PRESS CONFERENCE BY BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

26 September 1996

Press Briefing

19960926 FOR INFORMATION OF UNITED NATIONS SECRETARIAT ONLY

The main cause of concern regarding the Dayton Peace Agreement was its partial and selective implementation by some of the parties to the pact that was initialled on 21 November 1995 by Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) and other parties, said the President of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Alija Izetbegovic, to correspondents at a Headquarters press conference on Thursday afternoon.

President Izetbegovic reiterated some of the points of his Wednesday afternoon speech to the General Assembly, stating that some parties to the Agreement implemented portions they liked and ignored those they did not find in their interest. For example, he said, while the Serbs liked the Agreement's provisions for a Republika Srpska, they did not like Annex 7, which demanded the return of approximately 500,000 refugees and displaced persons to their homes. While Bosnia's Government would accept a Republika Srpska which accepted the return of refugees and expelled persons, it would not accept a Republika that did not.

Regarding reform to the United Nations, President Izetbegovic said that changes to the Security Council should include a search for new world attitudes and mentalities in using the Council to tackle the problems of international peace and security. The United Nations should not make commitments that it could not fulfil. Such a situation, as in the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the proclamation of the "safe havens" of Srebrenica and Zepa, had led to tragedy. Instead of being protected, those "safe havens" had been left to fend for themselves when they came under attack from the Serbs. About 8,000 people had either lost their lives or had been missing since the fall of Srebrenica.

While some countries were interested in the administrative aspects of reforming the United Nations, he went on, Bosnia and Herzegovina was more concerned about ensuring that the Organization lived up to its commitments.

The policies of the new Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina, President Izetbegovic said, would emphasize four main points. First, it should be maximally representative, with delegates from all relevant political factions based on the returns of the 14 September elections. Second, it should ask all parties to fully implement the Dayton accord and ask all local and international parties to keep their parts of the bargain. Third, it should call for reconciliation amongst the peoples in the context of a strict prosecution of war criminals. Fourth, the Government should establish free media throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina and use them to heal the country's wounds by spreading the message of tolerance and understanding.

The media, he continued, had been used in the past seven to eight years to fan the flames of hatred, which had then led to the Balkan war. "If the media can play such a significant role in creating the war, I believe it is also possible for the media to bring about the conditions of reconciliation", he said. "Without new ideas, and a new spirit of reconciliation and tolerance especially, it would be difficult to bring about reconciliation."

At the international level, President Izetbegovic committed his Government to the pursuit of peace and stability. "Bosnia and Herzegovina will try to join the fight against evil and to make the world a safer and more secure place", he said. One of the actions he had taken to show Bosnia and Herzegovina's commitment to a safer international system was his signature on the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. Since his country was small, that action was but a symbolic gesture of its commitment to peace. "Bosnia and Herzegovina will in future join any action which will help to suppress evil and to promote good", he said. "It will do everything that will lead to a better and safer world."

Asked why Europe was in such a haste to declare the elections in Bosnia "free and fair" despite the obvious irregularities, President Izetbegovic said that, while the polls had not been free and fair, they were the beginning of the more positive aspect of the peace process. For example, there was a Republika Srpska and new parties on both sides, including opposition parties. Before the elections, his Government had conducted a detailed study of the pros and cons of the elections, which provided lengthy and weighty reasons for either accepting or rejecting the vote. However, the Government decided that the reasons for going ahead with the elections outweighed those against, leaving the Government no choice but to go ahead and take part in the elections.

Asked if he welcomed the announcement by the United States that it would examine the need for a force to remain in Bosnia and Herzegovina beyond the December deadline of the NATO Implementation Force (IFOR), he replied that IFOR's mandate should be extended for two years to help his country, which was "a patient which cannot stand on its own at this time". The Force's size could be reduced and its mandate changed. The international community should also render economic assistance to Bosnia and Herzegovina for a longer period of time to help it recover from its trauma.

A correspondent asked what the President had told United States Secretary of State, Warren Christopher, about the presence of foreign forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In response, President Izetbegovic spoke at length on the issue of his country's relation with Iran and the presence of some mujahidin. He said that the issues had been brought up on many occasions over several years. They were separate and Iran and the mujahidin had never worked together in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Iran had never had a military presence in his country. All it had done was send some arms and train Bosnian soldiers. The presence of the mujahidin, whose numbers had hovered between 500 and 600, had always been exaggerated.

Bosnia Press Conference - 3 - 26 September 1996

"This was an exotic theme which attracted worldwide media attention", he continued. "They take the pictures which are passed on. The pictures get more play in America than my pictures. They show people wearing Islamic dress and they show women wearing head covers. What they showed is not even 10 per cent of what happens in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The lives of the people in Bosnia and Herzegovina, when compared with those of Americans, were 90 per cent similar. We dress in the same way, we have the same culture and we pray to God as Americans do. The difference is that the United States is rich while we are poor."

Despite that, he added, the media kept harping on the issue of the mujahidin. All military ties with Iran had been severed after the war. As for the mujahidin, he said only 50 families of former members of units which had been demobilized and disarmed remained in the country. They were in Bosnia because they had married Bosnian women, had Bosnian children and had acquired Bosnian citizenship. "I have to say this 100 times to convince the Americans that this is true", he said. "There are no mujahidin in Bosnia and Herzegovina." Those of them who had been in the country had since left. Even though IFOR had been in Bosnia and Herzegovina for more than 10 months, there had been no ugly incidents or even altercations between IFOR members and the mujahidin. There were ulterior motives behind the persistent reports regarding the presence of the mujahidin.

President Izetbegovic said he had been asked by a foreign journalist whether he wanted to establish an Islamic State. He recalled having responded, "we want a normal State in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the Islamic religion can be free. And that's all; nothing more, nothing less." But while the majority of the people in Sarajevo were Muslims, one could find women wearing both miniskirts and those who were covered. "I think the miniskirts are in the majority as far as I see. Therefore, there is no difference between Sarajevo and any other city in Europe or New York or any other city."

To a question as to whether the Serb press could escape the clutches of "war criminals" and stop spreading messages of hatred, the Bosnian President said that, although it was easier to whip up hatred, the media could encourage tolerance and reconciliation. Media houses should have the right calibre of persons working in them, and they should be bound by a code of conduct which would facilitate their removal whenever they spread hatred. "We will try to cover all parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina with messages of tolerance, especially in areas which are drunk with hate", he said, adding that Bosnia's Open Broadcasting Network (OBN) would contribute to such efforts.

Asked why, as a man of dignity and principle, he could accept the results of such flawed elections instead of calling for new ones, President Izetbegovic said that they had represented a rare opportunity in the search for peace. "We had to choose between bad and worse, and we chose bad", he said. "The conditions leading to the elections were bad, but they would have become worse without the elections." Had he boycotted the vote, he said, various parties would have accused him of avoiding it because he did not have the support of his country's people.

Bosnia Press Conference - 4 - 26 September 1996

A correspondent asked whether the meeting with his partners in the three-man collective presidency would go ahead, as scheduled, on Monday, 30 September, despite Serb threats that they might boycott it, pending the release of Serb detainees. [Preliminary final results show that President Izetbegovic, a Muslim, finished first in the 14 September elections. Thus, he will serve as Chairman of the collective presidency for the next two years. Momcilo Krajisnik, a Serb, placed second and Kresimir Zubak, a Croat, finished third.] President Izetbegovic said that the Serbs would attend it despite the fact that they were raising the issue as a pretext to avoid the meeting. The Bosnian side, for its part, would attend the meeting despite the fact that more than 30,000 Bosnians had been confirmed missing by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). He would attend the meeting to help promote reconciliation.

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