TRIŠIĆ BABIĆ: BOSNIAK INTELLECTUALS SEEK TO CREATE A CIVIC, OR BOSNIAK-DOMINATED, BiH BY ABOLISHING THE STATUS OF CONSTITUENT PEOPLES

BANJA LUKA, JULY 19 /SRNA/ - Referring to the constituent status of the peoples of BiH as an "outdated Soviet model," as the so-called independent intellectuals of the Circle 99 Association have done, is nothing more than a political attempt to delegitimize the constitutional order established by the Dayton Peace Agreement to transform BiH into a civic state, Ana Trišić Babić, Acting Director of the Office for International Cooperation of Republika Srpska, told SRNA.

Trišić Babić said that, in addition to failing to respect the Constitution and the Dayton Peace Agreement, these so-called intellectuals present such messages under the guise of intellectual authority while ignoring the basic fact that the constituent status of the peoples is not a Soviet invention but a constitutional mechanism that guarantees that no constituent people can be outvoted or politically subordinated by another. "When someone calls for the abolition of the constituent status of the peoples, they are essentially calling for the abolition of the political equality of Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks and opening the door to the dominance of the largest constituent people, the Bosniaks. That is not civic democracy, as they try to portray it, but a classic example of using the slogan of modernization and civic principles to establish the political hegemony of Muslims in BiH, which was also their wartime objective," Trišić Babić said. She said it was paradoxical that those who present themselves as defenders of democracy are challenging the constitutional principle that made it possible to end the war and establish peace in BiH. "Instead of attacking the Dayton Peace Agreement in this way, it would be more useful for them to advocate its consistent implementation, because without the equality of the constituent peoples there can be neither a stable nor a functional BiH," Trišić Babić said, adding that BiH is a Dayton-based state, not a unitary state, a nation-state of a single people, or a civic state. Noting that the authors and guarantors of the Dayton Peace Agreement are well aware of the historical, legal, and political realities of BiH, Trišić Babić stressed that the constituent status of the peoples is not a product of Soviet ideology but a constitutional category that emerged in response to the country's specific complexity and the need to ensure the equality of its three constituent peoples, none of whom can be treated as a minority. Trišić Babić said that the constituent status of the peoples is not an obstacle to democracy but a constitutional guarantee of the political equality of the peoples in BiH, which by its nature is a multinational state. She warned that any serious discussion of constitutional changes must be based on arguments and consensus, rather than on labels and historical analogies that do not reflect the actual situation or the constitutional order of BiH. The Circle 99 Association of Independent Intellectuals criticized what it described as the official Croatian government's insistence on the model of constituent peoples in BiH.