PRESS CONFERENCE SPONSORED BY BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA CONCERNING SANJAK
Press Briefing
PRESS CONFERENCE SPONSORED BY BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA CONCERNING SANJAK
19960802
FOR INFORMATION OF UNITED NATIONS SECRETARIAT ONLY
Since the solution to the Balkan crisis did not end with Bosnia and Herzegovina, the international community should try to solve the issue of the status of Sanjak and of the Bosniac people in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro), a delegation of the Muslim National Council of Sanjak (MNCS) told a Headquarters press conference sponsored by Bosnia and Herzegovina this morning.
Introduced by the Permanent Representative of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Muhamed Sacirbey, the delegation included the Council's President, Sulejman Ugljanin; the President of the Internal Political Board, Dzemail Suljevic; and the President of the External Political Board, Bajram Omeragic. Its statement was made through an interpreter.
According to documents provided to correspondents at the briefing, Sanjak was an autonomous part of Bosnia and Herzegovina until 1878, when it was excised by the Congress of Berlin Treaty and the 1879 Constantinople Convention. It, however, kept its political and territorial independence until the end of the Balkan Wars in 1913, when the area was divided between Serbia and Montenegro. The documents stated that the people of Sanjak organized themselves in 1991 into the multi-party MNCS, as the only legitimate leadership of the Bosniac citizens of Sanjak. Ethnic Bosniacs constitute 65 per cent of the area's 350,000.
In their statement, the delegation said that it had come to meet with representatives of the United States, the United Nations and the media to discuss the unfinished business of the Dayton accords on the former Yugoslavia. They were seeking the United States Government's initiative on a Dayton II to tackle the problem of the Sanjak.
The Bosniac people of Sanjak were denied constitutional rights in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) on 27 April 1992, according to the delegation. Since then, they had been subjected to military and police terror. More than 60,000 had fled from their homes; 250 had been killed, kidnapped or had disappeared; and about 51 villages ethnically cleansed, with Bosniac homes looted or demolished. Over 17,000 Bosniacs had been subjected to military-police treatment where they had been physically terrorized. Between 1993 and 1994, their political leaders were arrested, with a warrant issued for the arrest of the President of the Muslim Council as he left for Geneva. Large numbers of Bosniacs had been thrown out of their jobs with State companies.
The Bosniac people were, therefore, seeking national equality within the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, autonomy, and the maintenance of sanctions on the Federal Republic until the status of the Bosniac people was resolved, the delegation said. They also wanted a return of the permanent mission of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to help establish the conditions necessary for observing elections.
In a subsequent question-and-answer session, the President of the Muslim Council, Mr. Ugljanin, was asked to comment on a number of issues, including the visit to Belgrade by Ejup Ganic, the Bosnian Vice-President, and the dialogue between the President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the people of Sanjak. He said the fact that the President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia had received a delegation from Sanjak was a positive step and a sign that some normalization could be expected in the Federal Republic. As for his return to the region, he said that he expected an appropriate date to be fixed soon. The visit to Belgrade by the Bosnian delegation proved that Bosnia and Herzegovina had a peaceful approach to all problems.
Pressed to say whether he was afraid that he might be apprehended on the border with the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, he said he was not since he had done nothing wrong and that there was no legal basis to arrest him. But the Muslim National Council wanted to take actions that would prevent unwanted and uncontrollable consequences.
Asked who they had met with in Washington, D.C., the Council President said that they had had many meetings with United States senators, congressmen, State Department officials and other dignitaries in this, their fifth visit to the city since 1991. They had received expressions of support for their legitimate and peaceful claims. Some of the officials had stated that sanctions against the Federal Republic could be linked to the situation in Sanjak, with the possibility of their retention until the Sanjak problem was solved. Their interlocutors had also encouraged a continuation of the dialogue between the Sanjak people and the President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
Bosnia's Permanent Representative, Mr. Sacirbey, added that when the sanctions were imposed in May 1992, a speech by the United States Ambassador, Edward Perkins, had emphasized the necessity of resolving the crises in Kosovo and Sanjak before sanctions could be lifted.
Asked why he would not seek the withdrawal of the Yugoslav armed forces from Sanjak, the Council President said that had been a permanent request of the Council. But there were signs that the situation was changing and that a political development was making itself felt by the Government of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The political development, he explained, was the inclusion of a political option in the agenda, with the Government being ready to meet with Sanjak representatives, after refusing to do so for four years. The Government's readiness for dialogue showed it wanted a peaceful solution.
Bosnia Press Conference - 3 - 2 August 1996
When Mr. Sacirbey was asked if he saw any relationship between the Dayton Agreement and the question of Sanjak, he said that the peace process would not be complete until the issue of the peoples of Sanjak, Kosovo and Vojvodina were resolved. That was necessary for stability and peace in the entire region. Bosnia and Herzegovina had a special concern for the people of Sanjak because most of them were Bosniacs, with whom it had cultural and religious ties. He welcomed the growing dialogue between Belgrade and the Muslim National Council. But there were a few areas where Belgrade had not lived up to its Dayton commitments and had not moved as quickly as expected on Sanjak and the other national issues in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Bosnia supported the Council's agenda, which was compatible with its own, even though they had not been coordinated. Bosnia, which had no claims upon Sanjak, only wanted its people to enjoy their human, political and national rights. He stressed that both the Bosnian Government and the Muslim Council recognized Sanjak as part of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
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