Members of Bosnia’s newly-elected tripartite presidency called for dialogue and reconciliation in the country which is deeply divided along ethnic lines at their swearing-in ceremony Wednesday.

“The time has come for a positive denouement…We have only one path…this is the path of integration, unification, reconciliation, cooperation and dialogue,” the Muslim member of the presidency, Bakir Izetbegovic, said.

“In one word, it is the European path, the path of accelerated adoption of European standards.”

Izetbegovic is the son of Bosnian Muslim wartime leader Alija Izetbegovic. Following the Oct. 3 general elections, he replaced hardliner Haris Silajdzic, who had dominated the Bosnian Muslim political scene since the end of the 1992-1995 war, in the presidency.

The presidency’s outgoing Croat and Serb members–Zeljko Komsic and Nebojsa Radmanovic–were re-elected.

The new members of Bosnia's collective presidency, Bakir Izetbegovic (L), Zeljko Komsic (C) and Nebojsa Radmanovic attend the inauguration ceremony of the new presidency in Sarajevo

“Now we have to focus on work and future. We have to take over our political responsibility,” said Radmanovic, who will be the first to hold the presidency’s rotating chair.

The members of the presidency rotate as chairman every eight months.

Radmanovic stressed that Bosnia’s integration into the European Union would be his priority. But he called on the international community to leave it up to local leaders to search for compromises.

“It is necessary to renew a democratic dialogue and trust…We all have to show political patience since in Bosnia-Herzegovina nothing can be done in haste and at the expense of the others,” he said.

“It is only together that we can make from Bosnia better and successful” country, Komsic said.

Results of the October vote showed that moderates dominate in Bosnia’s Muslim community.

However, in the Serb-run half of Bosnia, nationalist leader Milorad Dodik, who strongly opposes any strengthening of the country’s weak central government as sought by Brussels and Washington, remained in power.

Since the 1992-1995 war Bosnia consists of two semi-independent entities–the Muslim-Croat Federation and the Serb-run Republika Srpska.

Each entity has its own government while they share joint institutions, including the tripartite presidency.

Immediately after October elections, EU called on Bosnian political leaders to make “tough compromises” in order to build “functional” institutions, capable of implementing reforms needed to join the 27-nation bloc.

A series of earlier reforms allowed Bosnia to unify its armed forces, customs services and fiscal system.

But ethnic differences mainly between Muslims and Serbs have blocked efforts to boost other central institutions.

The war between Bosnia’s Croats, Muslims and Serbs claimed some 100,000 lives.

November 10, 2010
AFP

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