HUMAN RIGHTS IN BOSNIA STILL BURDENED WITH ETHNIC AND POLITICAL DIVISIONS

SARAJEVO, Jan 10 (Hina) - The human rights situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina is still unsatisfactory, because the country is burdened with divisions along ethnic lines and lacks reforms that would help it in its bid to join Euro-Atlantic institutions, the Bosnian Helsinki Committee for Human Rights said in an annual report published in Sarajevo on Saturday.#L# The year 2003 was mainly marked by attempts by nationalist parties to preserve the ethnic and political divisions, which very negatively affected respect for human rights, committee chairman Srdjan Dizdarevic told a press conference. Dizdarevic described as particularly dangerous attempts by ruling parties to keep their political influence by stating that their own ethnic groups were in danger. "Nationalist parties are obviously unable to homogenise their own ethnic groups in any other way but through spreading fear and theories of being endangered," he said, warning that such rhetoric harked back to the period preceding the 1990s war. Dizdarevic accused the ruling parties of using double standards, because he said they ignored minority rights in areas where their own ethnic groups were in a majority, but insisted on respect for international standards of human rights protection elsewhere. He cited Sarajevo as a drastic example of this, saying that 95 per cent of people employed in local administration were Bosniaks (Muslims) despite the proclaimed multiethnicity of the city. The lack of readiness for reforms, particularly in the economic sector, presents an additional threat to the stability of the country, and the Committee believes that all the positive moves that have been made are the result of pressure from the international community. This particularly applies to efforts aimed at reforming the justice system, notably the procedure which is now being discussed for the appointment of judges and prosecutors to serve a near lifetime term of office. Dizdarevic said this was a positive development in Bosnia-Herzegovina because it would free the judges and prosecutors from the influence of political parties and authorities. Dizdarevic also described as positive the implementation of property rights, saying that 90 per cent of property had been given back to refugees and displaced persons by December last year. Refugees, however, did not return in this percentage for both political and economic reasons. The Helsinki Committee said it was intolerable that the most wanted war crimes suspects, such as Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic and his military commander Ratko Mladic, were still at large and that even eight years after the end of the war the fate of more than 17,000 people listed as missing was still unknown. (Hina) vm