The issue of national identity is taken seriously by Balkan people – including the least serious among them.
Bosnia Press Review - December 16
Sarajevo | 16 December 2009 |Here are the top stories in Bosnia and Herzegovina's main newspapers. Balkan Insight has not verified the reports and cannot vouch for their accuracy.
OSLOBODJENJE
The Parliament of Bosnia’s Serb-dominated part Republika Srpska, RS, did not receive a request from the entity government to schedule a special session to discuss organising a referendum on the decision by the international community’s top envoy in the country Valentin Inzko to extend mandates of foreign jurists who are handling war crimes cases at Bosnia’s State Court. “Anyone who calls for a parliament session to be scheduled has to provide working materials, the same is true for the government,” the parliament speaker Igor Radojicic said. Radojicic said that a decision to organise a referendum would also have to be backed by Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) and Croat deputies, which is unlikely. Bosnian Serb opposition party representatives mostly voiced suspicion that the RS Prime Minister Milorad Dodik will go ahead with his threat to organise the referendum, with some describing his statements to that effect as “not serious.”
DNEVNI AVAZ
Bosnian Serb Prime Minister Milorad Dodik said that Republika Srpska did not need a referendum to reject decisions by Valentin Inzko. “We do not need a referendum to reject Izko’s decisions because our institutions already rejected them. What we need is to start preparing people for that kind of narrative,” he said.
NEZAVISNE NOVINE
The president of an association gathering Bosnian Serb war camp inmates, Branislav Dukic, said its members will ignore the Court and Prosecutors of Bosnia and Herzegovina because of their bias against the Serbs. “The only option left to us is to look for justice before the (special war crimes) court in Belgrade,” he said.
