MAZALICA: THE ROOT OF THE WHOLE MATTER SHOULD BE SOUGHT WITHIN MEMORIAL CENTER ITSELF

BANJA LUKA, AUGUST 10 /SRNA/ - Srđan Mazalica, Head of the SNSD Caucus in the Republika Srpska National Assembly, said that it was precisely federal media outlets that today revealed the background to the story concerning the Srebrenica Memorial Center, which Emir Suljagić has been trying for days to portray as political persecution by Republika Srpska.

“So what do we learn? The disputed document was not created in Banja Luka, nor at the Republika Srpska Ministry of the Interior, nor was it taken there by some Serb. According to the information published, the document existed at the Memorial Center itself, Hamdija Fejzić provided it to Vojin Mijatović, and behind the whole affair is a years-long conflict among people within the Memorial Center itself,” Mazalica told SRNA, commenting on a report by Istraga which said that the case was a continuation of the conflict between Center Director Emir Suljagić and Hamdija Fejzić, chairman of the institution’s Governing Board. Therefore, Mazalica stressed, a Bosniak reports another Bosniak, a Bosniak provides an internal document to another Bosniak politician, and in the end, the Serbs and Republika Srpska are blamed for everything. “That is no longer even political manipulation. It is a political magic trick: a document enters the Memorial Center through one door, and through another emerges as an ‘attack by Republika Srpska on Bosniaks’,” Mazalica said. He said that Suljagić had turned an investigation into an international political issue, writing to foreign officials and portraying the questioning as a campaign against Bosniaks, and that Konaković had also written to UN member states about the actions of Republika Srpska institutions. Now, however, he added, it turns out that the root of the whole affair should be sought precisely in the relations within the Memorial Center. “That is why a much more interesting question now arises: what is actually being concealed behind all the political uproar? If everything is lawful and the finances are in order, excellent - the investigation will establish that and the matter will be closed. But if there are suspicions regarding payments, taxes or the handling of funds, why should the Memorial Center be the only institution in BiH where asking questions about money becomes a national attack?” Mazalica stressed. He pointed out that the memorial nature of an institution cannot grant it immunity from the law, nor can respect for the dead serve as an alibi for the living. “In the end, we may arrive at a very prosaic explanation for the major international drama: there is no attack by Republika Srpska on Bosniaks, but rather a Bosniak-Bosniak conflict, with a very possible vested-interest and financial background, which someone is trying to export to the world as yet another story about Republika Srpska,” Mazalica said. He added that, before writing letters to embassies and the United Nations, it might have been much simpler to first determine among themselves who gave the list to whom, who paid whom what, and why.