CREATING NEW "NATION" PROCESS VIA SERB CULTURAL HERITAGE AND PROPERTY WILL NOT BE IMPLEMENTED

ISTOČNO SARAJEVO, JANUARY 31 /SRNA/ – Anđelina Ošap-Gaćanović, a member of the Commission preservation national monuments from Republika Srpska, warned of a tendency to undertake steps leading to the process of seizing Serb cultural heritage and property, which is being carried out through property-legal mechanisms precisely via the status of national monuments.

"We witness the creation of a new `nation` is being implemented in practice precisely through the identity and property of the Serbian people," Gaćanović told SRNA, stressing that the registration of the most valuable Serb cultural and religious heritage in favour of the "state property" of BiH is not going to take place.

She noted that, through insight into the work and intentions expressed by the actions of the Commission preservation national monuments, she, as a member from Republika Srpska, the Republika Srpska Government warned the public of Srpska more than two years ago about the tendency to take steps leading to the process of seizure and appropriation of Serb cultural heritage and property.

"Thanks to the swift and coordinated action of the Republika Srpska Government together with the Serb member of the Commission, the first steps have been taken to halt the abuse of Annex Eight of the Dayton Peace Agreement," Gaćanović emphasized.

She pointed out that the term "national monument of BiH," which does not exist in Annex Eight of the Dayton Peace Agreement, was removed from the Law implementing Commission’s decisions in Republika Srpska. This term had been used in attempts to define the most valuable assets of religious and ethnic groups as state property and to ideologically present them as part of "Bosnian culture," "Bosnian provenance," "Bosnian identity," and alleged "state Bosnian state property," with the aim of their legal and identity alienation.

"That the intentions of the policies of the so-called integrative Bosnia are neither naive nor accidental, and that they move toward the seizure of the most valuable property of the Serbian Orthodox Church /SOC/, is also confirmed by the recent the Bill on State Property of BiH, which two members of the BiH Presidency attempted to submit to parliamentary procedure," Gaćanović said.

Article Four of the Bill, she adds, it is stated that all cultural-historical monuments and assets with the status of "national monuments of BiH" constitute "state property of BiH."

However, Gaćanović notes, the Dayton Peace Agreement recognizes exclusively the term "national monument" belonging to religious and ethnic groups, not the term "national monument of BiH."