SARAJEVO, Aug 21 (Hina) - A two-day seminar called "Bosnia- Herzegovina - Democracy, Reconstruction and Integrity" which was organized by the Bosnian Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Croatian Academy of Arts and Sciences began in
Sarajevo on Wednesday.
IN SARAJEVO
SARAJEVO, Aug 21 (Hina) - A two-day seminar called "Bosnia-
Herzegovina - Democracy, Reconstruction and Integrity" which was
organized by the Bosnian Academy of Arts and Sciences and the
Croatian Academy of Arts and Sciences began in Sarajevo on
Wednesday. #L#
Participating in the seminar are some forty distinguished
Bosnian and Croatian academicians, as well as scientists from
several European countries.
The participants of the seminar are to discuss aspects of the
Dayton Agreement, the return of refugees, citizens' association and
the establishment of democracy through the educational system.
The participants were on Wednesday addressed by President of
the Bosnian Presidency Alija Izetbegovic, President of the Bosnian
Federation Kresimir Zubak and International Peace Coordinator Carl
Bildt.
Izetbegovic stressed that people in Bosnia had always had
different customs and that they had always prayed to God in
different places of worship, but this never prevented Bosnia from
being one and unified country.
"Our misfortune is that in the breakdown of one system we did
not have enough strength and time to create a better, richer and
more adequate world. Greedy nationalists saw an opportunity to
seize other people's property using every means possible,"
Izetbegovic said, stressing that he was convinced that civilization
would survive over barbarism.
"Thus, we have often been forced to accept compromises which
were not fair, and now that the war is over, the future of Bosnia
is again marked with many questions and doubts," Izetbegovic said.
He warned that it was unacceptable for that which had been
defended by blood in the difficult years of war to be lost in
peace.
Zubak said that the issue of the inner organization of Bosnia
was the greatest challenge to the establishment of permanent peace.
Answers to three key issues were needed at the moment: how to
organize relations among the three constitutive peoples, what
would be Bosnia's status in the international legal system and what
would be the relation between Bosnia and Croatia and Yugoslavia,
Zubak said.
"Only when the three peoples reach a consensus on these issues
will this crisis be resolved in its most important segment," Zubak
stressed.
He warned that to deny national rights also meant to deny the
basic human rights and stressed that it were countries with a
developed economic autonomy which had the most stable framework.
Carl Bildt recalled that the war in Bosnia was the biggest
conflict in Europe since 1945.
After such a war it was extremely important to establish joint
institutions of Bosnia-Herzegovina in order to prevent the country
to be finally split, Bildt said.
(hina) lm
211807 MET aug 96