Becirovic – Inzko: Attack on Bosnia's educational system

OHR

The Social Democratic Party's Presidency candidate Denis Becirovic met with international community’s High Representative Valentin Inzko and discussed the current political situation in Bosnia. Bosnia is at a crucial moment of its post-war development in which strong negative tendencies intended to weaken the state, are openly expressed, he said.

He added that the international community contributed to this state with its inactivity or benevolence, but it is still not too late to stop the decline through a democratic change of power in the upcoming election, as well as through strong action of international factors, and with the use of all the powers that derive from the Dayton Peace Agreement which ended the war in Bosnia (1992-1995).

Becirovic touched upon the recent activity between Serbia and Bosnia's, Serb dominated, Republika Srpska (RS) entity regarding the formation of joint curricula for elementary schools in Serbia and the RS.

“I expect Vucic to stop his anti-Dayton (Peace Agreement) activity. Such an attack on Bosnia’s educational system can have unforeseen consequences and it must be stopped. It is not the way to improve the inter-state relations,” Becirovic stressed. “It is clear from the State and entity constitutions that this entity doesn’t belong to any one people. On the contrary, all the peoples and residents of this entity should be equally represented and it is therefore unacceptable that this entity should harmonize its school curricula on the group of national subjects with another state, thus trying to destroy the need to unify school curricula within the indivisible state of Bosnia and Herzegovina,” Becirovic added.

In the end, he said that the support of the wider pro-Bosnian platform to his candidacy for the Bosnian Presidency represents a very good basis to move forward in the right direction, after the election.

Valentin Inzko is an Austrian diplomat currently serving as the High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, a role which he assumed on 26 March 2009. The High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, together with the Office of the High Representative (OHR) in Bosnia, were created in 1995 immediately after the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement. The High Representative and the OHR's role is to oversee the civilian implementation of the Dayton Peace Agreement.