SARAJEVO - UNITED WE STAND, DIVIDED WE FALL

Case of Ostojic

AIM Sarajevo, 23 September, 1997

In the past five years, leaders of the three ruling parties in B&H have travelled together from Lisbon, London, Geneva, Bonn, Athens, Vienna, Rome, New York, Washington, to Dayton or Sintra, and at round tables in all these cities, with smiles, they negotiated, reached agreements, exchanged or determined destinies of millions of Bosnians and Herzegovinians. When they finally, under pressure exerted by American tutors, determined their future by the latest peace agreement, along with interruption of conflicts, once again they also put their signatures on their indestructible partnership, on the exclusive right of their parties (Serb Democratic Party/SDS/, Party of Democratic Action/SDA/ and Croat Democratic Community /HDZ/) to make decisions, on the existence of Republica Srpska, and on the elections in which they would all together appear again, just as they did in 1990, or similarly. But, the latest session of the Parliamentary Assembly of B&H suddenly caught the leaders of the Party of Democratic Action "unprepared". How did Velibor Ostojic (SDS) get into the Human Rights Commission? And moreover, become its president? Whoever elected him, it must have been some kind of a bad joke played by someone, an "oversight"! And then, the universal solution worthy of King Solomon - of course, it must have been the opposition!? Why did not they warn us who he was?

But, first things first. On that 16 September, at the session of the Parliamentary Assembly of B&H, election of candidates for presidents of assembly commissions, and among them that of the mentioned Velibor Ostojic for president of the Commission for Human Rights, Refugees and Asylum was put on the agenda. In their reports from the session of the assembly, Sarajevo media, laconically carried the names of the elected presidents of the commissions failing to specify who was who and who would chair which commission. Only one agency (the Alternative Information Network-AIM) reacted to Ostojic's election and demanded a comment of the SDA spokesman, Ismet Grba, about the unanimous support to the newly elected protector of human rights, who had been characterized by B&H media during the war as the greatest criminal in Karadzic's retinue. A single newspaper (Oslobodjenje) published this reaction to Grba's allegation that such a decision was "forced out" from the SDA, and the avalanche started. Reactions followed of various associations of refugees, displaced persons, threatened nations, former camp inmates, NGOs, intellectuals, parties, individuals... so it appeared as if Ostojic had suddenly emerged "out of the blue" not only into the assembly and the Commission for Human Rights, but most of all into the arm-chair of its president.

The chairman of the Chamber of Nations, Avdo Campara, tried to stop the avalanche of reactions by stating that leaders of the opposition parties were misinforming the public when they claimed that they had "voted against Ostojic, while deputies of the SDA voted in favour of his election", which, Campara said, was not true. This was supposed to mean that they had all raised their hands in favour. Published stenograms from the session showed, however, that deputy of the UBSD Sejfudin Tokic had voted against the proposal of presidents of assembly commissions, and that four deputies had abstained. There were no representatives of the SDA or the Party for B&H among the abstainers, but representatives of the opposition from Republica Srpska instead! Why Mr. Campara stated such a fabrication to the media and whether he will bear consequences of this will be established either by the Assembly or the court, in view of the latest announcement of Sejfudin Tokic that he will demand that Campara be relieved of duty because he inflicted damage on the opposition UBSD by his false statement.

The fact that is surprising is the attempt of the leaders of the SDA, especially the mentioned Campara, to present the whole story as a casual incident, or as the co-chairman of the Council of Ministers, Haris Silajdzic, would say, a matter of "mechanical raising hands"!? Velibor Ostojic has not, of course, fallen out of the blue into the Commission for Human Rights, but was elected to that same Commission by the deputies of that very same assembly in May this year, also by a majority of votes only of the SDS, SDA and the HDZ, because the opposition voted against it. Ostojic's election to the Commission for Human Rights was just a continuation of the practice of ruling parties to vote in favour of all proposals coming from any of these three parties. As a reminder it should be said that at the first session of the Parliamentary Assembly of B&H, deputies of SDA and HDZ elected Slobodan Bijelic, candidate of the SDS for chairman of the Chamber of Representatives, although his opposing candidate was an oppositionist from RS, Savo Loncar, a man who abstained from voting at this latest session for the election of Ostojic, contrary to members of the SDA!

But, let us go on. Just before the said session of the Parliamentary Assembly, candidates for presidents of commissions were nominated by the assembly collegiate body members of which are solely representatives of the ruling parties - SDS, SDA and HDZ. Therefore, the nomination of Velibor Ostojic for president of the Commission for human rights presented to the deputies of the Assembly was determined of their own free will by Slobodan Bijelic, Ivo Lozancic and none other but - Avdo Campara!

On the other hand, discussion about election of Ostojic - which is now joined by the co-chairman of the Council of Ministers, Haris Silajdzic, whose initial declaration was that he had "not paid attention, not read", was questioned by his later resolute statement that nobody had reacted to Ostojic's name, which could have resulted only from attentive following of the course of the session and which diverts attention from the support of the nomination by the ruling SDA, HDZ and SDS to the question what the opposition was doing. Like at a straw, Campara and Silajdzic clutched at the allegations that nobody had stressed the name of Velibor Ostojic nor said what they thought about him. Had the opposition done it, they would have certainly, they say, voted against!? Indeed, the stenogram from the session shows that nobody had mentioned the name of Velibor Ostojic, but that Sejfudin Tokic had expressed his surprise and disapproval of the president of his commission by saying the following: "to say the least, for me it would be only logical if the president of the Commission for protection of human rights were from the opposition, because it is quite clear in this country who violates human rights, so it is inappropriate to have human rights protected by someone from the ruling parties". Had anyone else been nominated for president of this commission besides Ostojic, it would have been possible to wonder who Tokic had had in mind. As it is, it all resembles a game of hide-and-seek, like for example, if some media published that the president of a ruling party and the president of the Presidency of B&H were involved in some embezzlement with donations, and then tried to get out of the "scrape" by saying "how do you know who we had in mind when we did not mention any names"!? After all, the candidacy of Velibor Ostojic for president of the Commission for human rights was mentioned loud and clear by the chairman, S. Bijelic, which numerous deputies who voted in favour of his election could not have heard only if all of them had at the same time firmly covered their ears.

The fact remains that Velibor Ostojic is the legal president of the Commission for Human Rights, Refugees and Asylum of this state. He was elected to the post, first by putting up his candidacy and then by voting in favour by the three ruling single-ethnic parties and their coalition satellites. Who is the man they appointed to protect our human rights - those whose rights Ostojic "protected" during the war in such a manner that according to certain indications his actions could be in the jurisdiction of the Hague Tribunal know it only too well. Until this happens the public of Bosnia & Herzegovina has the right to know how the three single-ethnic parties decide about its future over and over again: first in closed circles, and then by mechanical raising of hands in favour, according to the principle: "as the party orders". The case of Ostojic is just a part of that which agitated the public when naked and unvarnished truth was presented to them, with no demagogic platitudes or white pigeons set free like in Foca (SDA gathering in '92), "so the evil never happens again". But, the attempt to conceal the truth from a public session of the Parliamentary Assembly automatically opens the question - whatever must have happened at closed sessions of the SDS, SDA and HDZ in the mentioned Lisbon, London, Geneva, Bonn, Vienna, New York, Washington, Dayton... Is it possible that we have not been told about some things, or is it by any chance true that the "public was misinformed" about the attempts of the tripartite single-ethnic division of the country, banishment of the inadequate, exchange of territories, trading people, sale of Srebrenica, embezzlement of donations, confiscation of houses... Probably, this was also some "oversight". They just did not pay attention, did not read...

Drazena PERANIC