Srebrenica pushes for partition

Srebrenica pushes for partition

Two visions of the past, two different interpretations of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) judgment in the Bosnian lawsuit against Serbia, and deep divisions over the town’s future have turned yesterday’s session into a heated debate.

Rizo Tabaković from the Party of the Democratic Action that sponsored the resolution, said that "the partition request was a logical move in light of the ICJ judgment, while mirroring Srebrenica's current status."

“No one is keen on Srebrenica, including the Bosnian Federation and the Republic of Srpska (RS). The RS dislikes the town for it is predominantly populated by Bosniaks, while the Federation can’t bear the fect that the town belongs to the RS,” he speculated.

Tabaković said that “Srebrenica had de facto become a no man’s land.”

Bosnian Serb assembly members claim that yesterday’s session was “an additional effort to destabilize the Republic of Srpska and smooth the path to the Constitutional restructuring.”

“The assembly members who live in the Federation and reside in Srebrenica only in paper have made this dangerous move. They do not genuinely care about Srebrenica’s citizens,” a Serb assembly member said.

Bosnian state presidency chairman Nebojša Radmanović said that the resolution "aimed at a deliberate creation of problems in the Republic of Srpska, which was no way to build Bosnia’s future."

In spite of messages that came from Bosnian Serb representatives, the assembly members who voted for the resolution said the Srebrenica’s municipal assembly "would pass a unilateral partition decree should no one acknowledge their requests by July 11."