The unilateral celebration of 25 November as the “Statehood Day” of Bosnia and Herzegovina only reinforces the belief that there is an ongoing attempt to create—outside the framework of the Dayton Peace Agreement—a so-called civic, but in essence unitary BiH in which one majority group would dominate the others, said Dragan Kalinić, former Speaker of the National Assembly of Republika Srpska.
Kalinić noted that the question of whose holiday 25 November actually is—and on whose behalf it is celebrated in the Federation of BiH—has been raised for years.
“BiH is no longer ‘Serb, Muslim, and Croat,’ as proclaimed at the ZAVNOBiH session in Mrkonjić Grad in 1943. It should be the country of all three peoples, even according to the Dayton Peace Agreement,” Kalinić said.
He recalled that in 2018, just before this date, Željko Komšić and Šefik Džaferović ordered the removal of the Republika Srpska flag from the common premises of the BiH Presidency.
“In Republika Srpska, 25 November is an ordinary working day. And until the Federation of BiH is ready to adopt a law on shared holidays, it will remain so,” Kalinić stated.
He pointed out that the Federation also refused to jointly mark 21 November, the date when the war was halted in Dayton and peace was signed.
“Let everyone celebrate their own holidays—without offending others,” Kalinić said.
The former ZAVNOBiH Day, 25 November, is marked as the so-called Statehood Day in the Bosniak-majority part of the Federation of BiH, while Croats do not observe it as a holiday.
Soruce: RTRS
