just to determine what to do in the future. They are also needed to encourage people in the hope that a new, better and more just system of values and life in store for them; that system lies in store for them in which human rights will not be questionable in any respect but on the contrary, protected by internal legislation and, if necessary, supervised by international monitors.

In the period of reconstruction and assertion of generally accepted principles, a quality assistance of international associations and humanitarian organizations is necessary. The monitoring in all these issues, although important, must not push onto back burner the concrete forms of financial support to create the economic basis for the lasting return of refugees and displaced persons. Therefore, a powerful and timely assistance is necessary for the construction of housing and public facilities and utility infrastructure. This assistance is particularly important for the reconstruction of economy in order to create new job opportunities for the returnees, the demobilized and the invalid.

One should emphasize a great, maybe decisive interrelatedness of the reconstruction of economic life and the overall infrastructure with all that is understood under the syntagm human rights. Government bodies have the task to carefully elaborate Annex 6 to the Dayton Agreement, which deals with wide field of human rights. It is long-lasting process, all the more so considering inefficiency of all government structures, from the lowest local level to the top of the entity or state pyramid. There are big doubts and biased interpretations of the role of the state as a whole. The process has been unjustifiable slow; and the lost time is irretrievable.

It is very important that institute of the ombudsman for human rights is in the function. Ombudsmen operate both on central and entity levels. The Human Rights Chamber has been constituted as for Annex 7, referring to the return of refugees and displaced persons, several institutions have been set up including special ministries at all government levels. It is worthy to mention that BH is approaching to achieve fifty per cent of resolved property request.

Human rights are only one segments of the activity of Bosnia and Herzegovina government bodies. But actually all the activities are in the same function. There prevails the awareness that without economic development and without opening the prospects of life as a whole, it is not possible to approach the basic goal-the true respect for human rights for citizens of this country, regardless of which entity, nation or religion they belong to.

Final implementation of the decision of BiH Constitutional Court on Constitutionality of Peoples will have decisive significance in the acceleration of return process in all areas of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Implementation of this decision of the Constitutional Court will finally provide full equality of all BiH citizens before the law and open the possibility for all citizens to enjoy the same rights in all parts of state no matter of their national, religious, cultural and political affiliation. At the same time it is a step forward in searching for a crucial definition of very existence of Bosnia and Herzegovina – what does it mean equality of citizens and constituent peoples?

Another significant assumption for the acceleration of the return of refugees is arrest and sending to Hague in the shortest period of all persons indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for ex Yugoslavia, particularly of those from the top of the list. It is very hard to expect massive return of refugees if people are aware of the fact that those still walk freely and that they had to leave their homes because of them.

In this way individualization of the guilt will be achieved for war crimes and removal of the shadow of collective guilt from all peoples.

In this sense, we welcome the recent adoption of the Federal Republic Yugoslavia Law on Cooperation with the Hague Tribunal and announcement coming from Belgrade regarding the readiness for the extradition of all accused for war crimes to Hague.

Of course, another important factor in the process of the reconciliation is educational system. The first done step in this domain was removal of all insulting parts from the schoolbooks realized by the Commission consisted of educational experts from both entities. As the following and decisive step in domain of education we see the establishment of unique base for educational programs that have to intensify all advantages of joint life in multiethnic society.

In last period, Bosnia and Herzegovina achieved significant progress in domain of establishment of democratic society based on legal state and rule of law. As the confirmation of such progress it is tomorrow’s admission of BiH into Council of Europe that will represent certainly additional initiative for the continuance of the commenced reforms. We see our admission into the Council of Europe, as the first and very significant step in the beginning of the institutionalisation of our relations with the European Union.

As one of the very concrete results of BiH admission into the Council of Europe is also the list of the obligations that our country, as the full member, accepted to fulfil in the following period. A great part of these obligations directly refers to domain of human rights and reform of legal system. By the mentioned obligations, among others, reconstruction of the mechanisms for the protection of human rights is anticipated as well as the establishment of professional and independent system of judiciary and attorney’s office, including the beginning of the function of the Independent Judiciary Commission for the election of judges and prosecutors.

Also, with the admission of BiH into the Council of Europe possibility for BiH citizens is opening to realize their rights from the European Convention on Human Rights in last resort directly before the European Court for Human Rights in Strasbourg. This new possibility will influence additionally on better and more efficient work of judiciary system I BiH.

All mentioned elements, according to our opinion, represent important factor in the process of reconciliation in BiH. Conscience of citizens on the existence and function of the legal mechanisms that enable all those responsible for the crimes be brought before the justice as well as the fact that mechanisms exist for protection of individual rights and freedom of all citizens no matter in which part of BiH live, will provide BiH citizens to turn themselves finally to the every day’s life and establish normal relations.

To start to fight for better future, instead to fight for better past.