Inzko Highlights Threat to Bosnia's Integrity

Addressing the UN Security Council on May 15 in New York, the High Representative to Bosnia, Valentin Inzko, said this year had been a year of learning from mistakes made earlier.

Inzko said elected officials in Bosnia continued to neglect people, recalling the February demonstrations that broke out in several towns and cities over frustration with the socio-economic situation, corruption and elected politicians in general.

“The same old mistake – putting the interests of a privileged political class before those of the country and its citizens – continues to be made,” Inzko said in New York.

“The status quo and the current way of doing politics in Bosnia and Herzegovina is so very clearly working for just a chosen few – those who are in power or close to power,” he added.

Inzko said it was time for the international community to learn too, as the protests were a wake-up call not only for the politicians in Bosnia, but for the international community.

“As one of my esteemed predecessors pointed out recently – if we go on doing what we are doing, we will go on getting what we are getting,” he said.

"So, after the next elections there is going to have to be a fundamental change in the way politics is conducted in Bosnia and Herzegovina, to focus on the needs of all citizens, not just the appetites of a chosen few,” he added.

“Clearly our job is Bosnia and Herzegovina is not yet complete,” he pointed out. “This is the time to reaffirm our vision of a united and reintegrated Bosnia and Herzegovina...the time to regroup and to recalibrate our approach.”

Inzko's report emphasized several problems that had either reappeared from the previous years or emerged in the past six...