MOSTAR STATUTE MOSTAR, Jan 24(Hina) - Mostar-Duvanj bishop Ratko Peric has vehemently criticised the international community's High Representative to Bosnia-Herzegovina, Paddy Ashdown, over the proposed reorganisation of Mostar, which
he says is significantly different to the organisation of the other Bosnian regions.
MOSTAR, Jan 24(Hina) - Mostar-Duvanj bishop Ratko Peric has vehemently
criticised the international community's High Representative to
Bosnia-Herzegovina, Paddy Ashdown, over the proposed reorganisation of
Mostar, which he says is significantly different to the organisation
of the other Bosnian regions.#L#
In an open letter to Ashdown on Saturday, Peric says the proposed
statute has been made solely to the detriment of the southern city's
Croat population and that it is contrary to domestic and international
legislation.
In his letter, Peric focuses on the part of the statute referring to
the electoral system, which he says is contrary to the Bosnian legal
system and the European Charter of Local Self-Government. He maintains
the proposed provisions are directed against Mostar's majority Croat
population.
"Advocating the abolishment of the permanent and stable Croat majority
in Mostar and disregard for democracy as the rule of the majority...
constitutes the creation of 'sick tissue', the opening of new 'black
holes' and the proclamation of Mostar a 'special case', an incurable
invalid on the Neretva river," the bishop says in the letter.
He adds that Ashdown's arbitration decision might widen rifts within
the city, and that it wishes, in an unacceptable and undemocratic way,
to not only restrict but also bring into question the democratic
rights of the Croat majority.
The bishop criticises Ashdown also for his warnings and threats that
Bosnia will not enter Europe unless the Mostar issue is resolved.
European principles have not been proposed in Mostar, he writes.
"You keep on scaring us, like children, that we will not enter
democratic Europe unless we accept those undemocratic proposals as the
solution for this city, i.e. that the democratically elected majority
must not govern, that the electoral and council majority must not be
recognised nor the democratic principle of that very Europe applied,
as though we were somewhere in the primeval forests of the once
colonised India or some African jungle instead of in Europe from which
we are taking democratic criteria."
Peric endorsed the holding of a referendum on the statute, scheduled
for today, saying that it will reflect the Croats' genuine voice.
(Hina) ha sb